Woot, great list! Just reading it makes me smile fondly, especially since I threw on "Jose Chung's 'From Outer Space'" just the other day for a friend to watch, since he'd never seen it before. Duchovny and Anderson don't get enough credit for the dry humour that they were so great at.

Great list. These are all excellent, and hard to rank, but bring back fond memories.

Ah, time to go dig out the dvds...

Great List, absolutely agree on #1 -- it was the first thing I thought of when I read the topic.

Great episode.

Great list, love them all! There are also some wonderful moments in "The Post-Modern Prometheus". Love it!

Jose Chung's from Outer Space is probably one of the greatest episodes of any tv show ever.

The Trebek cameo takes it over the top.

After reading the title of this list, I knew one episode that must be on here wouldn't be on here. Sure enough, after skimming the episode titles, I was quickly confirmed.

No "Post Modern Prometheus?" WHOSE RESPONSIBLE THAT?!

Okay, okay. Okokokokok. I've read the whole list. I still think PMP deserves to be in the top 10, at least above Hollywood A.D., which to me only works in conjunction with Duchovny's appearances on The Larry Sanders Show.

I also would have taken the X-Files/Simpsons cross-over as a worthy entry here.

All in all, though, I'd gladly take a two-DVD set of all these episodes and marathon them. As much as I dug the mythology, the comedy is what made X-Files such a brilliant show.

was hoping jose chung would at least be in the top five along with je suite. and can not belive the cross over with the simpsons was not included since even mulder and scully manged to walk away un scathed putting up with homer. this list proves that the xfiles could have some humor in it .

I think Jose Chung is my favorite episode of the entire show.
"Alex Trebeck! The game show host?!"
Scully: "I'm not saying it was Alex Trebeck, I'm saying it looked like Alex Trebeck."
Also, Mulder eating an entire pie as he questions a local.

A good case can be made that I could have included Post Modern Prometheus (It was in the final running.) but I wasn't going to put a Simpsons episode on an X-Files list, as awesome as it was.

I don't recall if it was any good, but Mulder and Scully lookalikes also showed up on an episode of Weird Science.

Excellent list, my favorite is the number 1. I miss watching X files.

This was one of my favorite shows as a kid, and I remember loving every single episode where the Lone Gunmen made appearances.

Thank you so much for this list. The X-files is one of my all-time favorite shows. Its almost a punchline now, with how badly it degraded in its last couple (Duchovny-less) seasons, and not enough people remember it for the damn, damn good times it gave us. And REALLY not enough people remember how much it could make you laugh.

This might be my favorite list ever

Important note for the young naifs out there: The use of "make me a sandwich!" in "Arcadia" is funny only because it was used ironically. You are impressing no one with wit and candor when you yourself use it unironically in your own conversations. You are only loudly noting for all to hear that your own testicles have yet to descend.

zomg Jose Chung. I *still* have that episode somewhere, because it's so surreal. That season they were also running the abortive Millennium show, and they did a Jose Chung episode there too (yay crossover!). That one was just as surreal, and featured a cameo of David Duchovny in poster form as a, uh... poster boy for Scientologists wearing shorts with dress coats.

Good times...

You know I used to be obsessed with the show. And its sad that I only recall seeing 3/4 of these. I stopped watching around season 7 b/c of the shark jumping and just read recaps online to keep up-to-date.

PS, is that Clyde Bruckman episode the one featuring The Stupendous Yappi? He was some television psychic with impossibly arched eyebrows, that played a bit part in one of these comedy episodes; I'm thinking it was this one.

"Jose Chung's From Outer Space" is my all-time favorite episode- I will re-watch it whenever it's on- in fact, now I need to acquire it and make someone watch it with me for Halloween. I was so sad when they killed Jose in the Millenium episode.
I also wish you put the Simpsons ep in here, as that's one of my favorite Simpsons. Great list!

Fantastic list! It should have been the top twelve and included "War of the Coprophages" and "The Post-Modern Prometheus" I also would have put "Jose Chung" at no. 1 with "Bad Blood" a very close no. 2.

My favorite darkly humorous line in the whole series came from Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man:

"Life is like a box of chocolates. A cheap, thoughtless, perfunctory gift that nobody ever asks for. Unreturnable because all you get back is another box of chocolates. So you're stuck with this undefinable whipped mint crap that you mindlessly wolf down when there's nothing else left to eat. Sure, once in a while there's a peanut butter cup or an English toffee. But they're gone too fast and the taste is... fleeting. So, you end up with nothing but broken bits filled with hardened jelly and teeth-shattering nuts. And if you're desperate enough to eat those, all you got left is an empty box filled with useless brown paper wrappers.'

7

No Burt Reynolds (as God) in "Improbable"? Shame...

Jose Chung's From Outer Space was not only one of the funniest episodes of the X-files but perhaps one of the greatest episodes of the entire series and one of the greatest episodes of any show ever.

I have watched that episode so many times that I know most of the lines better than some girls know all the lines from The Princess Bride. And there are a lot of girls who know all the lines from The Princess Bride.

In fact I am going to go watch Jose Chung's From Outer Space right now and brush up on my memorization of all the lines from that episode.

And yes I am a huge nerd and I am not ashamed of it at all.

I don't know. I watched Improbable again while writing this and was disappointed by how bad it was.

Great list, brings back so many wonderful memories. Bad Blood is one of my personnel favorites, glad to see it got top honors.

Excellent.
From Outer Space is also one of my favourite TV experiences ever. If you bundle it with the Millennium episodes- Jose Chung's Doomsday Defense and- Somehow, Satan Got Behind Me you have a completely satisfying comedic experience.
Really excellent writing and production.

Okay, so you remember in "Jose Chung's From Outer Space" when the nerdy conspiracy theorist tells the story about finding the alien body, and when Mulder first sees it, he lets out this short yelp? Every time I read an H.P. Lovecraft story and the narrator says that something was so horrifying that he screamed, I imagine that that's what it sounds like. Cracks me up every time.

Great list, Rob!
I agree with all of the list except "Jose Chung's From Outer Space" should have got the top spot. IMHO is the best episode of the series or any TV series. Ever. The writing is complex, multi layered. I love the Rashomon-esque structure that both parody & exalt the show specials characteristics, the fantastic & touching finale, with the (allegedly?) abducted girl saying: "Love. Is that all you men think about?" to his now ex boyfriend.
And Jose Chung voice over with his closing immortal phrase: "For although we may not be alone in the universe, in our own separate ways on this planet, we are all... alone"

Ah, what a great show!

@Kevin
I remember that Weird Science episode! The Mulder and Scully lookalikes were called "agent Scolder and agent Molly". :D

The X-Files is still one of my favorite shows, and it's episodes like this that kept me coming. I think they were spaced particularly well, giving viewers a breather. Personally my favorite is probably Humbug, though I suppose that was because it was the first.

God, I love that show. All of these episodes are so great. Now I feel the need to go watch my dvds. And I agree with whoever said that the pie eating scene in Jose Chung's From Outer Space is pure hilarity. "Have you checked... everywhere?"

And I could watch Bad Blood over and over again, it's so amazing. "I was drugged!"

nice picks. a personal favorite was the christmas/haunted house episode with lily tomlin and edward asner.

The best part of Bad Blood is Skinner trying to decribe the murder victim....he looks SO uncomfortable!
Mulder: "Bitten?"
Skinner: "More like....uh....Gnawed....."

Kills me every time.

Reading this list made me miss this show. I loved it.

Awesome list! #1 is a great choice!

Btw, the stuff that happened on the X-Files/Cops crossover episode "X-Cops" is crazy as hell! The fear situation going on is freaky yet insanely funny.

I remember laughing so hard when Mulder and Scully were trying to calm down a dispute between a, I beg everyone's pardon, gay couple that called them and the police earlier about the strange happenings going on. One of them was crying like a woman and the other guy was being all tough about it. I remember some of what was said...

Guy #1:"He treats my mama with disrespect! He treats me with disrespect!"
Guy#2:"Oh shut the #$%^ up!!!!"
Mulder:"I'm not here to get involve in a personal problem!"
Guy#1(to Guy#2):"See?! You! You shut up!"
Mulder:"Calm down."
Guy#1(to Mulder):"He won't make love to me!!!!!!!"

Mulder's reaction was priceless! Hysterical! Lol! If you notice in that scene, it looks as if David Duvouchy was trying so hard NOT to laugh! He was holding in his smile.

What's the episode where CSM is meeting with all his fellows in a dark conference room and admitting to responsibility to every suspected conspiracy over the last 30 years?

He ends with something like: "And so long as we have power, the Buffalo Bills will *never* win the Super Bowl."

That always cracked me up. The scene has been parodied several times on the Simpsons, most notably in the song sung by the Stonecutters.

the first time i watched "Jose Chung's from Outer Space" i nearly choked to death when the nerd witness said "i didn't spend all those years playing dungeons and dragons and not learn a little something about courage!"

Personally, I don't agree that X-Cops and Je Souhaite should be as high as you put them...Post-Modern Prometheus and War of the Coprophages DEFINITELY should've been on the list in their places...And Jose Chung AND Clyde Bruckman should've been higher...But yes, Bad Blood is where it's AT! If you didn't have Bad Blood as #1, I would've had to hunt you down and make you cry. Vince Gilligan was recently a guest speaker for a producer's class I was taking, and I talked with him afterward about how Bad Blood was my absolute FAVORITE X-Files episode of all time (and I'm an X-Phile to the nth degree), and he was honestly genuinely surprised and grateful that someone remembered it. So humble!

Don't remember the episode name, but the christmas themed one with them in a house haunted by an old married couple was one of the most memorible for me. Favorite moments include Mulder and Scully finding their own decomposed bodies in the basement, and later on believing that they'ed shot each other and were dying.
....
....maybe i have a weird sense of humor. O_o

Fantastic list! I love this show. I would also have to add War of the Coprophages...it has my favorite X-Files quote ever: "Her name is BAMBI?"

Hmmm... I'm pretty sure the killer cockroaches episode ("Mulder, are you sure it wasn't a girly scream.") should have made this list, but great episodes all!

Grr.. now I want X-Files DVDs.. that'll cost me.

In the episode 'Terms of Endearment', which guest starred the immortal Bruce Campbell as a Demon whose biological clock is thumping away, Mulder tries to convince Scully about the merits of the case with the line: "It's your [i]classsic[/i] fetal demon harvest."

As if any fetal demon harvest isn't.

True story: I was scheduled for major surgery back in April of 1996, and the night before I was supposed to go under the knife, I watched the first broadcast of "Jose Chung's From Outer Space". The next morning, as I was being wheeled to the O.R., I remember thinking that if, God forbid, I died on the operating table, at least the last X-Files I would ever see had been That One! It Rocked SO Hard!!!

True story: I was scheduled for major surgery back in April of 1996, and the night before I was supposed to go under the knife, I watched the first broadcast of "Jose Chung's From Outer Space". The next morning, as I was being wheeled to the O.R., I remember thinking that if, God forbid, I died on the operating table, at least the last X-Files I would ever see had been That One! It Rocked SO Hard!!!

Awesome story, DreadZone. Glad you're still with us!

SYZYGY

From cosmic g-spots, a sexy police detective, a town full of crazy people, crossdressing doctors, mulders favorite perfume, the mystery of the horny beast(my favorite), and the fact that for some reason everyone in this episode is pissed off, this episode gets overlooked all the time and I can't figure out why.