Before we get too deep in the new year we thought it would be a good time to take a second to reflect on what were our biggest comedy stories of 2011. It was a year chock full of highs and lows and here are the stories that had the most people reading the site in 2011.

10. Our interview with Steel Panther This fall, the comedy/musical band Steel Panther released a new album and we got the chance to chat with them about the album. What happened instead was one of the most ramblingly awesome interviews we ever had. Death to all But Metal.

9. The passing of Patrice O’Neal It’s shitty when news breaks of someone’s death and it’s even shittier to have to write a story about it. But by running a website that covers comedy news, when it breaks, it’s important to to inform our readers, the good and the bad.

8. Gallagher walks out on Marc Maron’s podcast When Marc Maron had Gallagher on his podcast, things got prickly pretty fast as Maron prodded Gallagher about his newer, racially themed comedy. Gallagher never seemed to gel with the host, wasn’t 100% sure of the technology, got upset the two argued a bit and the watermelon man promptly walked off the show after about 10 minutes; sparking controversy and marking another notch in the lore of Maron’s podcast.

7. TJ Miller’s No Real Reason stand-up clips. T.J. Miller was a frequent topic of discussion this year, and rightfully so. He had a busy year with the release of a hip-hop comedy album but also a stand-up special on Comedy Central and release of the special on DVD. TLB readers were really into Miller, making our release of clips from the special one of the most watched posts of the year.

6. Our interview with Mick Foley Mick Foley, the former professional wrestler has now set his sights on stand-up comedy. When he was in town, or writer Blake Garris got the chance to catch up with Foley to talk comedy on camera and the resulting clip is the result of that.

5. That story about Dave Attell watching porn Dave Attell launched a new show on Showtime and that show consisted of him and his comedian friends watching some pornography. As the web tells us, searching for porn is a popular pastime so thanks to the power of the web, we have ourselves our 5th most popular story of the year.

4. Lisa Lampanelli premiers clips from her special Tough Love. The queen of mean released a new special and gave us some clips to share with our readers. She then told her fans where to find said clips and the fans flooded the site to check them out.

3. A change of scenery for Aqua Team Hunger Force. What happens when you take a cult show off hiatus, change its name, and story-wise move it to a different state with very little explanation? Well, you get what happened to Aqua Teen Hunger force. It also single-handedly made our explanation of the event our most “discovered via Google” story of the year.

2. Tosh porn O: What is used on the web more than porn? Well, Facebook but that’s a recent development. When we broke the story that there was going to be a porn parody of Daniel Tosh’s popular Comedy Central story, it didn’t take long for everyone to find out. In addition, The Daily Wha? link to this story and the rest they say is history.

And our top story of the year is…

1. That time Louis C.K., Ricky Gervais, Chris Rock, and Jerry Seinfeld sat down together in a room It’s always a big deal when a well-respected comedian discusses his craft. So it made total sense when 4 of the best living comedians today got into a room and spend an hour just talking to each other about their approach toward the art and what they find funny. Talking Funny premiered on HBO in the first half of 2011 and remained one of our most consistently searched for and read stories of the year.