Dawlatun lā tazūlu bi zawāli arridjāli [a state that does not perish when men perish], uttered by the late president Houari Boumediene, this famous slogan characterizes the patriarchal obsession that was exhibited by the Algerian ruling class since independence. The post-independence scene was marked with a series of nationalist projects that envisaged a particular model for structuring the Algerian society. It was coupled with a tight control over the cultural and artistic spheres to assure that artistic productions, whether in literature, film, music or television, all comply with the state’s established goals (Rashdi 2006, 31- 32). The radical Islamist project that rose to power by the end of the 1980’s provided its own image of what constitutes an ideal Algerian. Al-Dhāt Al-Asīlah – the true or the pure self, is the culmination of a socio-political project that sought to reshape the Algerian society (Arouss 2008, 655). When the nation descended to bloodshed during the Black Decade, and Dawlatu arridjāl was facing a real existential threat, the Algerian cultural sphere was among the radical Islamist’s preferable targets (Rashdi 2006, 32), with men representing the higher number of casualties. Caught between the myths of the war of liberation and the Mujahid, and the corrupted image of the Salaf [the ancestor] that Al-Dhāt Al-Asīlah represented, the Black Decade was a battleground for a distorted masculinity. This paper contributes to Arab Humour studies by demonstrating how comedy was employed to challenge the dominant political discourses during Algeria’s most difficult political turmoil. Through a comparative analysis of two comedy shows that were aired in national television, Mā Mes’ūdah wa Ḥdīdwān [Grandmother Mes’ūdah and the Clown] and Bilā Ḥudūd [Without Borders/No Red Lines], I analyse the two shows’ successful navigation of the gender politics and the state’s censorship that governed the Algerian television during the Black Decade. While Mā Mes’ūdah wa Ḥdīdwān preserved a patriarchal image by maintaining a strict segregation between men and women, never portraying men as laughing, and relegating folly to the child-like figure Ḥdīdwān and the cross-dressed Mā Mes’ūdah, it softened the palate of a national audience that was accustomed to a different genre of comedy and paved the way for the far more daring Bilā Ḥudūd. The latter, through the trio of Bilā Ḥudūd, employed humour to redefine the notion of masculinity in Algerian television while providing a brilliant social commentary.