I want you to imagine something for me. Ready? What if James Bond and “Arrested Development” had a baby… and one of them carried a recessive cartoon gene from their distant cousin “Tin Tin”? I guess this also involves some supplementary imagining, like what if TV shows and movie franchises were able to mate. Disregarding that, I imagine the baby in question would look something like FX’s brilliant, crude, and certifiably insane animated action comedy “Archer,” which, in my opinion, may be the greatest thing to ever happen to the world—forget about sliced bread.

“Archer,” which is currently in its third manic season, details the adventures of title character Sterling Archer (voiced by H. Jon Benjamin), a spy working for the fictional, privatized American agency ISIS. Both in and out of work, he tackles everything from arms dealers to paternity tests, eco-terrorists to breast cancer. All that you need to understand about Archer (the character) going in is that he’s an asshole. He’s misogynistic, selfish, insensitive, and plenty more negative adjectives to boot. In fact, much of the show’s humor comes from his sheer ridiculousness: he manages to be both the world’s deadliest man and its douchiest.

In the first season, the show was content to be a clever, episodic spy parody, sending Archer and his on-again, off-again lover and fellow spy, Lana Kane (Aisha Tyler), on various missions. In the second season, however, the show upped the ante, still occasionally using the world-in-peril plotline, but moving away from spoofing spy movies and transforming itself into an absurd, offensive, and totally hilarious workplace comedy—which just happens to deal with espionage, assassination, and the like.

In fact, many of the best moments in the second season come from the diverse and hilarious supporting cast, voiced by the likes of Chris Parnell (as Cyril Figgis, the agency’s nerdy, sex-addicted, and comically well-endowed accountant), Jessica Walter (as Malory Archer, the head of ISIS and Sterling’s mother, who may beat out Walter’s role on Arrested Development for unhealthiest maternal figure on television), and Judy Greer (Cheryl/Carol Tunt as Mrs. Archer’s airheaded but sociopathic secretary, whose hobbies include changing her name, taking “pregnancy tests” online, and auto-erotic asphyxiation), among others.

Without a doubt, “Archer” features the best voice work in animation (film or television) that I can remember in recent years. Benjamin makes Archer charming, sly and dry so that you never know if the character is aware of how ridiculous a person he is, all the while daring you to love him, which, despite yourself—and him—you’ll find yourself doing disturbingly quickly.

Finally, much is to be said for the show’s aesthetic, which makes it look like an animated Mad Men with modern technology (and if Don Draper was a spy whose idol was Burt Reynolds, whose greatest fear was alligators, and who will practically bend over backwards to reference Kenny Loggins in a moment of peril), and creates a surprisingly fun contrast between the crude and absurdist nature of the humor and the polished sheen of the animation.

On top of all this, it’s kind of a litmus test for me, so if you wanna be friends, you know where to start.