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Never liked Rickles. Chappell, while very funny, still actually supports reparations, despite ridiculing the effect it would have on the black “community.” All the others are outstanding in their own way, but my vote goes to Richard Pryor. I will also mention Stephen Wright. Deadpan humor said in an emotionless monotone way. Good stuff too.
I wouldn’t let Don Rickles onto my property, even if I was hosting a star-studded ‘celebrity roast’.
George of course. But Bill Hicks is a definite contender.
Jim Gaffigan and Mitch Hedberg are worth consideration. Also Jackie Mason.
Can’t stand Gaffigan, once these assholes go woke, they’re gone. Saw Mitch perform one time in Denver, great show.
Of all time is a tough standard but for kinda right now, I like Louie CK. Back in the day, Sam Kinneson was amazing.
Sam Kinison was REALLY funny.
George or Richard is right up there with Samantha or Jeannie.
Billy Connolly is also a contender.
Jonathan Winters was the best of all. Never a foul word came out of the man’s mouth. But every time I watched him he had me in stitches. The king of ad lib. The clowns who call themselves ‘comedians’ today are in the same league as funnyman Zelensky. About as humorous as a case of the clap. The old timers like Berle, Dangerfield, Caesar, Allen, Mason, Benny, Youngman, Brooks, etc… were the last of the real comedians. Comedy, just like music, died about 40 years ago.
Carlin and Dangerfield are probably my two favorites. I notice there aren’t any female stand up comedians pictured above. Oh, that’s right, there aren’t any truly funny female stand up comedians in existence.
Roseanne Barr and Sarah Silverman have been intermittently funny. Probably never again, though.
Rita Rudner!
Steve Martin
This is truly a funny man.
Forged in the crucible of Knott’s Berry Farm.
And a great author, too.
He did a bit about drug side effects, one of them was,
“may cause stigmata in Mexicans” I laughed just now when I typed it!
I did not know that. Cool beans indeed.
Steve Martin was not only funny on his own — but he wrote great comedy for The Smothers Brothers as well as SNL — plus several movies (Bowfinger, Roxanne, The Jerk, etc.) …
I’ve still got my thermos. It is, eventually, all you need.
I saw Steve perform at Red Rocks when King Tut was raging, oh man, my face was sore from laughing.
George Carlin, Robin Williams, Katt Williams, Dave Chappelle, Doug Stanhope, Bill Hicks, Bill Burr.
A good list. I would only add Steve Martin .. his comedy albums were off-the-wall CRAZY!
Steve Martin’s stand up era was probably before my time. I’ve always known of him as a comedian and actor but not actual stand up so I didn’t include him.
Redd Foxx was really funny doing stand up comedy. Shelley Burman was ok too .
If your only experience with Redd Foxx is Sanford and Son, his stand up will be quite shocking. He had the best mugs to drink from on stage.
Liberty- Same for Shelley Burman, his tv comedy was lame but he had adult stand up that was shockingly funny.
(BL) here
Actually, Bob Saget was the same.
Gilbert Gottfried
Owen Benjamin, hands down.
This guy was hilarious! Anyone know if he is still funny?
I believe he went the path of Carlin and now does more political commentary than comedy. He also puts out useful advice on returning to the land.
Nice shirt.
And that’s also quite a coif.
Marc Moran.
I beat you tuit!
didn’t see it
How’s your mother, Nick from New Joisey? I saw mine last week a couple days after the Hallmark Holiday. I sent her a large bouquet of roses that was the talk of the nursing home I think.
Because I’m fucking rich and my siblings are assholes.
Moms Mabley broke the colour barrier and classic Pearl Williams gave it out as good as any.
Auntie’s most favourite contemporary and edgiest comedienne is, hands-down, Shirley Q. Liquor:
Thank you, Lawd.
Tie.
Norm MacDonald and Brian Regan.
Both are complete masters of the audience- guys like Hicks who were comic’s comics are notoriously hit or miss with the crowd-but these guys never failed to connect.
And as far as originality goes both of them are in a league of their own.
Of course there are comics you’ve never heard of that are amazing joke writers/performers who never hit it big- T Marni Vos (woman), Brian Bradley, Nate Bargatze, Franklin Ajaye, Rick Overton, Brian Haley, etc. but who absolutely killed in the clubs. Any one of them could have made the list.
Brian Regan is in a class of his own, but don’t forget Gilda.
Nate Bargatze is great. Got a pet tiger, too.
For me the top three are Norm Macdonald, Norm Macdonald and Norm Macdonald. He wasn’t the best as a stand-up per se, since he did a lot of his best stuff sitting down (on his own ill-fated shows and as a guest on TV talk shows). He was unique. And being unique is unique. “The more I learn about this Hitler fella, the more I don’t care for him.” A one minute example:
He was the most off-beat I ever saw.
So many people didn’t get what he was doing
but it was pure genius. He was fired from
SNL because he wrote his own “Weekend Update”
material and it flew over the heads of most of
the mouth breathing TV audience. His bit
about skiing rib-breaking funny.
Clint Eastwood’s ‘Empty Chair’ speech at the RNC Convention in 2012 …
George Carlin
I have missed Sam Kinison since his death 30 years ago. He, Carlin, Wright, and Bill Cosby defined ROTFL in my early years. Honorable mention to Pryor.
Steven Wright was another comic genius who was
doing stuff so far above the heads of most of his audience
that he never attained “best” status.
Steven Wright was the first one to come to my mind. Then of course Steve Martin, George Carlin, so many others but Steven Wright was genius!!! His one liners were soooooo funny mainly from the delivery, deadpan.
As a young kid, I thought Bill Cosby was the funniest many alive. My cousin had a couple of his albums and we would listen to them over an over rofl.
As a young adult, Carlin caught my attention, especially Al Sleet the hippy dippy weatherman. His insights into the world were more prognostications than comedy, but truly inspired.
I was also a big fan of Robin Williams and his ability to jump into a character on a moment’s notice.
It is a damned shame about Cosby. We had several of his albums on cassette and, later, CD because it was comedy we felt comfortable listening to with our son.
Now? A damned shame.
All that money and he still had to drug and rape young women. I started to say unsuspecting young women, but they willingly went to his room for something and ended up getting more than they wanted
I’m quite sure that at least some of them were naive and looked up to him as a father figure who was going to help them with their careers.
I am just a hick from OK and had heard about the “casting couch” when I was in HS. It is funny how there were no claims of rape within 72 hr of the incident and they all came out many years later with zero evidence or witnesses.
You ever listen to the Cheech and Chong albums?
I did, but most of their stuff was so “drug” infused that I did not find it funny. BTW, Dave’s not here!
Uneven, but with some incredible stuff here and there. Pedro and the Man at the Drive-In!
For me it was George Carlin. I also found Sam Kinison, Rodney Dangerfield and Andrew “Dice ” Clay very funny as well.
I’d vote Carlin for his wit and wisdom, but for comic descriptions, voices, going into character, and
the differences in culture, it’s Pryor, hands down. Funny MFer.
In my teens (70’s), I actually had a .33 LP of Richard, and can recite some of his schtick to this day.
And all the black comedians that came in his wake learned from him.
Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock, Chris Tucker, Dave Chapelle, the Wayans brothers, Tommy & David from In Living Color.
For twisted but creative minds, Robin Williams and Jonathan Winters.
I also like Kevin James, the guy from King of Queens. His HBO special “Sweat the Small Stuff” had me LMFAO.
Norm Crosby and his Mastery of Malaprop.
Someone forgot to mention Red Skelton.
B I N G O … funny without ever being offensive or crude — and always a gentle soul …
Ron White
My favorite line from one of his acts was “I got thrown out of a bar once. It was a bunch of big guys. You know, the kind of guys who beat off to “Roadhouse.”
“I was wrong. They HURLED me out of that bar.”
My vote is for Shrub W. Bush on his State of the Union 8-disk comedy album. Sublime artistry with those mind-bending “Bushisms” and always KILLS with his physical comedy punchline 😂
Honorable mention for Sitting-down at piano comedy: Tom Lehrer
Buddy Hackett’s Duck Joke- Start at (2:59)
lol, Mr. H had a perfect work ethic.
Rodney.
I saw Rodney Dangerfield in the mid-eighties while attending Michigan State University.
Non-stop one liners for about 90 minutes, every heckle was matched with perfect response.
He was all a stand up comedian could be.
Watch him on one of his Tonight Show appearances circa 1987-88 and notice his use of the tie.
Absolutely brilliant gimmick that resets the audience at the transition of every joke. In his first incarnation during the 60’s he didn’t have it and his jokes were all 50% longer. He went away for several years and came back as polished with that character honed to a razor’s edge.
Although not true individual stand-up, the old Jack Benny/Dennis Day skits on radio & TV were side-splitting.
Y’all leaving out Burns and Allen, Milton Berle, Bob Hope, Phyllis Diller, and all those from my parent’s era.
There are just too many good comedians with unique styles to say just one.
I want to lodge a complaint regarding an unfair question.
I liked Red Skelton.
On another note, that line about screwing for virginity has always raised a question in my mind – where do they think virgins come from, cabbage patches?
Can’t have one without the other.
Carlin was #1, but Bill Hicks was pretty good too.
Jerry Clower was my favorite closely followed by Robin Williams and then Benny Hill
I forgot about JC. Growing up in the same state he was on the radio every now and then.
Rita Rudner, Cosby, Hope, Carlin, Newhart, Norm
Way back when, when comedy was “cleaner,” everybody tuned in to Bob Hope’s newest TV routine. In those days, Newhart and Cosby ruled the record sales and the stuff was side-splittingly funny, rather than the tee hees and guffaws the current crop gets. Carlin was the best IMHO at offering insights that were then imbedded in the culture. Rita was almost as good. Norm is unique in his cleverness at revealing ordinary stupidity.
One of my favorite lines is from Jackie Mason. He had insulted Sinatra with his jokes about his marriage to Mia Farrow who was thirty years younger. Some thugs ended up beating Mason when he ignored warnings to stop with the jokes. After he recovered, he said, “You know, Frank saved my life. He came along and said, ‘That’s enough, boys.’ The genius of that! Shows how extraordinarily differently a comic thinks compared to the rest of us.
Bob Newhart. His bus driver training academy stuff was hilarious.
And “Walt” (Sir Walter Scott) with his discovery of tobacco and the possibility of profitable trade talking to his handlers in Britain. “So Walt, they light the stuff on fire and breathe in the smoke, huh?”
Yes, and his story-telling talent was such that you could listen to the same piece over and over, laughing as if hearing it for the first time.
Tie
Carlin for my crude mood
Skelton for my clean mood
Lenny Bruce…
Mort Saul was funny. Don’t know why? Could just tell stories.
George Carlin, IMO. Lots of other hilarious names such as Kinison and Dangerfield. The scenes from Back to School with the latter two still make me laugh.
Norm
Bill Hicks.
Red Skelton – Bob Newhart – Richard Pryor (saw him the first show he did after his facial incident at the Comedy Store) – George Carlin and Jonathan Winters and Robin Williams and Buddy Hackett –> the 4 Horsemen of the Comedy Apocalypse …
Red Skelton, Sam Kineson, George Carlin
Richard Pryor
Honorable mentions: George Carlin, Bill Hicks, Sam Kinison, Robin Williams, Eddie Murphy
THE BEST STAND-UP COMEDIAN OF ALL-TIME?
Kevin Bloody Wilson.
Rodney Rude was pretty wrong:
And then there’s Steady Eddie:
Carlin was unmatched, although most of what he said was more reality than comedy.
That’s why I didn’t pick him. He drifted away from comedy into humorous philosophy akin to Kierkegaard or Twain.
“What if everything in the world were a misunderstanding, what if laughter were really tears?”
― Soren Kierkegaard
“Humor is mankind’s greatest blessing.”
– Mark Twain
Lots of good ones mentioned, but haven’t seen anyone say David Spade. Classic snarky stuff that cracks me up.
Haven’t seen Woody Allen, Tim ( the tool man Taylor ) Allen, Mel Brooks, The Pythons, Firesign Theatre or Joan Rivers mentioned.
Seems to be a good place to put this one.