@ibetonyt Meh. I emphatically disagree. I don’t so much care for her current spate of YouTube videos or her speech at the 2016 DNC, but Silverman’s shown a remarkable range in both forms and content of humor. She’s brilliant in The Aristocrats. Sometimes Lampanelli makes me laugh, but not nearly as often, and she simply hasn’t made the impact across the genres where Silverman’s scored. And while I don’t always agree with her, I appreciate the various ways she’s publically taken a stand on important issues (mental health, climate change, Justice, etc.) while still, IMO, managing to mostly remain funny.
@00@benjaMEHn Do you have a receipt for that donut? I would have asked about it sooner, but I was stuck because the escalator was broken (very inconvenient).
@00@panafonics@bingo security told me I needed to move because I was standing in front of the emergency fire exit. As if there was a fire, I wasn’t gonna move. If you are flammable and have legs, you are never blocking a fire exit.
@00@Bingo@panafonics that is also one of my favorites. I him and his style because he tells jokes… Not just a story with made up components… He just got up there, told a one liner joke, then straight to the next one. No long buildup to a punchline. Just rapid-fire jokes.
I once got to have a rare and magical experience seeing Carlin absolutely bomb. He was on the road testing material and two in a row just didn’t go over. Really something I am glad for, because it shows how much work goes into actual comedy.
(He pivoted back to tested material very quickly and won the audience over.)
@cinoclav My vote’s still with Carlin, but those three are close behind–and each in their own right is in ways praiseworthy above Carlin (just, yaknow, overall, Carlin still gets my vote). Bruce and Wright are probably closer to my own soul and sense of humor.
@parodymandotcom I almost mentioned him. I was fortunate to have front row seats to one of his shows. It was a round venue (Valley Forge Music Fair for those local folk), so the stage was basically floor level and just a few feet from the seats. Went with a friend and Rodney picked on him throughout the show. We were about 17 years old and it was absolutely epic. I still love RD to this day.
I met–er, served–Richard Pryor’s son, Mason, at a now dead restaurant in Columbus, Ohio. You know what is more meh than that? Paying for a half decades worth of VMP and still getting fucked out of an irk when henna tattoos and bots get the “goods.”
Had a phone one time with a bug such that after it rang, whatever was playing previously would resume - even if it was stopped. I’d been listening to the comedy channel on Pandora. Left it at my desk, missed a call, and coworkers got to hear Robin Williams talking about his nipples.
No one here has to do anything. I fully support this form of civil disobedience. Moreover, while I’m willing in this case to make a choice, I wouldn’t say that I’m unambivalent about it and I mostly abhor the whole make a choice, have a favorite bullshit.
Not that you asked. But I’m okay with that part too.
@joelmw Honestly, I don’t think I could pick a singular favorite anything. It’s not that I’m an indecisive person, generally quite the opposite. But to say that any one thing is the absolute best/greatest feels incredibly limiting.
@mrchristian Even (especially?) among my closest people, it’s difficult. My wife is definitely my favorite person. But so is my daughter. But differently. And my stepson and son-in-law are also favorites. I do have a favorite family member (that isn’t a kid), my eldest brother. I have a favorite employee.
Otherwise I choose to have favorites in the moment. I will tell people less important that they’re my favorite, but I think we both know that it’s a transitory and/or specific domain sort of thing. I mean it, but they may be displaced an hour later.
But among things–colors, songs, books and even people more distant–what’s the point? Why do I have to pin myself down? Blake is my favorite poet. So is Yeats. And Ginsberg. And Donne. And Hopkins. And WC Williams. And Seuss. Etc.
It’s like people want to be on a team. I’m my own goddamned team. I’ll sub the rest of y’all–again, with a handful of noted exceptions–in as needed.
Not sure about anyone else, but I loved Sam Kinison. He wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but I’m not sure there’s anyone who made late-teen, early-twenties Todd laugh more than Sam!
“Good Answer…Good Answer. I like the way you think. I’m going to be watching you!” (Sam speaking to the great Rodney Dangerfield in “Back To School”…)
@tohar1 I love Kinison. And as a former Pentecostal myself (he was a Pentecostal preacher before becoming a comic, which makes a lot more sense than folks might imagine), I completely identified with his rage and much of his world view (not so much his occasional misogyny though). And he seemed like a sweetheart, despite his abrasiveness on stage.
Josh Blue is also phenomenal. Super nice in person too. I was quite surprised to see him on America’s Got Talent this season. He could be a judge on there, not a contestant.
Robin Harris. Based solely on 1 record, 2.5 movies (all of which were hardly more than extended Harris “bits”), and 3 sets of recorded stand up. As much deserved cred as Burr gets for being “tough” on audiences… Robin was the Merciless Death Ray Mercer of audience abuse
and BB would likely tell you so himself. RH gone way too soon.
Sometimes he is pretty damned funny. And I love a lot of his spoken word stuff–which is often hilarious (I don’t even care if he means it to be) and can be brilliant beyond the humor. I also love that he’s not afraid to slap back on Twitter.
Not that he actually deserves to be in this list, but still entertaining and amusing.
Carlin, then Bill Hicks.
I would have loved to see how Hicks evolved, had he lived.
Patrice Oneal, Bill Burr, Don Rickles, Louie CK, Dave Chapelle are all worthy mentions.
Sarah Silverman! Really!?!?!?!? Lisa Lampanelli is funnier than that creature!
@ibetonyt Someone pulled that name out of their ass !
@ibetonyt I think they were trying to throw a “token woman” on the list and definitely could have picked better female comics by far.
@ibetonyt I disagree, Lisa Lampanelli grates on me in a way Sarah Silverman doesn’t, although they both get credit for the crass card
@mbersiam I didn’t want to be the one to say it. lol They gotta be woke nowadays!
@ibetonyt Meh. I emphatically disagree. I don’t so much care for her current spate of YouTube videos or her speech at the 2016 DNC, but Silverman’s shown a remarkable range in both forms and content of humor. She’s brilliant in The Aristocrats. Sometimes Lampanelli makes me laugh, but not nearly as often, and she simply hasn’t made the impact across the genres where Silverman’s scored. And while I don’t always agree with her, I appreciate the various ways she’s publically taken a stand on important issues (mental health, climate change, Justice, etc.) while still, IMO, managing to mostly remain funny.
Check out Tig Notaro’s new special “Drawn” if you have HBO Max. Super funny and fun animations.
That said, Carlin is the GOAT of stand-up and you’ll never change my mind.
@ExtraMedium Love Notaro. Have you seen her on Star Trek Discovery?
JACKIE MASON …RIP
Robin Williams!
Mitch Hedberg
@benjaMEHn I used to think that Mitch Hedberg was the funniest standup. I still do, but I used to too. Heh. Alright.
@00 @benjaMEHn Do you have a receipt for that donut? I would have asked about it sooner, but I was stuck because the escalator was broken (very inconvenient).
@00 best of all time.
@benjaMEHn This is the only answer. Except maybe Andy Kaufman.
@benjaMEHn
/giphy what he said
@benjaMEHn @panafonics an elevator is never really broken. The out of order sign should say, “you’re welcome, we have become… stairs.”
@00 @panafonics @bingo security told me I needed to move because I was standing in front of the emergency fire exit. As if there was a fire, I wasn’t gonna move. If you are flammable and have legs, you are never blocking a fire exit.
@benjaMEHn @Bingo @panafonics one that I’ve said many times at work: this shirt is dry clean only. Which means, it’s dirty.
@benjaMEHn @panafonics (I wrote this wrong. Escalator, not elevator! Elevators don’t turn into stairs when they break.)
@00 @Bingo @panafonics that is also one of my favorites. I him and his style because he tells jokes… Not just a story with made up components… He just got up there, told a one liner joke, then straight to the next one. No long buildup to a punchline. Just rapid-fire jokes.
I once got to have a rare and magical experience seeing Carlin absolutely bomb. He was on the road testing material and two in a row just didn’t go over. Really something I am glad for, because it shows how much work goes into actual comedy.
(He pivoted back to tested material very quickly and won the audience over.)
@slydon I saw Carlin at a little venue in San Diego by the name of Funky Quarters in the mid-seventies. He was a big hit.
Super funny.
@slydon I saw him once, and yeah, he did some material that was definitely questionable. He certainly wasn’t afraid to “go there”.
@slydon Love Carlin and saw him multiple times in person. Unfortunately in his later years he was just angry and political
Eddie Izzard
Oh yeah… and Patton Oswalt
Robin Williams, Lenny Bruce, Steven Wright
@cinoclav My vote’s still with Carlin, but those three are close behind–and each in their own right is in ways praiseworthy above Carlin (just, yaknow, overall, Carlin still gets my vote). Bruce and Wright are probably closer to my own soul and sense of humor.
/giphy toast
Can you really have a greatest for stand up comedy? There’s such variation in taste, heck I vary on which comedians I like based on my mood.
Norm McDonald
Eddie Murphy
And once again, Rodney Dangerfield gets no respect.
@parodymandotcom I almost mentioned him. I was fortunate to have front row seats to one of his shows. It was a round venue (Valley Forge Music Fair for those local folk), so the stage was basically floor level and just a few feet from the seats. Went with a friend and Rodney picked on him throughout the show. We were about 17 years old and it was absolutely epic. I still love RD to this day.
I met–er, served–Richard Pryor’s son, Mason, at a now dead restaurant in Columbus, Ohio. You know what is more meh than that? Paying for a half decades worth of VMP and still getting fucked out of an irk when henna tattoos and bots get the “goods.”
@KNmeh7 … so you’re saying you get “no respect, no respect at all!”
Dom DeLuise
Jim Gaffigan, and Dave Chappelle
Ron “'Tater Salad” White
Had a phone one time with a bug such that after it rang, whatever was playing previously would resume - even if it was stopped. I’d been listening to the comedy channel on Pandora. Left it at my desk, missed a call, and coworkers got to hear Robin Williams talking about his nipples.
@walarney “men have nipples too!”
Can’t pick, but if I had to make a top ten list (in no particular order):
@mrchristian But you have to pick. That’s the question. Not a top 10, number 1.
@punkynpye nuh-uh. I don’t want to, and you can’t make me
@punkynpye
No one here has to do anything. I fully support this form of civil disobedience. Moreover, while I’m willing in this case to make a choice, I wouldn’t say that I’m unambivalent about it and I mostly abhor the whole make a choice, have a favorite bullshit.
Not that you asked. But I’m okay with that part too.
I support your defiance, @mrchristian.
@joelmw Honestly, I don’t think I could pick a singular favorite anything. It’s not that I’m an indecisive person, generally quite the opposite. But to say that any one thing is the absolute best/greatest feels incredibly limiting.
@mrchristian Even (especially?) among my closest people, it’s difficult. My wife is definitely my favorite person. But so is my daughter. But differently. And my stepson and son-in-law are also favorites. I do have a favorite family member (that isn’t a kid), my eldest brother. I have a favorite employee.
Otherwise I choose to have favorites in the moment. I will tell people less important that they’re my favorite, but I think we both know that it’s a transitory and/or specific domain sort of thing. I mean it, but they may be displaced an hour later.
But among things–colors, songs, books and even people more distant–what’s the point? Why do I have to pin myself down? Blake is my favorite poet. So is Yeats. And Ginsberg. And Donne. And Hopkins. And WC Williams. And Seuss. Etc.
It’s like people want to be on a team. I’m my own goddamned team. I’ll sub the rest of y’all–again, with a handful of noted exceptions–in as needed.
Not sure about anyone else, but I loved Sam Kinison. He wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but I’m not sure there’s anyone who made late-teen, early-twenties Todd laugh more than Sam!
“Good Answer…Good Answer. I like the way you think. I’m going to be watching you!” (Sam speaking to the great Rodney Dangerfield in “Back To School”…)
@tohar1 I love Kinison. And as a former Pentecostal myself (he was a Pentecostal preacher before becoming a comic, which makes a lot more sense than folks might imagine), I completely identified with his rage and much of his world view (not so much his occasional misogyny though). And he seemed like a sweetheart, despite his abrasiveness on stage.
Bill Burr. And even though I gave @mrchristian flak for his top 10 list, I’m gna nominate Tim Minchin for number 2.
@punkynpye You met the criteria. Your list is ordered, @mrchristian’s was not.
@mike808 I guess, in a manner of speaking, my list was ordered. In the order of mental occurrence.
Dave Chappelle
Josh Blue is also phenomenal. Super nice in person too. I was quite surprised to see him on America’s Got Talent this season. He could be a judge on there, not a contestant.
Robin Harris. Based solely on 1 record, 2.5 movies (all of which were hardly more than extended Harris “bits”), and 3 sets of recorded stand up. As much deserved cred as Burr gets for being “tough” on audiences… Robin was the Merciless Death Ray Mercer of audience abuse
and BB would likely tell you so himself. RH gone way too soon.
@Octomeh loved Bebe’s kids!
Willam Shatner
Just
…
ask
…
him.
@mike808
Sometimes he is pretty damned funny. And I love a lot of his spoken word stuff–which is often hilarious (I don’t even care if he means it to be) and can be brilliant beyond the humor. I also love that he’s not afraid to slap back on Twitter.
Not that he actually deserves to be in this list, but still entertaining and amusing.
@mike808 I love the Shat. I hold “Boston Legal” in high regard, and his Ben Folds produced album “Has Been” is pretty spectacular.
But I also strongly suspect that I would intensely dislike him in person.
He kills me in “Miss Congeniality”
@walarney @mrchristian
I would have liked more episodes of “Shit my dad says”, too.
Hank Harland, everybody!!
Gabriel Iglesias
Jim Jefferies.
Dana Carvey or Michael Winslow
Not saying greatest, but Steve Martin should get a mention somewhere on this page.
@walarney He’s the greatest if you listen to him after you get small.
@walarney
and he is a wicked banjo player!
Carlin, then Bill Hicks.
I would have loved to see how Hicks evolved, had he lived.
Patrice Oneal, Bill Burr, Don Rickles, Louie CK, Dave Chapelle are all worthy mentions.
Katt Williams gets my vote.
Bill Burr is my inner voice
No love for Jim Gaffigan? Or Jeff Dunham…?
I don’t know about best, but for good clean humor you wouldn’t mind your kids or grandkids listening to, I do like Brian Regan
/youtube Brian regan the emergency room