# Anyone who got funnier as they got older? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 20, 2008, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-who-got-funnier-as-they-got-older/464457 "2008-09-20T18:12:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2008, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-who-got-funnier-as-they-got-older/464457/21 "2008-09-21T14:08:57Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > Alec Baldwin. He may have had comic ability when he was younger, but he was constantly pigeonholed as a “leading man” and we weren’t allowed to see it. Now that he’s grown older and packed on some pounds, they’re letting him unleash the funny, and man, it is good. Thirded. I would have never guessed, before Jack Donaghy, that Alec Baldwin could be the funniest thing on television. He owes Tina Fey and other great writers for giving him the chance to shine. He’s a great actor, actually. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2008, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-who-got-funnier-as-they-got-older/464457/22 "2008-09-21T14:13:49Z")
**Rip Torn**. The man was hysterical in **The Larry Sanders Show** series on HBO years ago, and was terrific in **Men in Black**. Also, **Christopher Walken** is another example of someone who started out in those intense roles, but has become a pretty good comedic actor. ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2008, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-who-got-funnier-as-they-got-older/464457/23 "2008-09-21T14:26:26Z")
Howie Mandel’s act is a lot funnier now than it was in the 70s and 80s, IMO. (He’s 53 years old, been at it for 30 years…I have a hard time taking him as that old, for some reason…) ---
**Author:** ![Enright3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/enright3/32/2897_2.png) [@Enright3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enright3)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2008, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-who-got-funnier-as-they-got-older/464457/24 "2008-09-21T18:17:34Z")
> [@tavalla](#): > > William Shatner didn’t start out as funny (or intentionally funny, anyway), but he’s turned out to be. and this is true primarily for one reason… because he’s able to poke fun at himself. I love the ~new~ William Shatner. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2008, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-who-got-funnier-as-they-got-older/464457/25 "2008-09-21T21:27:17Z")
Peter Boyle was a reliable character actor for the first half of his career and a brilliant comic actor for the second half. Martin Sheen, never a comedian _per se_, had flashes of comic brilliance in The West Wing that would have been unthinkable in his younger days, although most of these played off the serious gravitas of his character for most of the time. Stockard Channing has had more and better opportunities to be dryly funny in the last decade than in the two that preceded it. ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2008, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-who-got-funnier-as-they-got-older/464457/26 "2008-09-21T21:44:44Z")
> [@FriarTed](#): > > He’s 60?!?! He looks pretty good for a guy whose acts are all about how stressed out he is over current events. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2008, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-who-got-funnier-as-they-got-older/464457/27 "2008-09-21T21:58:30Z")
[Humphrey Lyttleton](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humphrey_Lyttelton). Except that he wasn’t really a comedian. Edit: the OP just asked for ‘funny people’, so I’m OK. ---
**Author:** ![NDP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ndp/32/55_2.png) [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2008, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-who-got-funnier-as-they-got-older/464457/28 "2008-09-22T00:34:13Z")
> [@bienville](#): > > Compare to 60 year old Lewis Black. > > Lewis Black didn’t hit his peak until his 50s, but by the time he hit his peak he had been honing his craft for 30 years compared to Cosby and Carlin’s 15. This is an example of how age can benefit a comic persona. It’s funnier to watch a 60-year old man who’s perpetually sputtering at the inanities of the world around him than a 30-year old man doing the same thing. Another comic persona that age benefited was W.C. Fields. Although he was a top comic for years, he didn’t really hit his peak until after he turned 50. ---
**Author:** ![The\_King\_of\_Soup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a87d85/32.png) [@The\_King\_of\_Soup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_King_of_Soup)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2008, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-who-got-funnier-as-they-got-older/464457/29 "2008-09-22T03:53:34Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > …Hal Holbrook… Yup. I’m not sure he had a naturally humorous bone in his body (I’m pretty sure he had a couple of natural humerus bones in his body), but there’s no question that he got better and better at interpreting the original material. For a brief, shining moment, William Windom almost gave us a James Thurber to equal Holbrook’s Twain, and woudn’t _that_ have been a treat? [QUOTE=Sampiro] …Kurt Vonnegut… [/QUOTE] But not _funnier_ as he got older, just less depressed and more accessible, in my opinion. Robin Williams? To me, the one of a hundred 1980 coke-addled comics on the make, who hit just enough pop-culture buttons on the right evening to get a job, without quite enough of an addiction to follow Freddie Prinze immediately into the grave. Tough career path to come out of with your faculties intact, but he managed it. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2008, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-who-got-funnier-as-they-got-older/464457/30 "2008-09-22T04:26:21Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > Thirded. > > I would have never guessed, before Jack Donaghy, that Alec Baldwin could be the funniest thing on television. He owes Tina Fey and other great writers for giving him the chance to shine. He’s a great actor, actually. Baldwin has always been funny. He’s been guest-hosting Saturday Night Live for almost 20 years, and he killed each time he was on it. I think he may now be ranked as the best guest host the show has had. Or at least he’s up in the top five with Steve Martin, Christopher Walken, Tom Hanks, and Buck Henry. That’s pretty good company to be keeping. ---
**Author:** ![Shirley\_Ujest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2008, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-who-got-funnier-as-they-got-older/464457/31 "2008-09-22T17:17:30Z")
Lewis Black is 60? GTFouttahere! ---
**Author:** ![xizor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xizor/32/102_2.png) [@xizor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xizor)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2008, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-who-got-funnier-as-they-got-older/464457/32 "2008-09-22T19:23:22Z")
**Chris Rock.** In the late 80s he was a mediocre stand-up and bit player on SNL. Then he did the Chris Rock show on HBO and was better. Then he did 2 or 3 stand-up specials that put him into the top tier. He is funnier now than he was 20 years ago. ---
**Author:** ![Harmonious\_Discord](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/74df32/32.png) [@Harmonious\_Discord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harmonious_Discord)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2008, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-who-got-funnier-as-they-got-older/464457/33 "2008-09-22T19:28:54Z")
Victor Borge stayed funny until he died. Do a youtube search if you don’t know his material. ---
**Author:** ![devilsknew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@devilsknew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/devilsknew)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2008, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-who-got-funnier-as-they-got-older/464457/34 "2008-09-23T00:16:43Z")
Don Rickles and Jonathan Winters, maybe. Rickle’s just grew into his act naturally with age. Jonathan Winters was before his time as a young man, later, it just all fell into time and place. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-who-got-funnier-as-they-got-older/464457.md?page=1)