Come on, guys. Where’s the love for Gallagher?
::: d & r :::
His Lone Ranger bit was good, but I don’t know if it’s online anywhere.
Along the same line Carlin’s early stuff was wonderful. But for the last 10 years or so, he has just become a grumpy old man.
Woody Allen, Richard Pryor, and Bill Hicks are probably the big three for me. Out of the new generation, Patton Oswalt is absolutely amazing and will go on to be the comedic genius of this era. Pure, unadulterated brilliance.
Lenny falls into two distinct eras: his early period when he was ‘the sick comic’ where he was making up all sorts of one-man skits, usually blending everyday pop culture with the underground jazz and drugs scene. The other is his later period when he started getting busted routinely for obscenity and was having to spend most of his time on court cases, where his routines were mainly philosophizing (or ranting) on the nature of the judicial system and obscenity laws.
A great bit from his early years has a sax-playing junkie trying out for the Lawrence Welk band.
“I gotta come clean with you man, I got a monkey on my back.”
“Aw dat’s aright, ve like animals in da show!”
Another vote for Bill Hicks. (Video clip.)
And as a dark horse, I really love Brian Regan. (Video clip.) Never understood why he didn’t get his own show back in the day when the networks were handing out sitcoms like candy to every working comic.
Mitch Hedberg.
There’s a long, long list to choose from.
Mort Sahl created the new look of stand up, moving it away from Borscht Belt jokes. He came before Lenny Bruce too. The problem with Bruce is that (unless they’ve discovered some long lost tapes recently) none of his early work exists. Only his later, bitter comedy survives.
Woody Allen was absolutely amazing. He learned his craft in no time and came up with jokes and stories that created the first real comic persona since the days of the Marx Brother and W.C. Fields and Mae West. (Even though he claims consistently that he sued Bob Hope as a model.)
Bill Cosby is more like Woody Allen than people realize. The story-telling style combined with hyperbole and fantasy is very much like Allen’s. More so than like Bob Newhart, who was as close to being completely original in comedy field as anyone can be.
The early George Carlin was hysterically good. He did standard humor for his first album and a half and then kicked in to the hippie world and found new life where most of the older comics lost their audiences.
Steven Wright was jaw-dropping when he first appeared. A thousand jokes, all non-sequiturs and all wildly funny. He really couldn’t do anything else with that persona, though. He either had to do his act or he couldn’t talk.
Robin Williams probably can’t get captured on an album. Too fluid. He had to be experienced. When you could catch even a glimpse s of him at his peak, he had plenty of claim to being the top.
I’m leaving out a lot of names. I want to throw in one name none of you would guess. A. Whitney Brown. He used to be on SNL and on a weekend update appearance gave the classic line. Hi, I’m A. Whitney Brown. Someday I hope to be The Whitney Brown.
I say him live once. He did many long stories, totally offbeat, even surreal. They were hilarious, original, and unique.
Jake Johansen was the same way. A ten-minute piece he did on paying his electric bill was one of the funniest routines I ever saw on television.
At the time of about the White Album Dennis Miller was smoking hot, perfect joke after perfect joke.
Of them all, if I had to choose one, I’d probably go with Woody Allen. All he albums were great. He didn’t have the descent into irrelevantness like Bruce or Newhart, or in to drugs and bitterness like Carlin and Miller and Hicks and Klein. But his stand-up career was so short that he may not have the longevity to deserve first place.
It’s a tough question.
Forgot about Mitch. Yeah, he was pretty freaking hilarious, too. Shame that he ahd Hicks, two of my favorites, died so young.
Mitch Hedburg has probably made me laugh harder than any other person in history. His death affected me on a personal level more than any other celebrity since Phil Hartman.
George Carlin, back in his day, was a god of comedy. This has already been discussed to death in this thread, but I should add that my dad saw him live about 2 years ago, and complained that the whole show was nothing but vagina and suicide jokes. I told him that it’s part of his act (afterall, he made a point about how rape can be funny by telling a story about Elmer Fudd raping Porky Pig) and he said that it was ALL he talked about. A couple months later, he had an HBO special, and sure enough, that entire set was all vagina and suicide jokes! I guess those are the two things you have on your mind when you get to be his age.
Other honorable mentionables as my personal favorites are Ralphie May (his first stand up album has gotten more plays on my ipod than any other spoken comedy, although his second album really was pretty boring), Ben Bailey (better known as the host of Cash Cab, but his stand up act, which is almost entirely NYC-based humor which I can totally relate to, is brilliant), and Louis CK, primarily because he’s one comedian who truely isn’t afraid to make fun of himself and say stuff that even Carlin wouldn’t say - he has a whole routine about how his 5 year old daughter is an asshole, and is always trying to taunt him by sitting around on the couch naked with her legs spread open, etc.
How are you defining “irrelevantness” here? Newhart has been a successful, working comedian for nigh unto 50 years. How/when did his “descent” take place?
…how could I forget Billy Connolly. Love him. A friend of mine has a VHS of one of his stand ups and I’ve seen it about 100 times. It never gets old.
Richard Jeni, hands down.
I’ve got to go with the Cos, though I love many of the others mentioned here.
Another vote for Mitch Hedberg. Seems like every single thing he said on stage is pure gold.
Eddie Murphy
Sam Kinison
No love for Bill Bailey ? He is a great standup who also does lots on stage with his music. The link is to one of his best - Love Song.
So many good ones named already. But my knee-jerk reaction to “stand up comedian” has been Jonathan Winters since the 50’s. Robin Williams is the only living counterpart worth mentioning, but Brother Dave Gardner was also a top banana in those days. Lenny Bruce was before my time and access.
Modern times: Chris Rock, Dave Chappelle, Mitch Hedberg, Bill Hicks, Steven Wright, Steve Martin, George Carlin all have made me laugh hard.
All times: Jonathan Winters.
Carlin – absurd stuff, political stuff, great stuff on language, righteous outrage, pop-culutre, sports-culture, farts. His stuff from the 70’s still sounds fresh.
I don’t know why Jake Johansen never got big. I thought he had killer material and persona.
Eddie Murphy. . .we used to make copies of copies of copies of those tapes when we were kids.
I’ll go with George Carlin. He was the best and he was the first.