Sam Kinison doesn’t age well for me. I loved him as a kid, but now I find him annoying shouter whos laughs at his own stuff for no reason (but that could have been the drugs affecting him) and his acting gigs show his limits when he had to do anything other than bellow and rage. You know the old saying about " a comedian says funny things, a comic says things funny." Kinison was definitely a comic.
I love surreal, absurdist, and scatalogical humor (Marx Bros., Python, Milligan/Goons, Steven Wright, Kovacs, etc.) usually but most of my exposure to the Firesign Theatre has bored me senseless. I guess it helps to be “chemically enhanced” for listening like with Cheech and Chong.
Speaking of C&C, who I liked when I first heard them since I thought I was getting away with hearing something I shouldn’t (I was 10 at the time), It was the appeal of the forbidden, but they got left in the dust the instant I heard Richard Pryor.
I can’t sit through an entire episode of I Love Lucy (too telegraphed, the build up was usually better than the payoff, and too whiney as others have noted) or The Honeymooners (stagey dull hijinks with a braying bully, his shrew wife, a doofus neighbor, and his bland wife, to me anyway). I love Jackie Gleason except for that show and his The Poor Soul routines (I loathe mawkish sweet pantomime “storytelling”).
Chris Farley - a fat sweaty drunk and drug addict shouting and falling down or jiggling in place. Butt crack humor, nothing more.
Steve Martin - nearly anything of his, although Bowfinger had its moments, most belonging to Eddie Murphy. When I was a kid I loved his “wild and crazy guy” stuff and wondered why my dad, who had a great sense of humor, just rolled his eyes when Martin turned up on TV, once I got older I got it. I hate his movies, his smarmy SNL and interview appearances, the “humorous” essays, his attempts to be serious or dramatic, and you could pay me to try one of his novels. He’s too mannered in everything he does, like even he doesn’t think it’s funny. If I said he’s like a failed version of Bill Murray, who came after him I know, would that make any sense?
I said it long ago in a thread on a top 20 list of comedians, for my sense of humor I should hate Red Skelton, but I enjoy him. His background as a clown shows with his characters yet he still holds up for me. I agree his ad libs were pretty good, although I wonder if all the mistakes in his show were legit. He’s the rare cornball comedian I like.
