Case in point: Edward D. Wood, Jnr- movie director, WWII combat veteran, and very much heterosexual.
Eddie Murphy. Despite all of the garbage he’s been making for so many years, plenty of people are quick to defend him based on his earlier work. I haven’t seen any of this earlier work, and I’m not gonna. Even if it is halfway decent, his recent work is like a trump card of suck. In fact, I reckon that every time he makes a movie, the very concept of film is permanently diminished, and a shockwave is sent through the fabric of reality whereby every scrap of celluloid in existence – past, present, and future – becomes inherently worse.
Watch his standup acts… Raw and Delirious. Hilarious stuff. His recent work has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING in common with those acts. Tbh, I’ve always thought he was a pretty bleh actor, even his early stuff, and of course it goes without saying that based on his recent performances, he has in fact set out to singlehandedly ruin comedy.
But that doesn’t change the fact that Raw and Delirious are fucking hilarious.
Jay Leno is the unfunniest man alive, with the possible exception of the idiots who make “Little Britain”.
I think you’re confused about more than one thing.
I’m taking my life in my hands here . . .
Jonathan Winters.
David Spade.
The redneck idiots.
Any comedian who relates the differences between men and women. It’s been done, and done better, by previous generations.
I will defend Monty Python, Eddie Izzard, and Terry Pratchett to the death, and Adam Sandler can (very occasionally) turn in a good performance.
But I’m going to have to second Sarah Silverman–you’re mean, good for you, now be funny–and Will Ferrell, who needs his internal volume button permanently muted. Or turned down about 150 decibels.
Present day:
Jack Black- I have never seen him in anything that didn’t make me want to shoot him in the face with a cannon.
Jeff Dunham- Comedy Central seems to be running this jerk-off every time I turn it on. Ventriloquists who are actually funny are a very rare, maybe even extinct, breed. He isn’t particularly talented at ventriloquism, much less funny. Only his Achmed character has a voice noticeably different from his other characters.
Ron White- a lot of my extended family members think this asseye is the absolute shiznit. They even pay actual money to see him live. I’d pay money to see him clawed to death by aardvarks.
Blasts from the past:
Dom DeLuise- I used to see him on The Dean Martin Show, The Tonight Show, and such when I was a kid. Then he started turning up in movies with Burt Reynolds. That’s when it all came clear. He was completely unfunny, but he gave great blowjobs.
Buddy Hacket- also a regular on The Tonight Show and similar programs. Never once made me laff. A friend who saw him perform live in Vegas tells me that Hacket’s stage act was gut-bustingly, pants-pissingly funny but was also so blue that no part of it could be performed on TV.
Marty Allen- built a career, it seemed, out of being funny looking; he never did or said anything funny that I can recall.
Charlie Callas- ditto
Andy Kaufmann- the news of his death failed to sadden me.
Izzard compares himself to a tomboy. Just because a girl acts and dresses like a guy doesn’t necessarily mean she’s into other girls. Just swap the gender nouns in that sentence.
For my part, I don’t find George Carlin and Larry the Cable Guy funny at all. And Ron White, but only after I found out how badly he phones his act in. Most of the other comedians I dislike are pretty bad and not terribly popular at all.
I actually quite like Jeff Foxworthy and Bill Engvall, the other two Blue Collar guys. Bill Engvall in particular is funny as hell.
Regarding Chris Rock, yes his material is nothing new, but his delivery makes it golden. Delivery can really make up for shortcomings in content; you can get people to laugh at your grocery list if you read it in a certain way.
Scumpup, I knew someone was going to bring up Jeff Dunham eventually. Here’s the funniest part about him: without his puppets, he is hilarious. His opening bit for the Spark of Insanity show is one of the funniest damn things I’ve seen in ages, and I watch/listen to a lot of standup. Unfortunately, just about every puppet he has other than Peanut is a stereotype, and the jokes are poorly delivered and not terribly insightful. (Arguing With Myself did have two brilliant pieces; when the audience member left in the middle of the show and ‘Walter’ insisted on waiting for him to return before continuing, and Peanut relating the story about the group of deaf people who went to see a ventriloquist act. Real stuff tends to be much funnier than abstract jokes, unless you’re Steven Wright.)
Peanut is entertaining to watch simply because of the dynamic; where the others are obviously puppets in a scripted and wooden act, he’s worked with Peanut for so long that it really does seem like they’re just talking back and forth. But it’s really sort of sad how much he shines without the puppets, and he relies on them for most of his act.
I like Adam Sandler much better when he’s NOT trying to be a comedian. His “Adam Sandler Movies” are (mostly) awful. The more serious ones, like Spanglish, are usually pretty good.
I agree with whoever said Ray Romano upthread. The few times I’ve seen his show, almost everyone was ten times funnier than he was.
I think Jack Black is a funny guy (as evidenced by his early Tenacious D stuff) who has never done a funny movie. Writers just don’t know how to write for his sense of humor and it doesn’t really fit in most movies anyway. His best moment on screen IMO was his very small part in the Bruce Willis movie The Jackal. I don’t know for sure but I bet they let him improvise his lines. Frankly I am surprised he keeps getting roles and seemingly growing in Hollywood credibility.
He did do well in Kung Fu Panda, though on reflection he was probably the weakest of the voice actors.
Wow, really? You find that burly guy with a big square head effeminate?!? I get the dress and make-up, but he couldn’t pass for a female at a Indigo Girls/Melissa Etheridge concert. I think you may want to revisit the concept of effeminate.
Oh, HELL yeah.
Ricky Gervais.
Anybody associated with Little Britain.
Alan Carr: whole act revolves around him being gay. Yawn.
Jimmy Carr: blasting an audience with shit one-liners for an hour isn’t funny, especially when you have the facial expressions of a leering paedophile.
Monty Python: a national embarrassment that this became synonymous with the best of British humour, to be honest.
I loath Ben Stiller and Will Ferrell with every grain of my being. The appeal of Conan O’Brien, Chevy Chase, and David Letterman are utterly lost on me as well. Eddie Murphy and Robin Williams were once towering geniuses but were abandoned by their respective muses long ago.
Jeff Foxworthy, though, I’ve always found to be funny. Part of it is that his humor is far more than the one-note “you might be a redneck…” jokes that made him famous. His reminisces of being a varsity mooner (all-state his senior year) are laugh-until-you-suffer-internal-organ-damage hilarious. Jeff Dunham is a bit more hit-and-miss. His solo standup is brilliant, but some of his puppet personalities are just a lot less funny than others. What I do find remarkable is just how easy it is to forget that you’re watching a single performer. His puppets really do seem to be living and breathing participants in his act.
Eddie Izzard is a god.
Dennis Miller
Bill Maher
and the entire cast of MADtv all need to stop. Now.
I like his bit where he’s talking about if guys got PMS and got cranky if they didn’t eat. “Bill, if I don’t get a taco soon I’m gonna scratch the hell out of this dashboard.” It’s been a good 10 years since I’ve heard that and I still [probably mis-] quote it all the time.
Eddie Griffin. Cursing is not funny in and of itself.
Judah Friedlander (standup only - not 30 Rock) - if someone wants to learn to be funny, listen to his “The World Champion of the World” bit. Then do the opposite.
I agree with all the Conan O’Brien haters. I plan to go to sleep a lot earlier starting in May.
I have to go along with Ben Stiller - I won’t watch anything he’s involved with anymore. He’s so unfunny it hurts.
Ditto Jerry Seinfeld.
However, the nod for least funny human being alive has to go to Ray Frickin’ Romano. That man could drain the laughter out of a nitrous oxide factory.