#1 Sarah Silverman.
#2 Garfunkel and Oates.
#3 Tig Notaro.
If you’ve seen 3 minutes of Amy Schumer’s act, you’ve seen it all. And even those 3 minutes aren’t original or funny.
When we saw her, it was in a fairly small venue - maybe 250 seats - and she was very conversational. She started with some prepared material on current events, then started talking to audience members which took her off on several tangents.
It was 3 years ago and I can’t recall any specifics, but I was in tears from laughing.
That’s what I like best about her, and no one else does it. She engages audience members directly, and makes much of her show spontaneously out of the exchanges. It’s really brilliant.
She wasn’t the best in her day, and she isn’t now, but I still wanted to mention Judy Tenuta.
I think the top stand up comediennes at the moment are probably Wanda Sykes, Sarah Silverman, Lisa Lampanelli, and Tig Notaro. The order is more personal taste. Amy Schumer, Tina Fey, and a few others mentioned aren’t really standups anymore.
I don’t know if Julie Goldman is doing stand up much lately, but I’ve seen some of her stand up on Youtube and she makes me laugh. These days I mostly see her on the People’s Couch.
I also like Kate Clinton, Wanda Sykes, Amy Schumer, Paula Poundstone, and Margaret Cho, though Cho is not exactly funny now.
If you want to get a little taste of Iliza Shlesinger, watch Separation Anxiety on TBS. She’s the host and can be pretty funny.
I saw Paula Poundstone live last year and it was OK. She had her funny moments but it seemed to become more of a rant than anything and she doesn’t really do the rant stuff very well. She did do some of the audience participation stuff which was kind of funny.
Well, to be fair Rivers was more of a comedian early in her career in 1960s television. She still wouldn’t really be considered that funny but that’s mostly because she was part of the first generation of female stand-ups, and back then the **only **kind of jokes they could tell were about how ugly they were, how terrible their marriages were etc. She was about as funny as Phyllis Diller was. And to be more fair male comedians were still mostly doing “Take my wife, please” shtick back then. 1970s George Carlin is the father of all modern stand-up (and 60s Lenny Bruce the short-lived grandfather).
Rivers is more famous today for her later career guest-hosting Carson and, even more so, as a gossip reporter. But back then, in their limited roles, it wasn’t a stretch to say that Rivers & Diller were America’s top female comedians. It wasn’t until the 1980s that stand-up comedy became the ‘industry’ it is today.
Roseanne
d&r
Whatever you might think of her personality, her act before she did the TV show was really very good, but she isn’t performing now, that I know of.
I saw Kathleen Madigan perform in a little comedy venue in Chicago in… '91 or '92, and then happened to see her sightseeing the next day. Seems like a long time ago and I guess it was. Glad she’s been so successful at it. She was hilarious.
“I was riding the bus lately when the drunkest man I had ever seen was sitting in front of me. Finally he passed out and I thought ‘Oh great, now who’s gonna drive?’” - KM (paraphrased)
Where’s the love for Richard Pryor?
People forget Ellen DeGeneres, before she was a talk show host and got divorced from Portia de Rossi every week (that’s what the magazines say, anyway) was hysterically funny.
I’m familiar with so many hilarious women coming up the talent pipe in the comedy scene I can’t even name them all.
Lisa Lampanelli
My favorite is Maria Bamford, hands down. I also quite like Anjelah Johnson.
Generally, I dislike a type of female comic I think of as the Cheerleader, the female version of what I consider the Frat Boy comic, mostly doing sex and battle-of-the sexes jokes. I think of Iliza Schlesinger as being marginally a member of this group, though the quality of her humor transcends it. Anjelah Johnson was an actually cheerleader, but I don’t see her as a cheerleader comic at all.
Also quite good are Morgan Murphy and Cameron Esposito. Most the others mentioned I either like or like with some qualifications.
I think Ellen is the greatest all time female comedian, and easily top 5 all time standup regardless of gender.
Natasha Leggero is the funniest woman in standup today IMHO.
Tig, although it is so subjective there really can be no objective "right’ answer. I just think Tig takes it one step beyond. “no, hold on, I think she can take a little more…” - God
I really do think Tig’s album Live is amazing.
Maria Bamford, Margaret Cho, Jen Kirkman and Anjelah Johnson are consistently funny in my opinion.
I am reading Schlesinger’s book and it is very funny. However, it is mostly about sex and gender issues.
”Most people know a lot about, like, three things. Just because someone is in charge doesn’t mean they should be, and just because they can express an opinion does not mean you should listen to it. Executives create bad shows, politicians do horrible things on purpose, stylists send people out on red carpets wearing garbage trash…. Not everyone is in a position of authority because they worked for it. Nope, most people got where they are because the guy ahead of them died, they knew someone, or they simply did a decent enough job long enough that eventually they got promoted.”
No love for the incomparable Wanda Sykes?
ETA: Now I’m seeing a reference to her in post #9. But for some reason nothing came up the first time I searched the thread - must have been a glitch in the matrix.
Anyway … WANDA SYKES.
I haven’t seen Taylor Tomlinson’s first Netflix special yet, but the clips I’ve seen were hilarious! She was raised in a strict religious family. At her father’s suggestion of something they could do together, they went to comedy school. She started as a church comedian!
