Right now for me it would be Whitney Cummings.
There are so many good choices! Although her patter is much faster than when she started, my choice is Rita Rudner.
She is very good and got very good very quickly.
Most of those mentioned are way past their prime even in 2016 when the thread started. Just like musicians there is a sweet spot in their career where they have been doing it long enough to be good but not too long that they are stale. The window for musicians seems to be smaller. The thing with comics is they have to be willing to slog through their material in clubs to hone it to a tight hour. It takes time and effort (and failure) to do that. Many reach a level of success where they don’t want to put in that work. They still get paid so it really has to be self motivated. Amy Shumer was mentioned a lot in the beginning of this thread. She has mostly moved away from standup. She was hit with some very credible accusations of plagiarism. Mostly the accusations were fair but mostly on the heads of her show writers and not her specifically.
Ali Wong is often cited as the best female comic now. I think her material is very strong but personally her overly affected over pronunciation on stage is off putting. It’s not a normal (or her normal) speech pattern and it takes me out of the comedy.
Not a household name but Jessica Kirson is lightening fast and very good. (Trivia, she’s Zack Braff’s stepsister)
To digress a bit, this is the best of times and the worst of times for standup comedy. There are a lot of platforms to watch comedy specials. But there are so many platforms they aren’t really special. In the past if a comedy special was released on HBO it was guaranteed to be good. Now you can find self released comedy specials on Prime or YouTube that have maybe 10 good minutes padded out to an hour. It’s hard to find the good stuff.
I’m casting another vote for Taylor Tomlinson. I expect her to be mega famous real soon.
Another female stand up who is brilliant is Michelle Wolf. She never fails to make me laugh.
I don’t know what else this woman has done, but this routine is absolutely brilliant.
I do like Michelle Wolf but I have to say that hearing Dan Soder do his impression of her kind of ruined her for me. I would much rather hear him doing Michelle Wolf as a Def Jam comic. They happen to be very close friends which makes it better.
I don’t know how much I agree with this. Certainly every comic has jokes or specials I find better than their other ones. Some comics are consistently funny, or sort-of funny (but thought provoking) for many decades. Others never appeal to me very much. This is true of both male and female comics. There are successful comics of both sexes that I never much liked (to be expected, not judging anyone for their preferences) and those who perform less, but I can’t think of many who were very witty but totally lost their wit. I still find Louis CK funny, for example.
Some of the newer comediennes mentioned don’t much appeal to me personally. Some of the older ones are slightly less funny than my idea of their best, but that doesn’t rule out becoming more funny later. A few have been consistently funny over long periods. This includes comics like (to pick a male example) Norm MacDonald, who I find extremely funny in many of his sets but also not particularly funny in other ones - he was consistent in this way since I saw him in 1991 but I still consider this “excellent” since good comedy often swings for the fences, usually meaning more strikeouts too.
Is Sarah Millican disqualified for being British? I find her consistently funny. If not, I’ll vote Wanda Sykes as well.
She definitely got a lot less funny around 6 months ago.
Thirding Tomlinson-- the freshest and funniest female standup working right now. her bits are very well-crafted.
I’m a fan of Nikki Glaser.
Tomlinson is okay. Glaser and Schlesinger are funnier, to me, though have been around longer.
Shes hosted KillTony twice in the past month. Her laughing on it is amazingly annoying.
I’m just here to add another vote for Tig Notaro.
She just announced two more Netflix specials.
She definitely funny, but I feel like her schtick is too much of “I’m a pretty girl who really likes sex so I’m going to shock you with my raunchiness”. It’s trite, in my opinion.
[quote=“Moriarty, post:74, topic:750374, full:true”]
That’s the trend since Amy Schumer got famous for being raunchy. Glazer and Schumer were in the same comedy crowd and both were openers for Jim Norton.
Another Norton opener is Kelsey Cook. She’s good and has expanded outside of just raunch. She has a very good podcast called Wrists of Fury where she interviews various comics and then destroys them at foosball. She is a World Champion foosball player. Yes there is such a thing. She often plays 2 verses 1.
I do not know Ms. Cook, most of my exposure is through comedy radio. I have heard a few Tomlinson routines which I found clever but not hilarious - maybe it wasn’t her best stuff. The most unique comedienne is definitely Maria Bamford. Some comediennes basically just do the same topics - battle of the sexes or light raunch, some for many years, so one might find them hackneyed. But so do comedians, Gaffigan talking about food, etc. is funny, but how many Hot Pocket jokes can one make? I don’t know which comic has the biggest range. Brian Regan?
Concur. That woman can do different voices like you wouldn’t believe.
Brian Regan is still the comic I hear the most other comics tip their hat to. Still 100% clean but his comedy does feel darker and more cynical now.
She has been one of my favorites. Certainly a unique point of view. I don’t find her more current stuff as funny as her older stuff.
A lot of the British acts haven’t broken the States, so they won’t have seen Millican, Angela Barnes, Rachel Parris, Zoe Lyons, Mae Martin, etc. At best they might know Miranda Hart from her film work and frankly I find her standup painful to watch. Oh and Gina Yashere, who now has a sitcom.
But the OP does specify “American”.
Love Maria Bamford, Amy Schumer. Really Ellen DeGeneres is one of the absolute best stand-ups I’ve ever seen. Man or woman. And I agree I always liked Garofalo. Plus, Rosie O’Donnell was great. . . before. . . I’m not sure what happened to her.
I also agree with those who never cared for Joan Rivers. I never got her act, frankly.