I was listening to some of my comedy cds today and started wondering something. See, I love comedians that are storytellers. Things like Richard Pryor’s Mudbone routine, Eddie Murphy’s family cookout, Bill Cosby’s tales about his children, or George Burns tales in the 70’s. These are all decades old though.
So, who are the current comedians that do funny tales rather than just a string of punchlines?
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This thread definitely doesn’t belong in GQ. Let’s see, is it Cafe Society or IMHO? Hmmm. I’m going with IMHO, since we’re looking for opinions.
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I’m not a big fan of hers but Kathy Griffin’s style of comedy is to tell stories vs. jokes.
John Hodgman, at his more coherent, can be a pretty funny storyteller.
In the mainstream, Bill Engvall and Ron White do quite a bit of storytelling in their acts. You may recall Ron has a rather famous one that starts, “I got thrown out of a bar in New York City…” The other Blue Collar Comedy Tour members, not so much.
Patton Oswalt is one of my two favorite comics, and many of his routines are stories, like “Shopping for a House” and “The Angry Magician”. The language in those is quite NSFW, by the way.
Out of the mainstream, I hear Jeanne Robertson on the radio a lot these days. She has a really long and quite funny routine about a rafting trip she took with her husband and friends on the Colorado River. Apart from that, most of her humor is in story form, mostly about her husband, who she calls “Left Brain”.
Oh, one more: here’s a great bit I first heard a few months ago, John Mulaney’s “The Best Meal I Ever Had”.
Not outright gut-busting funny, but Garrison Keillor.
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Since we’re talking, for the most part, about entertainers of one sort or another, it does seem to be Cafe Society material. The fact that authors are likely to be added to the discussion makes this seem even more appropriate.
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Is she the one that did an hour-long show mostly about her family’s experiences with her brother’s cancer? If so, I thought that was very enjoyable, if surprisingly so.
The one when she sent him shopping is one of my favorites.
I think Louis CK counts- his stories about his kids are hilarious, particularly the hide-and-seek bit a couple of minutes into this (again, NSFW):
Kevin Smith (his Smodcasts, and “Evening With…” DVDs are great examples of how a Q&A+A penchant for telling stories can be all you need to get by and entertain the crowd).
Christopher Titus’s stand up is also a great example of Storytelling Comedians.
Billy Connolly. I’d say he’s more of a storyteller than a comedian, actually. I saw him perform a few years ago, and he’s led a fascinating life. He grew up in a poor part of Glasgow, was a folk musician in the late 60s and early 70s, and then became a famous comedian and actor. Here’s a story I saw him tell.
I also suggest Craig Ferguson, although calling him a storyteller makes him sound more organized than he really is. He’s a great rambler. I’m looking forward to seeing him in person next month.
Mike Birbiglia. His show is basically an hour and a half of telling one story - but with numerous tangents and side tales. His “Sleepwalk With Me” Tour eventually evolved into an off-broadway one man show.
I wonder if there are any great raconteurs still with us – not just comedians per se. I think Peter Ustinov was supposed to be one of the greats; Quentin Crisp maybe as well.
Bill Cosby’s definitely the champion of this form of comedy, not only with his stories about his kids, but his stories about his own childhood (“Fat Albert,” “The Chicken Heart,” “My Brother Russell, Whom I Slept With,” et al).
Yes. The funniest of Keillor’s “News from Lake Wobegon” routines stand up against the works of other great storyteller comedians.
The Jay Leno of the Tonight Show is not a storyteller comedian, and I’m not really a fan of his anyway, so I was pleasantly surprised when I listened to the (abridged) audio version of his memoir Leading With My Chin and discovered that I liked Jay’s Raconteur side.
Possibly Julia Sweeney (creator of the androgynous Pat)? Her brother Michael had cancer.
A couple of storytellers that come to mind from the music world are Ray Davies and Pete Townshend.
Spalding Gray was a fantastic story teller.
Probably. She has three long monologue/stories on CD and she’s an entertaining storyteller:
“God Said, Ha!” about her brother’s cancer and her own.
“In the Family Way” about her adopting a child.
“Letting Go of God” about her becoming an athiest.
It was Sweeney, in God Said Ha!. Great show.