Brian Regan
ron shock and george wallace who was the bernic mac of the 70s and 80s
Agreed on both counts. My other “not listed” are the late John Pinette, and Ron White.
Love Doug Stanhope, he has got some absurdly hilarious bits. His “Locked Up Abroad, Abroad Edition” is comedy gold. “Dear mother, I’m writing to you from paradise!” The “Any Given Sunday” bit is… well, I can’t do it justice trying to describe it. If you’ve heard it you know. If you haven’t heard it… well, I’m not going to link to it because it very likely violates a bunch of board rules about being NSFW.
I have also really been enjoying the comedy of Kelsey Cook. She’s also a professional foosball player and she has a Youtube series where she plays against other comedians and absolutely embarrasses them by doing things like playing blindfolded or with oven mitts on or etc.
Ari Schaffir’s special called JEW had me laughing the entire time.
He got my vote too.
Trevor Noah makes me laugh.
“I don’t know what taco is, I don’t know what taco be.”
“Why on earth would I want a napkin?”
Another vote for Doug Stanhope.
Also Stewart Lee.
I include Paula Poundstone. I’ve seen her live twice - she’s amazing with audience interaction. Plus she cracks me up on Wait Wait.
Chris Porter and Josh Blue
Great add, bonus points because he’s clean enough along with Gaffigan so my kids can watch. It’s harder to be funny rated PG, but the jokes can be better and normal everyday common occurrences have the strange feeling of being an untapped well for standup. If the standup is a man the majority of his set will be about his dick or how things relate to it, if the comedian is a woman the set will be about her vagina. Apparently no one has another organ.
Yeah, I mean he can be funny, but I also find Doug to be gratingly cynical in a way that George Carlin never quite was, even though both do the “grumpy angry cynical guy” thing.
Hot take: He’s past his prime. He was much funnier back in the 90’s and early 2000’s, but his last two specials have been a mixed bag at best.
Loved Brian Regan back in his “yellow one is the sun” days, but he isn’t as funny now.
No love for Bill Engvall? The rest of the Blue Collar group are getting mentioned.
John Pinette definitely.
Pam Stone was a hoot when I saw her back in the day.
I like Sebastian Maniscalco. His material is good, but his exaggerated voices and physical mannerisms are what makes him really entertaining.
Jeselnik is a true master.
Also not mentioned but hilarious: Gary Gulman. If you like smart comedy, Gary is your man.
While she is not in my top twenty, she does have one of the best standup jokes I’ve ever heard: “So yeah, I tried to kill myself. I decided to let the exhaust from my car suffocate me, just let me go peacefully… but, ya know, my apartment building has a really big parking garage…”
I loved Carpet Remnant World. On the other hand, Lee also does ‘sketches’ where he just makes stupid noises, a conceit which can wear a bit thin.
Agreed.
He definitely takes an idea too far from time to time, almost to see how much he can get away with, but when he’s good, he’s very good.
Here’s a little bit where he very nicely takes the piss out of his own act.
I saw Norm MacDonald’s stand up in person on a comedy tour and was blown away; I had no idea he was so funny. He was easily the funniest comic of the night.
I’d have also voted for James Acaster.
Nitpick: Rhod Gilbert. And Taylor Tomlinson.
I’ve never seen Rhod Gilbert’s standup; I’ve only ever seen him on panel shows like Never Mind The Buzzcocks, QI, and Would I Lie To You. But he’s generally fun to watch. I watched the whole series of Taskmaster he was in, and he was equal parts hilarious and terrifyingly sociopathic.
Don’t think Emo Philips has been mentioned yet. He was very funny back in the day. Master of the misdirection joke that takes a dark turn:
"My girlfriend was mad at me because I didn’t open the car door for her the other day…
…but I was too busy swimming to the surface."