Jack Benny.
His entire act was a few simple lines, babded together with perfrect comic timing.
No, Jack Benny reacted, not acted. Entirely different style of comedy.
That’s why Roy Blount doesn’t count either. Without the proper set-up he doesn’t have anything to say. That makes him a wit rather than a comic.
Milton Jones writes terrifically condensed material that doesn’t waste a single word. The linked clip is worth watching just for the ‘spiritual leader of Tibet’ joke.
Canadian Stewart Francis is building a strong reputation as the best one-liner comedian currently on the circuit.
Andy Kaufman got laughs just by standing there, expectantly, as the Mighty Mouse theme played, and then lip-synching to it. Hard to top that: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C570byQCLpI
Demetri Martin–“I wanna make a jigsaw puzzle that’s 40,000 pieces. And when you finish it, it says ‘go outside.’"
I was going to say him, too.
“Throwing acid is wrong…in some people’s eyes.”
Oh yes, he’s quite concise, and consistently hilarious. Saw him going through maybe 50 jokes he had on a clip board and I’ll be damned if every single one wasn’t funny, even (especially?) the rape- and molestation-related stuff.
George Burns — He asked Gracie a question, looked at his cigar for 10 minutes while pursing his lips and then said, “Say good night, Gracie.”
Now that is efficent use of your time.
I second the Mighty Mouse Theme Song by Andy Kaufman. Of course every other bit he did was very labor intensive.
Especially if you call wrestling attractive women labor.
In a different medium: Gary Larson
Jack Benny wins the prize for efficiency. He rarely had to say a word; it was all reaction. But his reaction was what made whatever the joke was so funny.
After Jack Benny, Bob Newhart easily.
You’re right; his stutters are right up there with Benny’s rolling eyes.
Came in hear to mention Jack Benny, who was a master at A Glance.
I’ll also vote for Michael O’Donoghue, founding writer/editor of National Lampoon, then carrying it on to the early Saturday Night Live as Head Writer. He was the anti-Jack Benny, light mood wise, but a master at honing dark humor to it’s bones.
His Mr. Mike character was eerily efficient, and novel for TV, in reducing comedy to the boundaries of “uh-oh, not funny territory”, yet making that dark side quite funny.
I was going to say Robin Williams. For him, all the physically stuff was second nature. It didn’t take any effort on his part.
In thinking about old SNL, gotta say Buck Henry, who had the same everyguy look as Jack Benny, and could play the dryly befuddled character as well. He wrote the screenplay for The Graduate, and created the TV series Get Smart, which was very different than other series of the era in dry wit, poking fun at Cold War politics.
He became a staple at early Saturday Night Live, kind of a good uncle to the blooming humor there. It was a tradition that he hosted the last show of the season. Buck Henry often gets overlooked because he was so efficient at his humor, which, like a good hardworking editor, gets forgotten with flashier types.
That’s who I wanted to mention.
In deed. Much of his humor, the phone call stuff, had humor not in what he was saying, but what you imagine the person on the other end of the phone line is saying.
I’ll chime in with a vote for Frankie Howerd.
Seconds for some here, including some of my favorite representative samples:
Mitch Hedberg: “I love tennis, but no matter how much I practice, I’ll never be as good as a wall.”
Emo Phillips: “People come up to me and say, ‘Emo, do people really come up to you?’”
Steven Wright: “You can’t have everything; where would you put it?”