There’s my answer right there. I’ve seen him the last couple of times he’s been to the Bay Area and enjoyed myself immensely.
Bill Hicks
Mitch Hedburg
Steven Wright
It really depends on what metric by which I am measuring.
Albums I listen to frequently:
Bring the Pain (Rock)
Very Best of Bob Newhart
I’m telling you for the last time (Seinfeld)
In Other Words (Madigan)
Rules of Enragement (Lewis Black)
Richard Pryor Live in Concert
It’s not funny (Cross)
Any number of Carlin
Any Number of Patton Oswalt
To answer the original question, I’d probably give the nod to Patton. His style of comedy is more up my alley. I have many favorites, however.
No love for Eddie Murphy, I guess. His early material was sidesplitting, and his Delirious video ranks as one of the funniest routines ever.
Jervais is pretty funny: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4toj3w
I can’t believe I forgot to mention Jerry Clower. He’s another comic I could watch with my mother, and possibly the funniest I ever heard. Great story teller.
Not Eric Andre’s regular stand-up, his tv show stand-up.
Rupert Pupkin
My parents’ old Bob Newhart albums.
ETA: radio greats Bob and Ray.
Neil Hamburger and other comics like that (Ted Norkey comes to mind), the “gimmick comics,” or "comic’s comic,"are great. Especially if you’re one of the few who “get it.” In Norkey’s case, he was presenting himself as a horrible stand-up. If you didn’t know it was an act, you generally didn’t enjoy it. Norm MacDonald is good at this, too.
It’s kinda like when Andy Kaufman came along. If you were in on the joke, it was hysterical.
“Shoot on up in here! One of us has got to have some relief!”
I knew MacDonald was playing a character. So what? The character wasn’t funny to the audience.
Richard Pryor
Doug Stanhope
Stewart Lee
As an 80s high schooler I thought he stuff was the best. Oh boy has it not aged well.
The best stand up I’ve seen personally was Bill Cosby right before his Tv show came on the air. I was a teenager and I never knew I could laugh so hard.
A few that I’ve seen live that were incredible.
Jim Breuer- great story teller
Dave Attell- the one comic other comics will all say they admire
Christopher Titus- one of the few comics that can have a tight cohesive new 60-90 minutes every year.
Bert Kreischer- great story teller, great guy to meet
Robert Kelly- tight funny set
Apologies if I was unclear, but I meant “you” in a general, all-encompassing way. I wasn’t trying to say anything about you personally.
Demetri Martin is great. And no one yet has mentioned Dave Chappelle, who deserves to be mentioned. Early Jim Carrey standup is pretty good, too.
I understood that. I also understood that you were saying that those in on the joke would think it was funny. That’s not as true as you implied. Lots of “us” were in on the joke and still hated it.
The same was true for Andy Kaufman. By the end, most people were aware it was all an act. Even so, an act that parodies humor without being funny itself is probably not funny to anyone except those looking at it from a meta-level. And they may not be laughing.
I grew up watching Ed Sullivan, who had all the old-time comics like Rodney Dangerfield, Totie Fields, Phyllis Diller, Jackie Mason, etc. Most of it was pretty lame. Then young Bill Cosby burst on the scene with his “Right” album and changed my view of comedy forever. I knew his routines by heart and could even do his voice, to the endless amusement of my friends. Bought every album of his that came out and loved his TV shows. A real shame that he turned out to be an asshole.
I almost hate to say this but… in his prime, Bill Cosby was probably my favorite standup ever.
In fact, EVEN YEARS AFTER HIS PRIME, HE COULD STILL BE AN AWESOME STANDUP.
That’s stand-up?
I may get beat up form this, but I loved Gallagher back in the 80’s The Sledge O Matic stuff was unnecessary, but his actual jokes and observations were great.
For more modern, I’d go with Louis CK, Mitch Hedberg and Trevor Noah.