Don’t forget Armando Ianucci!
Surprised nobody has mentioned Jackie Gleason. He’s way up there for me.
One cannot mention Mark Twain with mentioned his Yiddish counterpart Shalem Aleichem. There’s a story that when they were introduced the following dialogue accured:
Aleichem: People call me the Yiddish Mark Twain.
Twain: People call me the English Sholem Alecihem.
This thread also demonstrates why there will never be World Peace. We can’t even agree on what’s funny - how are we ever going to agree on the little shit, like nuclear weapons? I’ll bet that most of us, while reading this thread, kept saying to ourselves “He thinks X is funny? No accounting for taste, I guess.” Some of the names listed by others I consider to be Anti-Funny.
The Earth is doomed.
No one mentioned Ernie Kovacs?
And from Britain, Alexei Sayle.
I tend to prefer British comedy; must have been because of living in Canada during the heyday of Monty Python, and being introduced to Stanley Holloway at a very young age. On TV we were able to get stuff like Not the Nine O’Clock News and Spitting Image as well as all of those great British shows in the late 60s and early 70s: Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em, Man About the House (which was much funnier than Three’s Company, IMHO), The Goodies, On the Buses, etc.
It’s not that I wasn’t exposed to American comedy (my dad absolutely loved The Three Stooges and my mom told me how she howled when she heard George Carlin’s Class Clown – which made me go out and buy it, and I heard all the biggies over time), but I always found British comedy to be deeper and more multi-levelled whereas American comedy was so obvious.
I was thinking of parts like Rabbi Tuchman and Gov. Lepetomaine when I wrote this, but I didn’t think of The 2,000-Year-Old Man. That was a pretty stupid oversight.
Two people mentioned him on page one, but other than that, no.
Demetri Martin? Sounds like the stuff I’ve heard about him.
Another vote for Mitch Hedberg and Ron White for current comedians. I’ll throw in Elvira Kurt too.
As for all time, I can’t think of anyone that hasn’t been mentioned yet, so I’ll jump on the Monty Python and Buster Keaton bandwagons.
Any such discussion has to include Jack Benny. A true legend.
Top 5 funniest folks ever:
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Steve Martin
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Me
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Candy Billips
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Michael Palin
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Hawkeye Pierce
Allow me to be the first to submit Louis CK…
Seconded. Very good call!
Some overlooked names in the All-Time Department…
Moliere
Will Rogers
E.C Segar
Walt Kelly
Peter Sellers
Jim Henson
Bill Watterson