I inherited a classroom with Little Bill’s Super-Fine Valentine on the shelf, but decided I didn’t need to keep it.
Jimmy is very strange for me. I do find him funny, but I hate “dirty comics” in general. I don’t know why, but his entire act/persona somehow makes me laugh even though guys like Andrew Dice Clay and so forth make me less laugh(called “nonmedy”, I believe).
I also really like Jimmy on panel shows, where he genuinely shows he is quick witted and smart.
This has never been topped:
(Context - each member of the QI panel had been given a tray of random magnetic letters to make a sentence. Jimmy used all his letters and … just watch. SFW if not a cat person)
The late, great Sean Lock and Stewart Lee (he’s not dead) have to be in with a shout but the latter is absolutely an acquired taste. And Doug Stanhope of course. (Assume these are NSFW)
Yea, Mitch is one of my favorites.
Bob Nelson was a comedian in the 1980s whom I thought was also hilarious.
However it’s pretty clear he’s been given extra letters by Bill Bailey sitting next to him, as he doesn’t have as many.
Several of my favorites have already been mentioned multiple times. I’ll add in Louis CK. Despite his current pariah status, he was one of the funniest. I also love Craig Ferguson. Not a fan of the whole blue collar thing, but I saw Ron White in a local comedy club about 30 years ago, before he was famous, and I hurt myself laughing.
Craig Ferguson is an odd one. I loved his monologues on TV, especially since he more or less fought against the standard joke monologue the network expected.
His actual act on stage? I don’t find it all that great, to be honest. I’ve tried a couple specials and even watched his reality show that followed the development of his act. I don’t find him all that funny on stage.
I’ve read two of his book and seen the movie he directed as well. Books were OK, movie was a little less than OK.
Louis CK has his moments. Not an all-timer.
I think everything Stewart Lee did with Richard Herring was pure gold: Lionel Nimrod, Fist of Fun, Lee and Herring and particularly TMWRNJ and also the writing they did for On the Hour. I think as comedy duo their very different styles and personalties complemented each other well. Stewart Lee’s post-Herring stand-up stuf though is pretty mediorce. I know a lot of people like the layers of meta he wraps around the comedy, but for me at it’s heart it isn’t top tier comedy.
Lewis Black is my current favorite comedian.
fair enough, it may well be an acquired taste. He does ramp up the meta but for me his “Shilbottle” bit in “comedy vehicle” was a little bit of genius.
And I love the fact that in “succession” they referenced “moon on a stick”
Probably not an all timer, but trying to think of someone who hasn’t been mentioned, I dredged up the name David Brenner. Gotta search for his material. Maybe I was just young, but I thought him hysterical. But heck, I thought Steve Martin pretty much the height of comic gold at one time too.
I’d vote for Bill Cosby, Bob Newhart, and Richard Pryor. But I have some watching to do. Surprised at how many names in this thread I’ve never heard of.
I believe Vaughn Meader had the most impactful stand up routine. Anybody with vinyl probably still has one or two of his records. He was a national household name for six months.
He defintely is an acquired taste, it does get better the more you go down the rabbit hole, but at the same time I don’t think you could rank someone who is an acquired taste as among the best.
That poor guy. When he got up the morning of November 22nd,1963, he was on top of the world. By nightfall his career was over.
Just about every household in America had a copy of “The First Family.” We played it so much we knew the routines verbatim. I found a good, clean copy at a garage sale a few years ago, for just a buck. I took it home and played it. If you remember that era and can put the tragedy involved aside, it’s still pretty damn funny.
Where is @MortSahlFan ?
I’m sure he’d say Mort Sahl, who wasn’t the funniest in my opinion, but was one of the earliest to establish modern stand-up comedy.
I remember seeing him on Dick Cavett’s show. Cavett quickly got what Williams was doing, dropped into Conceptual Humor Mode, and kept up with him. The two riffed off each other, and I don’t think I’ve seen anything that sharp and cerebral and funny.
I saw George Carlin live. it was leagues above his TV Persona. I laughed so hard I had trouble breathing.
Wasn’t that i-view a two-parter, over two weeks? (pretty sure)
I’ve often told people that that was Williams at maybe his top form, and the fact that Cavett (who once “bored” Tony Randall, making the latter mockingly turn away from DC to William Safire) was able to more or less keep up with Williams was quite the testament to DC’s improvising abilities.
I was quite utterly blown away by those two shows.
Mom was the second person in the city to buy a video cassette recorder (Sony’s frst Betamax), and those i-views were one of the first things we taped. (along, of course, with SCTV, and Fernwood Tonight). 