Chud's Best Comedians of ALL TIME List - Page 2

Jonathan Winters. Bottled insanity, genius on wheels.

Absolutley. Give him a shot. Live, if you can. You won't be disappointed.

The Maxim list didn't have any set parameters, so I took the same approach with this one. Sure, he may not be a legend who's been performing since the 70's like some of the names on this list, and he may not have the same kind of name recognition or influence on the genre (yet). But if David Cross is on the list, then it's a pretty open field. And of the comedians performing today, Patton Oswalt is hands-down one of the absolute best.

I also highly recommend Zach's live DVD, which was released on Netflix last week. Pretty outstanding.

Just to update the list:

Steven Wright
Richard Pryor
Red Foxx
Bill Hicks
George Carlin
Bill Cosby
Eddie Murphy
Eddie Izzard
Steve Martin
Mitch Hedberg
Louis C.K.
Larry Miller
Brian Regan
Woody Allen
David Cross
Chris Rock
Patton Oswalt
Jonathan Winters

Regan is hilarious and deserves to be on this list. Hedberg as well. Both have had a great impact on the comedians working right now. And both were/are great live.

The family vaudeville phenomena known as the The Aristocrats

Gilbert Gottfried confirms that this amazing family troupe reached All-Time Great status mainly due to the Long-shoreman, Popeye arms of the talented patriarch of the family...

According to Walken (as told by Kevin Pollack), the vaudeville act "The Aristocrats" achieved such greatness "that Gallagher... that putz... would wish... this sorta thing was possible from a watermelon... forget it."

Shut Up You Fucking Baby is unbelelivable. I don't know how much truth there is to Cross's insistance that he doesn't write bits and he makes it up as he goes, but man, is that guy funny and smart at the same time. And if he really is making stuff up as he goes, that's fucking amazing.

I've said this before, but few things have made me laugh harder than the last bit on that album, following the reading from Promise Keepers with "You know what I hate....?"

Some great guys on this list. Some I don't really know, some I know quite well. I'll post more thoughts later. But I think this is becoming a fun thread.

Oh, my argument was for the shitting/puking/f**king family act.

I hadn't heard that he didn't write bits, but you can see on the "Let America Laugh" dvd that he uses the same material in his shows. He may change parts of it, but he's still got a sort of core skeleton that he hangs them on. He definitely isn't just making it up as he goes. If he says he doesn't write it, maybe he just means he doesn't have a script, just stories he likes to use? I don't know, that's hard to justify.

Just to update the list:

Steven Wright
Richard Pryor
Red Foxx
Bill Hicks
George Carlin
Bill Cosby
Eddie Murphy
Eddie Izzard
Steve Martin
Mitch Hedberg
Louis C.K.
Andrew Dice Clay
Larry Miller
Brian Regan
Woody Allen
David Cross
Chris Rock
Patton Oswalt
Jonathan Winters

My favorite comedian of all time. I'm not sure if he should be on this list, just because when I think "great", I think influence is a big factor, and I'm not sure I see his, except in maybe Chris Rock.

Still, he was remarkable there for a while. I saw an interview with him maybe 6-8 months ago where even he seemed to have realized that he'd jumped the shark. He kept directing the interview towards his more liberal social beliefs, rather than focusing on his usual, "rah-rah" Bush material.

Since there seems to be plenty of contention over who belong on the list (which was inevitable), maybe we should consider doing a knockout once it's done.

Not another knockout, those suck and are a waste of bandwith. What about something similar to the "Kill List" CHUD did where once we hist a set number of comedians (75? 50? 100?) each person gets one chance per day to eliminate one from the list until we reach a different set number, like 10 or 25. They have to offer their reasons why, though, which fosters discussion, unlike the Knockout, which is just posting numbers.

The Smothers Brothers.

They spent more of their time singing dull folk songs than I would like, but when they went for the straight comedy, they were great. And when they mixed the two, they could be brilliant. They were also early entries in the lineup of stand-up comics who tackled issues of race and intolerance. Their TV variety show was a lightning rod for controversy for giving voice to the counter-culture. If you can't laugh at "Cabbage" or "Controversial Material", you don't know funny.

THE LIST:

Steven Wright
Richard Pryor
Red Foxx
Bill Hicks
George Carlin
Bill Cosby
Eddie Murphy
Eddie Izzard
Steve Martin
Mitch Hedberg
Louis C.K.
Andrew Dice Clay
Larry Miller
Brian Regan
Woody Allen
David Cross
Chris Rock
Patton Oswalt
Jonathan Winters
The Smothers Brothers

Good call.

I agree that Gilbert Gottfried is brilliant ... I think a lot of his detractors simply can't get past his voice.

Patton Oswalt is horrible. Doug Stanhope is phenomenal. Agree on the Dennis Miller before the collapse sentiment. he was so damn good. You folks ought to check Jim Short out too.

I've always wondered if Gottfried's voice actually is that shrill, or if he's like John Ratzenberger where it's a total put on and he has a different voice in private.

I think Gottfried does his regular voice, only turned up to 11 for maximum irritation.

I also think both Patton Oswalt AND Doug Stanhope are phenomenal . . . why is Patton "horrible"?

Regan is legit, the only reason people have reservations about him is that his material isn't "important" enough but we are talking comedy here and as far as making people laugh Regan at least as good as most people on the list. If anyone doubts this check out his special or audio from the 90s when he started doing his "you too" bit. Fuck the pretentious comedy anyway, George Carlin isn't even telling jokes at this point.

How has nobody added:

Dave Chappelle, maybe the best comedian of all time. This was clear from his standup before his cc show and all the retarded 'rick james bitch' followers.

Pardon me if I take your insights on stand-up comedy with a grain of salt:

http://www.chud.com/index.php?type=interviews&id=3803

THE LIST:

Steven Wright
Richard Pryor
Red Foxx
Bill Hicks
George Carlin
Bill Cosby
Eddie Murphy
Eddie Izzard
Steve Martin
Mitch Hedberg
Louis C.K.
Andrew Dice Clay
Larry Miller
Brian Regan
Woody Allen
David Cross
Chris Rock
Patton Oswalt
Jonathan Winters
The Smothers Brothers
Dave Chappelle

Hey Nick, just wait until you see Burgasm.

Aren't we forgetting Lenny Bruce? Didn't you put him on there, Mangy (thus preventing me from adding him to the list)?

If not, I'll add him right now, for all the reasons you stated earlier (except the part about him being unfunny).

Yeah, I bought Retaliation, Shut Up You Fucking Baby, Lewis Black's Rules of Enragement, and Hedberg's Strategic Grill Locations on the same day. The Cook and the Hedberg were based on the reccomendations of CHUD and I didn't like either of them very much. The Cook just got annoying, fast, and the Hedberg was funny the one time I managed to listen to it all the way through, when I was drunk. I haven't listened to the Lewis Black much, either, but I think the guy's great (not his best work, though). And I already gushed about the Cross.

Anyway, I want to tell my Chris Rock story real fast: Rock, for me, will always be about the 'Bigger and Blacker' HBO special. When that special came out -- I think it was less than a year after Columbine -- I was in high school, and making jokes about that kind of thing was anathema. Hearing Rock absolutely kill with his "Whatever happened to CRAZY?!" opener to that special was the first time I rememember being both shocked and on the floor with laughter at the same time. I couldn't believe he was getting away with that, and I thought it was absolutely fearless. That's why I think Rock's great.

Hey, yeah, I did ... sorry about that. Add away, Mr. O.

Re: Bruce . . . the only performance I've seen of his is The Lenny Bruce Performance Film (is that the correct name?), which was at the tail end of his career, when he was reading his court transcripts. I also have the book How to Talk Dirty and Influence People, which I enjoy.

EDIT: I like Strategic Grill Locations more with each passing day . . . I think the Steven Wright-iness of Hedberg's material, combined with all of that "Comedy's Kurt Cobain" martyrdom nonsense after he died, soured me on him somewhat. Looking past that crap, I enjoy Hedberg much more nowadays. I'm still not sure he's an all-timer, but that' s just my opinion. His influence is certainly obvious: Go to any open mike comedy night, and you're bound to hear some of his material.

Dane Cook is awesome if you hate jokes.

SGL was actually stolen from me by a Hedberg-obsessed housemate a month or so after I bought it. He also made off with my "From Dusk Till Dawn" special edition DVD. Fucker.

Lewis Black.

He's wicked. That's all I can say. Listening to his albums is one thing but seeing him perform is something else.


THE LIST:

Steven Wright
Richard Pryor
Red Foxx
Bill Hicks
George Carlin
Bill Cosby
Eddie Murphy
Eddie Izzard
Steve Martin
Mitch Hedberg
Louis C.K.
Andrew Dice Clay
Larry Miller
Brian Regan
Woody Allen
David Cross
Chris Rock
Patton Oswalt
Jonathan Winters
The Smothers Brothers
Dave Chappelle
Lewis Black

Aw, man, Black's great. His "Nothing Sacred" is one of the better "stand-up comedian/autobiography" books out there.

We need some broads on this list. I don't know too much about Merrill Markoe, but I do know nobody on the Aristocrats DVD made me laugh harder.

Updated to add Bruce:

THE LIST:

Steven Wright
Richard Pryor
Red Foxx
Bill Hicks
George Carlin
Bill Cosby
Lenny Bruce
Eddie Murphy
Eddie Izzard
Steve Martin
Mitch Hedberg
Louis C.K.
Andrew Dice Clay
Larry Miller
Brian Regan
Woody Allen
David Cross
Chris Rock
Patton Oswalt
Jonathan Winters
The Smothers Brothers
Dave Chappelle
Lewis Black

I don't call Dane Cook's act standup, I call it vertical adventures.

Broad-wise, I can think of women that make me laugh (Bamford, Kightlinger, the overrated-but-still-funny Sarah Silverman), but I'm not sure how many are all-timers . . . Maybe Joan Rivers? She may be a plastic gargoyle now, but she's also one of the rare comediennes that has had a decades-spanning, fruitful career.

I haven't seen a lot of Chappelle's stand-up, save the bit where he talks about having fried chicken ordered for him in the Deep South. I loved the first two seasons of "Chappelle's Show," though -- that second season, catchphrases aside, is still gut-bustingly memorable. (My personal favorite phrase is one that never caught on, when he tells his younger son "Gonna go tell your mama that I cussed? Cussed! In the house?") Any reccomendations as to where I should start with his albums?

Killing Them Softly. Check it out immediately, might be the best one you've ever heard. Jon Banks, have you heard killing them softly, or any of chappelle's standup?

a little bit off youtube...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7F50...elated&search=

I've seen him 3 times, and you're right, my face gets sore from laughing so much. His stuff is funny when you don't see him, but when you're looking at him when he's making the joke, it's even funnier because of the faces he makes. "Cup o' dirt" always cracks me up.

I understand what you mean, and I'm not being facetious . . . it's that same form of surreal, right-angle, one-liner style, often featuring a play on words . . . Demetri Martin seems to have picked up that torch lately.

Rath, I honestly don't know of any Chappelle CDs, but he has 2 stand-up DVDs, Killing Them Softly and For What It's Worth. The hard part about individual stand-up shows is that they don't fully illustrate how prolifically brilliant a comic is . . . Chappelle is always creating, and could do 2 to 3 hours of stand-up at the drop of a hat, which is nuts.

Just look at Hicks' catalog . . . he's almost the Tupac of stand-up, with new CDs and DVDs of material continuing to be released.

One good thing to come out of this is a really strong underground comedy scene. Anybody in New York or LA has to check out the UCB theater - there are some great shows and comics performing on an almost nightly basis.

For other great comedy exposure, I'd recommend checking out www.aspecialthing.com. Be warned that comedy nerds are as bad as movie nerds, but that site has led me to some really amazing comedy, both live and otherwise.

Found this on Google Video- check it out before it's gone. I was just dying from the Heartburn bit...

Jonathan Banks- if you can watch that and tell me it's not funny- well.... I guess we have very different ideas of humor. Not that there's anything wrong with that...

Chappelle comes up with jokes that only he could come up with from angles that people have not considered until he says them. If you didn't know who Richard Pryor was or who Chappelle was and you heard them both right now Chappelle would be easily funnier. But Pryor was as funny for his time, and it is popular to say Pryor is an all time great. But Chappelle is easily an all time great standup whether it is popular to mention right now or not. There is too much pr in people minds to objectively and originally view things a lot of times I think.

That whole Regan DVD is great . . . the title bit cracks me up as well. (The DVD has no extras, though, which blows.)

It seems that, now more than ever, people are using stand-up as a quick way to get performance experience and get recognized, so that they can springboard to a film and television career . . . If you look at the names on the list so far, nearly all of them, save for Allen and Murphy, are pretty much stand-up first.

I did that before Retaliation and Cook's descent into BAD.

Dane Cook's enthusiasm & delivery made me laugh on a class-clown "look at that guy" kinda way. So I was impressed by his initial Comedy Central special and 1st album (I could listen to those same "jokes"), mainly due to his performance style. But like Ace Ventura 2, I feel that he relies on that caricature he created too much and the over-the-top devilish fratboy (he doesn't have Vince Vaugn's wit) gets old. When you realize that's his whole schtick, I can see how people can fall off the bandwagon. Not to mention the joke-stealing allegations. But I can sure commiserate with him as I am the goofball in my circle of friends that'll resort to all brands of comedy for a laugh (verbal or physical). If only my wife didn't get pissed at me for stealing her "under the breath" one-liners and showing my ass as much as I have in the past.

What I dig about Stephen Wright & Mitch Hedburg (despite similar delivery styles) is that I can read their jokes in print and still laugh my ass off because of how clever they are. When delivery/timing/performance is a moot point, you have to admire the writing ability behind the material.

You mean right after Retaliation... Not picking a fight. I was a big fan as well.

Nick Nunziata: I’ve listened to the new CD pretty nonstop for the past two days and at first I wasn’t sure if I’d like it as much as the first one but now it’s not even close. I’m floored by it. Congrats on making a truly great comedy album.

EDIT: Why do we feel the need to defend our growing/evolving tastes in comedy anyway? Different things at different times in my life have been funny to me. I thought that nut-shots on Amer Funniest HV were hilarious when I was 10. Who cares? Cook's infectious enthusiasm and relatable look at childish/nostalgiac memories (Slip & Slides, etc.) are what really appealed to me from the start.

I was never a Dane Cook fan, although he never really registered with me . . . I remember his first Comedy Central vaguely. It was okay, I guess, but I didn't remember any of it, other than he sure could jump, and he seemed to have a good stage presence.

When Retaliation debuted in the Billboard Top 5, I was stunned ("Wait . . . the dude that jumped around on Kimmel's couch after the Cruise thing?"), and made a note to join MySpace immediately.

"The football . . . the groin . . . it speaks on so many levels!"

No arguing that tastes evolve, as they should . . . I used to worship Carlin, and had the pleasure of seeing him live in Nashville (my ticket number was K-9, oddly enough). At some point in the last 2-3 years, though, his comedy has become badly dated for me, and I can't even explain why. EDIT: That said, I don't think there's any doubt he belongs on the all-time list.

That said, I must insist on using Nick's opening line of that column as my signature, at least for a day or two.