Favourite Comedians
 

Who makes you laugh?

Seeing as some people are great at writing comedy but shit at stand-up (Ricky Gervais) and some are great as TV hosts but shit at stand-up (Bill Maher, Jonathan Ross), try and explain why.

Standups

Bill Hicks - The archetype of beauty and ugliness fused
Sean Lock - "The middle-class bloke on the building site" as he calls himself
Chris Rock - I dont know what its like being a black american, but hes way better than Obama.
Jerry Sadowitz - A Scottish Charles Manson with better card tricks than David Blaine and venom coming from both nostrils.

Writing

Ricky Gervais - The office is so good that when they made an American version it was still funny.
Stewart Lee - Who wrote Jerry Springer the opera, but mostly for Lee and Herring on British TV in the 1990s on which he was the principle.
Armando Iannuci/Chris Morris - Brass Eye, The Day Today. Everyone says how Chris Morris is a genius (rightly) but overlooks the subversively charming nature of Armando Iannuci. Check his "Time Trumpet" on youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U12aygMK1lc
Bill Maher - a great host who can be mad at Iraq and the Republicans yet make everybody laugh.

Bill Hicks
George Carlin
Richard Pryor
Sam Kinison
Steve Martin
Bill Cosby
Jerry Seinfeld
Dave Attell
David Cross
Brian Poshen
Patton Oswalt
Zach Galifianakis
Lewis Black
etc.........................

In no particular order.

I have Bob And Doug McKenzie's album, eh.

Mitch Hedberg.

There needn't be any others.

lewis black
george carlin
richard pryor

Awesome hoser. You have the vinyl version, right?

Mitch Hedberg and Doug Mckenzie:

what makes you laugh about these comedians; ive not heard of them myself but i'll be sure to go on a youtube quest at some point.

Mitch's surreal rambling. He's dead now. So it won't be hard to track down all his stuff.

Ive seen George Carlin on some TV shows, and i like him personally but dont find him particularly funny, and Richard Pryor is obviously an extraorinary figure but his actual standup doesnt do much for me - but that bit in the film where he's blind and goes "Im not black!!" was fantastic.

Demetri Martin
David O'Doherty
Arj Barker

Patrick Marber (excellent writer too)
Armando Iannucci
Chris Morris
Stewart Lee
Julia Davis
Richard Herring
Steve Coogan
Amelia Bullmore
Russell Brand
others

Don't like:
Simon Pegg, David Walliams, Matt Lucas, Ricky Gervais, Peter Kay, others.

stewart lee
richard herring
chris morris
steve coogan
richard pryor
adam bloom
tommy cooper
bernard manning
matt stone & trey parker
the people who wrote friends
joss whedon
steven wright
simon munnery
sarah silverman
jocelyn jee esien (although her new tv show is crap)
those mighty boosh cats
reeves & mortimer (rubbish now though)
rik mayal

Andy Kaufman

Neil Hamburger

ahaaaaaaaa the mighty boosh.

thereis only one- Bill Hicks

then a few in the background

lenny bruce
steve hughes

chris morris
armando ianucci
charlie brooker
bill hicks
dave chappell
steve coogan
the usual people that everyone knows

dennis miller is a funny motherfucker.

i think bill hicks is over rated

good for you.

steeve coogan strikes me as a bit of a cunt but he was funny in 24 hr party people in kind of an unfortunate way

ricky gervais
andy kaufman
chris lilly
the crew from the mighty boosh
the crew from curb your enthuthu

not really, people never shut up about him even though he's dead. he's the kurt cobain of comedy.

that right there is the absolute truth.

i thought you where the kurt cobain of comedy.

"The Kurt Cobain of Comedy", not even going to dignify that one.

edit: if we're going to compare a comedien to a dead musician (now this will be unpopular!!!) lets at least make it a good one like Chopin, or Eric Dolphy not a 4 chord pop star.

Bill Hicks to me is like the sort of comedian who's liked by straight while males into things like High Fidelity (the movie), Pulp Fiction (the movie), Bruce Lee (the actor), or Mohammed Ali ( the boxer). He's the lads magazines' comedian of choice. I prefer Lenny Bruce (kind of).


Shameless is not really comedy but it has it all: drama, violence, humour, disfunctional families, alcoholism.

Big call,

I'm not gonna pay it though, maybe that is the case in America, but he is barely known in Australia.

I find Lenny Bruce's skit type stuff incredibly boring I have to say. I would rather listen to derek and clive than lenny bruce. even though i pt bruce on the list.

thats the sort of response i expect from an immigrant.

That's the sort of response you'd get from Peter Kay. :)

Hans Teeuwen is fucking priceless!!
Richard Pryor is funny as hell too, and Chris Rock makes me laugh.
Good call on Rik Mayal Toilets & bowels.

Youre startlingly incorrect about Bill Hicks there, i cant even see where youre coming from.

I do love Shameless, last series was a bit iffy but this one seems to be back to its surreal best.
I also second Steve Coogan which a couple of people have said, i remember having a Paul and Pauline Calf video when i was about 12 for some reason.

Jerry Springer The Opera was co-written with Richard Thomas, who, while being a musician, happens to have contributed greatly to how funny that show was.
He also played in a glitchcore thing called Hairy Butter that were truly awful and I'm sure he is still ashamed of that. When I first heard of Lee's involvement in ''Jerry Springer The Opera ''I thought that it was an unnecessary target to choose, until I watched it and enjoyed it a lot. I still have a ''crack whore'' badge.

I was generalising from the perception of his public that I have, not saying that Bill Hicks isn't, sometimes, quite funny.

a chick with a dick
chick with a diiiick
chick with a diiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick

I wish id gone to see that, when i saw it on DVD the whole experience was somewhat overwhelming to the ears.

I've watched it so many times because it was here at work and never failed to enjoy it. It's not so much what they sing, but how they sing it and at which speed that gives it that special something. The actors in it were all a bunch of pricks, mind.

lest we forget, this is a rock music board.... there's no need to be snooty

anyway, there are loads of parallels between hicks and cobain, they are both "alternative", they both took pleasure in riling red necks, they're both dead, they're both more popular than they would be if they were still alive... etc

Bill Cosby
Richard Pryor
Mitch Hedberg
Chris Rock
George Carlin
EDDIE IZZARD

Good call, Rob.

his stonehenge bit in Dressed To Kill blows me away every time.
"100 miles? I don't even know where I live anymore!"