Everyone loves to laugh! Who doesn’t? So this week we dive into the top 10 stand-up comedians list! We talk about who we like and were we would put them from 10 to 1! Join us and have a chuckle as we why we put some of the funniest people that stand in front of crowds and tell us like it is!
Keith – Andrew “Dice” Clay
Andrew Dice Clay (born Andrew Clay Silverstein; September 29, 1957) is an American comedian and actor. He played the lead role in the 1990 film The Adventures of Ford Fairlane.
In 1990 he became the first comedian to sell out Madison Square Garden two nights in a row. Clay has been in several movies and has released a number of stand-up comedy albums. He is currently focused on acting and putting aside his stand-up.
In 1978, he auditioned at Pips, a local comedy club in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, doing comedic impressions, then headlined there the following week as “Andrew Clay.” His act at the time included an impression of John Travolta in Grease and Jerry Lewis as The Nutty Professor. He did a character called “the dice man” that was wildly popular that was based on Buddy Love. Clay eventually became this character full-time in his act. Clay graduated to the major Manhattan comedy clubs, including Budd Friedman’s The Improv, Catch a Rising Star and Dangerfield’s. His move to Los Angeles came in 1980. He was “adopted” there by Mitzi Shore, owner of the famed Comedy Store. His work at the Store led to sitcom appearances on “M*A*S*H” and “Diff’rent Strokes”. He later landed roles in movies such as Making the Grade (1984), Pretty in Pink (1986) and Casual Sex? (1988).
He had a regular role on “Crime Story” from 1986 to 1988. He eventually turned from acting to pursue a career in stand-up comedy, focusing on the character “Dice” from Making the Grade. His big break came in 1988 when he did a seven-minute set at Dangerfield’s during the Rodney Dangerfield special “Nothing Goes Right.” It was there that he met his agent Dennis Arfa, which led to his first HBO special, and ultimately his starring role in the 1990 film The Adventures of Ford Fairlane.
David – Lenny Bruce
Leonard Alfred Schneider (October 13, 1925 – August 3, 1966), better known by his stage name Lenny Bruce, was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, satirist, and screenwriter. He was renowned for his open, free-style and critical form of comedy which integrated satire, politics, religion, sex, and vulgarity. His 1964 conviction in an obscenity trial was followed by a posthumous pardon, the first in New York State history, by then-Governor George Pataki in 2003. He paved the way for future outspoken counterculture-era comedians, and his trial for obscenity is seen as a landmark for freedom of speech in the United States
Keith – Rodney Dangerfield
Rodney Dangerfield (born Jacob Rodney Cohen, November 22, 1921 – October 5, 2004) was an American stand-up comedian and actor, known for the catchphrase “I don’t get no respect!” and his monologues on that theme. He is also remembered for his 1980s film roles, especially in Easy Money, Caddyshack, and Back to School.
Though his acting career had begun much earlier in obscure movies like The Projectionist (1971), Dangerfield’s career peaked during the early 1980s, when he began acting in hit comedy movies.
One of Dangerfield’s more memorable performances was in the 1980 golf comedy Caddyshack, in which he played a nouveau riche developer who was a guest at a golf club and began shaking up the establishment of the club’s old guard. His role was initially smaller, but because he, Chevy Chase, and especially Bill Murray (who also appeared in the movie) were so deft at improvisation, their roles were greatly expanded, much to the chagrin of some of their castmates. His appearance in Caddyshack led to starring roles in Easy Money and Back To School.
Throughout the 1970’s and 1980s, Dangerfield also appeared in a series of commercials for Miller Lite beer, as one of the “Miller Lite Gang.” They were a group of various celebrities and ex-professional athletes. One ad was when they were holding a bowling match whose score became tied. After a bearded Ben Davidson told Rodney, “All we need is one pin, Rodney”, Dangerfield’s ball went down the alley and bounced perpendicularly off the head pin, landing in the gutter without knocking down any of the pins.
David – Brian Regan
Brian Joseph Regan ( born October 2, 1957) is an American stand-up comedian who uses observational, sarcastic, and self-deprecating humor. His performances are relatively clean as he refrains from profanity and off-color humor. Regan’s material typically covers everyday events, such as shipping a package with UPS and a visit to an optometrist. Regan makes frequent references to childhood, including little league baseball, grade school spelling bees, and science projects. Body language and facial expressions make his stand-up act atypically physical. His clean, off-center humor has been praised by critics and contemporaries alike and Regan enjoys a fan base that crosses age groups; he is respected in the comedy community as a “comedian’s comedian”.
Regan was born in Miami, Florida, and was raised in Westchester, Florida, with seven brothers and sisters. He attended Christopher Columbus High School. He is of Irish descent. Regan was always a fan of Steve Martin, The Smothers Brothers and Johnny Carson. Though he attended Heidelberg College in Ohio with plans of being an accountant, a football coach there encouraged him to consider theater and communications. He played wide receiver on the football team at Heidelberg. During his last semester in 1980, Regan dropped out of school to pursue stand-up comedy (he eventually finished his degree in 1997). Brian’s brother, Dennis Regan, also makes his living as a stand up comedian.
Keith – Roseanne Barr
Roseanne Cherrie Barr (born November 3, 1952) is an American actress, comedian, writer, television producer, director, and 2012 presidential nominee of the California-based Peace and Freedom Party. Barr began her career in stand-up comedy at clubs before gaining fame for her role in the sitcom Roseanne. The show was a hit and lasted nine seasons, from 1988 to 1997. She won both an Emmy and a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress for her work on the show. Barr had crafted a “fierce working-class domestic goddess” persona in the eight years preceding her sitcom and wanted to do a realistic show about a strong mother who was not a victim of patriarchal consumerism.
The granddaughter of immigrants from Europe and Russia, Barr was the oldest of four children in a working-class Jewish Salt Lake City family; she was also active in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). In 1974, she married Bill Pentland, with whom she had three children, before divorcing in 1990 and marrying comedian Tom Arnold for four years. Controversy arose when she sang “The Star-Spangled Banner” off-key at a 1990 nationally aired baseball game, followed by grabbing her crotch and spitting.
After her sitcom ended, she launched her own talk show, “The Roseanne Show”, which aired from 1998 to 2000. In 2005, she returned to stand-up comedy with a world tour. In 2011, she starred in an unscripted TV show, “Roseanne’s Nuts”, that lasted from July to September of that year, about her life on a Hawaiian farm.
In early 2012, Barr announced her candidacy for the presidential nomination of the Green Party. Barr lost the nomination to Jill Stein She then sought the presidential nomination of the Peace and Freedom Party, which she won on August 4, 2012. Barr received 61,971 votes in the general election, placing sixth overall.
David – Chris Rock
Christopher Julius “Chris” Rock III (born February 7, 1965) is an American actor, comedian, voice artist, director, writer, and producer.
After working as a standup comic and appearing in small film roles, Rock came to wider prominence as a cast member of Saturday Night Live in the early 1990s. He went on to more prominent film appearances, with roles in Down to Earth (2001), Head of State (2003), the Madagascar film series (2005–2012), Grown Ups (2010), its sequel Grown Ups 2 (2013), and Top Five (2014), and a series of acclaimed comedy specials for HBO. He also developed, wrote, narrated, and executive produced the sitcom “Everybody Hates Chris” (2005–2009). Rock hosted the 77th Academy Awards in 2005 and returned as host for the 88th ceremony in 2016.Rock has won two Emmy Awards and three Grammy Awards.
He was voted the fifth-greatest stand-up comedian in a poll conducted by Comedy Central. He was also voted in the United Kingdom as the ninth greatest stand-up comic on Channel 4’s 100 Greatest Stand-Ups in 2007, and again in the updated 2010 list as the eighth greatest stand-up comic.
A frustrated Rock left “Saturday Night Live” in 1993, appearing instead as a special guest star on the predominantly African-American sketch show “In Living Color”. The show, however, was cancelled months later. Rock then decided to concentrate on a film career. He wrote and starred in the mockumentary CB4 but the film was not a success. Acting jobs became scarce, and Rock abandoned Hollywood to concentrate on stand-up comedy.
Rock starred in his first HBO comedy special in 1994 titled Big Ass Jokes. But it was his second stand-up special, 1996’s Bring the Pain, that reinvented Rock as one of the most acclaimed comedians in the industry. For it Rock won two Emmy Awards and gained large critical acclaim. The segment on race in America, in which Rock used the “N word” extensively, was most talked about. Adding to his popularity was his much-publicized role as a commentator for Comedy Central’s Politically Incorrect during the 1996 Presidential elections which earned him another Emmy nomination. Rock also was the voice for the “Lil Penny” puppet who was the alter ego to basketball star Penny Hardaway in a series of Nike shoe commercials from 1994–1998, and hosted the ’97 MTV Video Music Awards.
During this time, Rock also translated his comedy into print form in the book Rock This! and released the Grammy Award-winning comedy albums, Roll with the New, Bigger & Blacker and Never Scared.
Rock’s fifth HBO special, Kill the Messenger, premiered on September 27, 2008, and won him another Emmy for outstanding writing for a variety or music program.
Keith – Bob Newhart
George Robert “Bob” Newhart (born September 5, 1929) is an American stand-up comedian and actor. Noted for his deadpan and slightly stammering delivery, Newhart came to prominence in the 1960s when his album of comedic monologues The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart was a worldwide bestseller and reached number one on the Billboard pop album chart—it remains the 20th best-selling comedy album in history. The follow-up album, The Button-Down Mind Strikes Back! was also a massive success, and the two albums held the Billboard number one and number two spots simultaneously.
Newhart later went into acting, starring in two long-running and award-winning situation comedies, first as psychologist Dr. Robert “Bob” Hartley on the 1970s sitcom The Bob Newhart Show and then as innkeeper Dick Loudon on the 1980s sitcom Newhart. He also had two short-lived sitcoms in the nineties titled Bob and George and Leo. Newhart also appeared in film roles such as Major Major in Catch-22 and Papa Elf in Elf. He provided the voice of Bernard in the Walt Disney animated films The Rescuers and The Rescuers Down Under. In 2004 he played the library head Judson in The Librarian, a character which continued in 2014 to the TV series The Librarians. In 2013, Newhart made his first of four guest appearances on The Big Bang Theory, for which he received his first Primetime Emmy Award on September 15, 2013.
On February 20, 2015, Newhart was honored with the Publicists of the International Cinematographers Guild Lifetime Achievement Award.
After the war, Newhart got a job as an accountant for United States Gypsum. He later said that his motto, “That’s close enough”, and his habit of adjusting petty cash imbalances with his own money shows he did not have the temperament to be an accountant.He also said he was a clerk in the unemployment office who made $55 a week, but who quit upon learning unemployment benefits were $45 a week and he “only had to come in to the office one day a week to collect it.
David – Mitch Hedberg
Mitchell Lee “Mitch” Hedberg (February 24, 1968 – March 30, 2005) was an American stand-up comedian known for his surreal humor and unconventional comedic delivery. His comedy typically featured short, sometimes one-line jokes mixed with absurd elements and non sequiturs.
Hedberg’s comedy and onstage persona gained him a cult following, with audience members sometimes shouting out the punchlines to his jokes before he could finish them.
Hedberg began his stand-up career in Florida, and after a period of honing his skills, he moved to Seattle and began to tour. He soon appeared on MTV’s Comikaze, followed by a 1996 appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman that brought him his big break. He won the 1997 grand prize at the Seattle Comedy Competition. The next year he appeared in an episode of Fox’s series That ’70s Show.
In 1999, he completed his own independent feature film, Los Enchiladas!, which he wrote, directed, produced, and starred in. He recorded three comedy CDs: Strategic Grill Locations, Mitch All Together, and Do You Believe in Gosh?, the last released posthumously. He also appeared at the Montreal Just For Laughs comedy festival in 1998 and 2001.
Concurrent with his rising fame in the entertainment industry, Hedberg appeared on Letterman nine more times, signed a half-million dollar deal with Fox for a television sitcom, and was dubbed “the next Seinfeld” by Time Magazine. George Carlin, Dave Chappelle, Mike Birbiglia and Lewis Black were reportedly among his comedian fans.
Keith – Richard Pryor
Richard Franklin Lennox Thomas Pryor (December 1, 1940 – December 10, 2005) was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, and actor. He is currently listed at Number 1 on Comedy Central’s list of all-time greatest stand-up comedians.Pryor was known for uncompromising examinations of racism and topical contemporary issues, which employed colorful vulgarities and profanity, as well as racial epithets. He reached a broad audience with his trenchant observations and storytelling style. He is widely regarded as one of the most important and influential stand-up comedians of all time: Jerry Seinfeld called Pryor “The Picasso of our profession”and Bob Newhart heralded Pryor as “the seminal comedian of the last 50 years”.This legacy can be attributed, in part, to the unusual degree of intimacy Pryor brought to bear on his comedy. As Bill Cosby reportedly once said, “Richard Pryor drew the line between comedy and tragedy as thin as one could possibly paint it.”
Pryor’s body of work includes the concert movies and recordings: Richard Pryor: Live & Smokin’ (1971), That Nigger’s Crazy (1974), …Is It Something I Said? (1975), Bicentennial Nigger (1976), Richard Pryor: Live in Concert (1979), Richard Pryor: Live on the Sunset Strip (1982), and Richard Pryor: Here and Now (1983). As an actor, he starred mainly in comedies such as Silver Streak (1976), but occasionally in dramas, such as Paul Schrader’s Blue Collar (1978), or action films, such as Superman III (1983). He collaborated on many projects with actor Gene Wilder. Another frequent collaborator was actor/comedian/writer Paul Mooney.
Pryor won an Emmy Award (1973) and five Grammy Awards (1974, 1975, 1976, 1981, and 1982). In 1974, he also won two American Academy of Humor awards and the Writers Guild of America Award. The first-ever Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize for American Humor was presented to him in 1998.
David – Bill Hicks
William Melvin Hicks (December 16, 1961 – February 26, 1994) was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, satirist, and musician. His material, encompassing a wide range of social issues including religion, politics, and philosophy, was controversial, and often steeped in dark comedy. He criticized consumerism, superficiality and banality within the media and popular culture, which he characterized as oppressive tools of the ruling class that keep people “stupid and apathetic”.
At the age of 16, while still in high school, he began performing at the Comedy Workshop in Houston, Texas. During the 1980s, he toured the United States extensively and made a number of high-profile television appearances; but it was in the UK that he amassed a significant fan base, filling large venues during his 1991 tour. He also achieved a modicum of recognition as a guitarist and songwriter.
Hicks died of pancreatic cancer on February 26, 1994 in Little Rock, Arkansas, at the age of 32. In subsequent years his work gained a significant measure of acclaim in creative circles—particularly after a series of posthumous album releases—and he developed a substantial cult following. In 2007 he was voted sixth on Britain’s Channel 4 list of the 100 Greatest Stand-Up Comics, and rose to number four on the 2010 list
Keith – Bill Cosby
William Henry “Bill” Cosby, Jr. (born July 12, 1937) is an American stand-up comedian, actor, and author.
Cosby’s start in stand-up comedy began at the hungry i in San Francisco, and was followed by his landing a starring role in the 1960s television show I Spy. During the show’s first two seasons, he was also a regular on the children’s television series The Electric Company.
Using the Fat Albert character developed during his stand-up routines, Cosby created, produced, and hosted the animated comedy television series Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids, a show that ran from 1972 to 1985, centering on a group of young friends growing up in an urban area. Throughout the 1970s, Cosby starred in a number of films, occasionally returning to film later in his career. After attending Temple University in the 1960s, he received his bachelor’s degree there in 1971. In 1973 he received a master’s degree from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and in 1976 he earned his Doctor of Education degree, also from UMass. His dissertation discussed the use of Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids as a teaching tool in elementary schools.
Beginning in the 1980s, Cosby produced and starred in a television sitcom, The Cosby Show, which aired from 1984 to 1992 and was rated as the number one show in America for five years, 1984 through 1989. The sitcom highlighted the experiences and growth of an affluent African-American family. Cosby produced the Cosby Show spin-off sitcom A Different World, which aired from 1987 to 1993; starred in the sitcom Cosby from 1996 to 2000; and hosted Kids Say the Darndest Things for two seasons, from 1998 to 2000.
Cosby has been the subject of publicized sexual assault allegations since about 2000. Cosby has been accused by over 50 women of rape, drug facilitated sexual assault, sexual battery, child sexual abuse, and sexual misconduct, with the earliest alleged incidents taking place in the mid-1960s. He has denied the allegations. Most of the acts alleged by his accusers fall outside the statutes of limitations for legal proceedings. Numerous related lawsuits against Cosby are pending, and he faces one felony charge of aggravated indecent assault in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. He surrendered to authorities on December 30, 2015, and was released on $1 million bail.
David – Richard Pryor
Richard Franklin Lennox Thomas Pryor (December 1, 1940 – December 10, 2005) was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, and actor. He is currently listed at Number 1 on Comedy Central’s list of all-time greatest stand-up comedians.Pryor was known for uncompromising examinations of racism and topical contemporary issues, which employed colorful vulgarities and profanity, as well as racial epithets. He reached a broad audience with his trenchant observations and storytelling style. He is widely regarded as one of the most important and influential stand-up comedians of all time: Jerry Seinfeld called Pryor “The Picasso of our profession”and Bob Newhart heralded Pryor as “the seminal comedian of the last 50 years”.This legacy can be attributed, in part, to the unusual degree of intimacy Pryor brought to bear on his comedy. As Bill Cosby reportedly once said, “Richard Pryor drew the line between comedy and tragedy as thin as one could possibly paint it.”
Pryor’s body of work includes the concert movies and recordings: “Richard Pryor: Live & Smokin'” (1971), “That Nigger’s Crazy” (1974), “…Is It Something I Said?” (1975), “Bicentennial Nigger” (1976), “Richard Pryor: Live in Concert” (1979), “Richard Pryor: Live on the Sunset Strip” (1982), and “Richard Pryor: Here and Now” (1983). As an actor, he starred mainly in comedies such as Silver Streak (1976), but occasionally in dramas, such as Paul Schrader’s Blue Collar (1978), or action films, such as Superman III (1983). He collaborated on many projects with actor Gene Wilder. Another frequent collaborator was actor/comedian/writer Paul Mooney.
Pryor won an Emmy Award (1973) and five Grammy Awards (1974, 1975, 1976, 1981, and 1982). In 1974, he also won two American Academy of Humor awards and the Writers Guild of America Award. The first-ever Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize for American Humor was presented to him in 1998.
Keith – Steve Martin
Stephen Glenn “Steve” Martin (born August 14, 1945) is an American comedian, actor, writer, producer, and musician. Martin came to public notice in the 1960s as a writer for the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, and later as a frequent guest on The Tonight Show. In the 1970s, Martin performed his offbeat, absurdist comedy routines before packed houses on national tours. Since the 1980s, having branched away from stand-up comedy, Martin has become a successful actor, as well as an author, playwright, pianist and banjo player, eventually earning him an Emmy, Grammy and American Comedy awards, among other honors.
In 2004, Comedy Central ranked Martin at sixth place in a list of the 100 greatest stand-up comics. He was awarded an Honorary Academy Award at the Academy’s 5th Annual Governors Awards in 2013.
While he has played banjo since an early age, and included music in his comedy routines from the beginning of his professional career, he has increasingly dedicated his career to music since the 2000s, acting less and spending much of his professional life playing banjo, recording, and touring with various bluegrass acts, including Earl Scruggs, with whom he won a Grammy for Best Country Instrumental Performance in 2002. He released his first solo music album, The Crow: New Songs for the 5-String Banjo, in 2009, for which he won the Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album.
David – Steven Wright
Steven Alexander Wright (born December 6, 1955) is an American comedian, actor, writer, and an Oscar-winning film producer. He is known for his distinctly lethargic voice and slow, deadpan delivery of ironic, philosophical and sometimes nonsensical jokes, paraprosdokians, non sequiturs, anti-humor, and one-liners with contrived situations.
Wright was ranked as the twenty-third greatest comedian by Comedy Central in a list of the 100 greatest stand-up comics. He was awarded the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film for his 1988 short film The Appointments of Dennis Jennings.
Wright’s 1985 comedy album was entitled “I Have a Pony”. It was released on Warner Bros. Records, received critical acclaim and was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album. The success of this album landed him an HBO special which he recorded as a live college concert performance, A Steven Wright Special. By then Wright had firmly developed a new brand of obscure, laid-back performing and was rapidly building a cult-like following of hip, savvy fans and an onstage persona characterized by an aura of obscurity, with his penchant for non-sequiturs and subdued, slowly-paced delivery style only adding to his mystique. His opening act for the HBO concert was fellow “Ding Ho” comedy alumnus Bill Sohonage, who claimed that Steven’s ultra-casual, nearly catatonic demeanor was no act. “He walked into my dressing room, minutes before I was to take the stage, and asked if he could borrow a shirt, as his had a giant pizza stain. You would think it might be normal to be a little nervous going on a college stage in front of 23,000, let alone having HBO out there filming, but as I passed by his room while walking on-stage I saw him sound asleep and loudly snoring.” The performance would become one of HBO’s longest running and most requested comedy specials, and would propel him to great success on the college-arena concert circuit.
In 1989 he and fellow producer Dean Parisot won an Academy Award for their 30-minute short film The Appointments of Dennis Jennings, directed by Parisot, written by Mike Armstrong and Wright, and starring Wright and Rowan Atkinson. Upon accepting the Oscar, Wright said, “We’re really glad that we cut out the other sixty minutes.” In 1992 Wright had a recurring role on the television sitcom “Mad About You”. He also supplied the voice of the radio DJ in writer-director Quentin Tarantino’s film Reservoir Dogs that same year. “Dean Parisot’s wife Sally Menke is Quentin Tarantino’s [film] editor, so when she was editing the movie and it was getting down toward the end where they didn’t have the radio DJ yet, she thought of me and told Quentin and he liked the idea,” Wright explained in 2009.
Numerous lists of jokes attributed to Wright circulate on the Internet, sometimes of dubious origin. Wright has stated, “Someone showed me a site, and half of it that said I wrote it, I didn’t write. Recently, I saw one, and I didn’t write any of it. What’s disturbing is that with a few of these jokes, I wish I had thought of them. A giant amount of them, I’m embarrassed that people think I thought of them, because some are really bad.”
Keith/ David – Eddie Murphy
Edward Regan “Eddie” Murphy (born April 3, 1961) is an American comedian, actor, writer, singer, and producer. Box-office takes from Murphy’s films make him the 5th-highest grossing actor in the United States.He was a regular cast member on Saturday Night Live from 1980 to 1984 and has worked as a stand-up comedian. He was ranked #10 on Comedy Central’s list of the 100 Greatest Stand-ups of All Time.
He has received Golden Globe Award nominations for his performances in 48 Hrs., the Beverly Hills Cop series, Trading Places, and The Nutty Professor. In 2007, he won the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor and received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of soul singer James “Thunder” Early in Dreamgirls.
Eddie Murphy’s work as a voice actor includes Thurgood Stubbs in “The PJs”, Donkey in DreamWorks’ Shrek series and the Chinese dragon Mushu in Disney’s Mulan. In some of his films, he plays multiple roles in addition to his main character, intended as a tribute to one of his idols Peter Sellers, who played multiple roles in Dr. Strangelove and elsewhere. Murphy has played multiple roles in Coming to America, Wes Craven’s Vampire in Brooklyn, the Nutty Professor films (where he played the title role in two incarnations, plus his character’s father, brother, mother, and grandmother), Bowfinger, The Adventures of Pluto Nash, Norbit, and Meet Dave.
As of 2014, films featuring Murphy have grossed over $3.8 billion in the United States and Canada box office, and $6.6 billion worldwide. In 2015, Murphy was awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
Keith – Jerry Seinfeld
Jerome Allen “Jerry” Seinfeld (born April 29, 1954) is an American comedian, actor, writer, and producer. He is best known for portraying a semifictional version of himself in the sitcom Seinfeld (1989–1998), which he co-created and co-wrote with Larry David. For its final two seasons, they were also co-executive producers.
Seinfeld also co-wrote and co-produced the 2007 animated film Bee Movie, in which he voiced the protagonist. In 2010 he premiered a reality series called “The Marriage Ref”. He directed Colin Quinn in the Broadway show “Long Story Short” at the Helen Hayes Theater, which ran until January 2011. He is also the creator and host of the web series “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee”.
In his stand-up comedy career, Seinfeld is known for specializing in observational humor, often focusing on personal relationships and uncomfortable social obligations. In 2005 Comedy Central named him the 12th-greatest stand-up comedian of all time.
David – George Carlin
George Denis Patrick Carlin (May 12, 1937 – June 22, 2008) was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, actor, and author. Carlin was noted for his black comedy and his thoughts on politics, the English language, psychology, religion, and various taboo subjects. Carlin and his “Seven dirty words” comedy routine were central to the 1978 U.S. Supreme Court case F.C.C. v. Pacifica Foundation, in which a 5–4 decision affirmed the government’s power to regulate indecent material on the public airwaves.
He is widely regarded as one of the most important and influential stand-up comedians: One newspaper called Carlin “the dean of counterculture comedians.” In 2004, Carlin was placed second on the Comedy Central list of “Top 10 Comedians of US Audiences” compiled for an April 2004 special. The first of his 14 stand-up comedy specials for HBO was filmed in 1977. From the late 1980s, Carlin’s routines focused on sociocultural criticism of American society. He often commented on contemporary political issues in the United States and satirized the excesses of American culture. He was a frequent performer and guest host on “The Tonight Show” during the three-decade Johnny Carson era, and hosted the first episode of “Saturday Night Live”. His final HBO special, It’s Bad for Ya, was filmed less than four months before his death. In 2008, he was posthumously awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.
Keith /David – Robin Williams
Robin McLaurin Williams (July 21, 1951 – August 11, 2014) was an American actor and comedian. Starting as a stand-up comedian in San Francisco and Los Angeles in the mid-1970s, he is credited with leading San Francisco’s comedy renaissance. After rising to fame as Mork in the sitcom “Mork & Mindy” (1978–82), he went on to establish a career in both stand-up comedy and feature film acting. He was known for his improvisational skills.
After his film debut in the musical comedy Popeye (1980), he starred or co-starred in widely acclaimed films, including the comedy-drama The World According to Garp (1982), war comedy Good Morning, Vietnam (1987), dramas Dead Poets Society (1989) and Awakenings (1990), comedy-drama The Fisher King (1991), the animated musical-fantasy Aladdin (1992), drama Good Will Hunting (1997), and psychological thriller One Hour Photo (2002), as well as financial successes such as the fantasy adventure film Hook (1991), comedy Mrs. Doubtfire (1993), fantasy adventure Jumanji (1995), comedy The Birdcage (1996), and the Night at the Museum trilogy.
In 1998, Williams won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance as Dr. Sean Maguire in Good Will Hunting. He also received two Primetime Emmy Awards, six Golden Globe Awards, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and four Grammy Awards throughout his career, and was inducted as a Disney Legend in 2009.
After his family moved to Marin County, Williams began his career doing stand-up comedy shows in the San Francisco Bay Area in the mid-1970s. His first performance took place at the Holy City Zoo, a comedy club in San Francisco, where he worked his way up from tending bar to getting on stage. In the 1960s, San Francisco was a center for a rock music renaissance, hippies, drugs, and a sexual revolution, and in the 1970s, Williams helped lead its “comedy renaissance,” writes critic Gerald Nachman. Williams says he found out about “drugs and happiness” during that period, adding that he saw “the best brains of my time turned to mud,” (a humorous mis-para-phrasing of the opening of Howl by Allen Ginsberg).
In the early 1970s Williams also worked as a mime and was photographed by Daniel Sorine while performing in 1974 in Central Park.
He moved to Los Angeles and continued doing stand-up shows at various clubs, including the Comedy Club, in 1977, where TV producer George Schlatter saw him. Schlatter, realizing that Williams would become an important force in show business, asked him to appear on a revival of his Laugh-In show. The show aired in late 1977 and became his debut TV appearance. Williams also performed a show at the LA Improv that same year for Home Box Office. While the Laugh-In revival failed, it led Williams into a career in television, during which period he continued doing stand-up at comedy clubs, such as the Roxy, to help him keep his improvisational skills sharp.
Well there you have it! Did you have a little chuckle? I know I sure did; going through all these terrific, talented people making us laugh week after week, year after year. How did your list fair with ours? We want to know what your thoughts were? Tell us your list. You can listen to this list and many others at podcastunlimited.com and listen to or download episode 87. It will be in the archive section!
Lord knows the two of us aren’t stand-up comedians. After 87 podcasts, that should be painfully obvious. But to see who thinks they are comedians, and our lists of Honorable Mentions, check out our sister blog.
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“Never pick a fight with an ugly person, they’ve got nothing to lose.” – (Robin Williams 1951-2014)
-The Engineer
“I’m only joking,
I don’t believe a thing I’ve said.
What are you smoking?
I’m just a-fucking with your head.”
– KONGOS, “I’m Only Joking”