Kings of Comedy

Last night I saw a special on the great comedian Bob Newhart and it inspired me to come up with my list of all time great stand up comedians. You see, along with sports and reality TV, another passion of mine is comedy. The lists I created made me reminisce about the 80’s and early 90’s, which compared to today was a golden era of stand up comedy. When I was a pre-teen my brother and I would watch many different stand up shows on Friday and Saturday nights. I think they were usually on Fox or A&E (who could forget Geechie Guy’s bit on riding the bus). I would dream of someday becoming a great stand up comedian.
I wanted to make a list specifically about stand up comedians because it seems that stand up comedy has hit a dry spell. Mocumentaries and improvisation are more en vogue now a days. I have left many people off of these lists in an attempt to narrow them down a bit. Almost all comedians try their hand at stand up at some point in their career. I wanted to highlight some who were the best of their era. While many stand up comedians have gone on to become big stars in movies or on TV, for the most part the comics on my list were at their best on stage with nothing but a microphone and a bar stool. (Sorry Carrot Top and Gallagher).
I split my list into five eras’; pre 1970’s, The 70’s, The 80’s, The 90’s and the 2000’s. I wanted to stick to the top 5 format that I am used to but it was just to hard to leave a few of these folks out so I had to fudge. Also of course this list is just my own opinion. I did leave some big names off such as: Robin Williams, Dennis Miller, Tim Allen, Jeff Foxworthy, Dennis Leary and Andrew Dice Clay mostly because I just don’t think these people are that funny.

Pre 1970’s (*I must admit I don’t know too much about this era. I have seen or heard some material from some of these comics. Others I am just listing because of reputation. I will list the comics whose stand up I have actually heard first for this era.)
1. Bill Cosby
2. Redd Foxx
3. Bob Newhart
4. Milton Berle
5. Johnny Winters
6. Alan King

Others that I can’t leave off the list (and I’m sure I’m missing dozens) are:
1. Lenny Bruce
2. Jack Benny
3. Moms Mabley
4. Don Rickles
5. Mort Sahl
6. etc, etc….

1970’s

1. Richard Prior (probably the best ever)
2. George Carlin (or maybe he was)
3. Robert Klein (most of the greats list him as major influence)
4. Albert Brooks (in my top 10 funniest people of all time no doubt)
5. Steve Martin(not a huge fan of most of his movies butwas good at stand up)
6. Andy Kaufman

1980’s

1. Eddie Murphy (in my top five if not my top two)
2. Sam Kinison (haven’t heard too much of his stuff enough to know he funny)
3. Rodney Dangerfield (getting “no respect” on this list.)
4. Gary Shandling (his first show on Fox was kind of a precursor to Seinfeld)
5. Roseanne Barr (she was funny and pretty revolutionary at the time)
6. Bill Hicks (haven’t seen enough of him but I hear he was great)

1990’s

1. Steven Wright (awesome but I need to see more of his stuff)
2. Jerry Seinfeld (better at stand up than sitcom)
3. Martin Lawrence (same here)
4. Ellen Degeneres (ditto)
5. Sinbad (the stand up to sit com era,apologies to Brett Butler and Paul Riser)
6. Janeane Garaffalo (I remember her as being funny what happened?)

2000’s

1. Dave Chappelle (needs to rebound)
2. Chris Rock
3. David Cross (seen just enought to know how funny he is)
4. Eddie Izzard (again I need to see more)
5. Bernie Mac (the Kings of Comedy era begins)
6. Cedric the Entertainer
7. Wanda Sykes (and Queens.)

Just to reiterate many, many funny people who have done stand up were left off including: Most Saturday Night Live alum, all Canadians, comedy writers, physical comedians, prop comics etc….anyone whose bread and butter was not specifically stand up comedy.