https://www.youtube.com/user/NormMacdonaldLive/videos Norm Macdonald's podcast is hilarious, he needs to make more.
He didn't jump the tracks. He's always been who he is, we're just now finding out about it. But his storytelling and comedy is gold. Too bad he turned out to be such a dirtbag. I loved Fat Albert.
I like when he tries talking to the guy in the audience and the guy just answers Mike in such an odd way and Mike's so perplexed by his initial response. That was hilarious.
Chappelle, and Gaffigan were probably the best shows I've seen. Louis CK is good live, Ray Romano is really funny live, pretty dirty. Dane Cook was decent and Kevin Hart was meh. Seen Ron White a couple times, he's pretty good. Carlin was a genius, best ever. I saw Jimmy Fallon do 10 minutes at a benefit and believe it or not he killed it, really funny and great impressions. Never seen Doug Stanhope live but would love to, he's one of my favorites.
Just watched Maria Bamford's "Old Baby" special on Netflix....she's great....reminds me of Jonathon Winters ..quirky genius
Rodney Dangerfield Norm McDonald John Pinnette Jim Gaffigan Eddie Murphy Rocky LaPorte Steven Wright Mitch Hedberg Louis CK Jerry Seinfeld Bob Newhart Foster Brooks Andrew Dice Clay Sam Kinison Dan Whitney Garry Shandling Don Rickles Missing a shit ton
Re: Bill Hicks - great in parts but that Goat Boy stuff creeped me out big time. Some lines don't need to be crossed. When I was a kid, I've never laughed as much as at a Billy Connolly show. I suspect it hasn't aged brilliantly. After that it was Richard Pryor, of course. In the '90s Eddie Izzard was the shit. Dress to Kill and Glorious both amazing. From before that, I feel like people have forgotten Emo Philips. Absurdist persona but great jokes. Steven Wright had the best one-liners. Mitch Hedberg died way too young, of course.. Australians Tim Minchin and Jim Jefferies are very different but both very clever (easy to overlook in Jefferies's case). Louis CK, though: his consistency amazes me. I just don't find Seinfeld funny any more, but even Louie's newest show has laugh-out-loud stuff in it. I just hope the rumors about him aren't true. (Dave Chappelle goes without saying, of course, although I haven't checked out his new Netflix stuff. Like Pryor, he can be hilarious just in the way he delivers a line.)
My grandfather had a Shelley Berman record ("Inside Shelley Berman") that I listened to again and again. He was very Newhart-esque. Last seen as Larry David's dad on Curb.
There are some comedians that I think are greater for their importance in breaking boundaries and saying shit that needed saying than for sheer natural funniness. I put Carlin on top for this. Lenny Bruce was, I guess, the archetype, in that I doubt anybody nowadays would think of him as funny. Bill Hicks can be like this too, although, like Carlin, he gets off the odd inspired line. The only one who manages to be consistently hilarious and politically dangerous is Richard Pryor. (Although Louis CK is pretty good for this too, albeit not as groundbreaking as the others.) Just IMO. People I never "got": Johnny Carson. Just not even remotely funny. Sam Kinison, Andrew Dice Clay. I don't find them offensive, I just don't find them funny. (Kinison was a preacher before he became a comic, I guess, and I can really see that, both in his delivery and in his preoccupations and slightly dated attitudes.) Andrew Kaufman. Well, except for the Mighty Mouse bit. But I don't think you were SUPPOSED to find him funny.
Tig Notaro's show where she went on stage like an hour after finding out she had cancer was fucking amazing. I love 80's comedians: Steven Wright, Louie Anderson, Robin Williams. I had a cassette copy of Night at the Met I wore out.
Kaufman was a comedian who told jokes at the audience not to them. The audience's reaction was the punchline. That said, the Mighty Mouse bit is perfection.
Maybe the best standup bit ever, like a meteor in the sky, was Steve Martin in the late 70s. He actually retired from standup because he knew he couldn't never top that zeitgeist cultural moment (and of course he was able to make movies then.) His book, Born Standing Up, is really good. Actually, all his books are good. You don't like them? Well, excuuuuuse me!
