Greatest American Comedians
 

It seems that there's always some sort of division of faith between British and American humor. People enumerate upon British humor's finer aspects again and again, but rarely is such advocacy leveled upon comedians over the pond.

Ordinarily I would stay the fuck away from this subject, but I've actually been perusing some of America's more talented comedians and surprisingly, there's a fair few who actually have some relevance to this day. And no, I'm not talking about George Carlin or Bill Hicks here and their pedantic social commentary.

Obviously I've got some compassion towards Mitch Hedberg, but there's plenty of others that revolutionized the field of stand-up (or otherwise) comedy, I want to hear what you guys think are some of the more tasteful ones.

I don't spend my time watching as much stand-up comedy as I did, say, a year ago. I'm partial to a bit of Bill Hicks and Carlin every so often though (even if I don't exactly agree with some things the latter says), but I don't watch a lot of either these days, mainly because I've heard just about everything worthwhile they've had done. I will say though that for the best Carlin and Hicks you've gotta look out for bootlegs (a lot of them are on youtube, you've just gotta know where to look for them), as often some of the best stuff they did never made it to the officially-released gigs.

Mitch Hedberg's great stuff and, a lot of you probably don't need telling, but a very unusual style - kinda throws a load of unconnected punchlines at you (at least from what I've seen), which actually works surprisingly well. I like Robin Williams as well - very friendly, non-confrontational style, kinda like a funnier Lee Evans.

This here's reason enough to like Eddie Murphy (even if he hasn't done anything worthwhile since Bowfinger);



When it comes to my favourite American comedian though, it's a tie a between Richard Pryor, Chris Rock and Denis Leary for me. Despite what the Hicks fanboys'll tell you, one joke about smoking and jogging aside, Leary's virtually nothing like him.

Those are my personal picks anyway. There are probably more I like, but I've only been awake 10 minutes so I can't really think straight at the moment!

This thread is incomplete without a mention of Dave Chapelle.

In terms of tastefulness? I like Jerry Seinfeld.

Some of my favorites: Steve Martin, Tim Allen, Mike Birbiglia, Dave Chappelle, Mitch Hedberg, Richard Pryor, D.C. Benny, Louis Black, Tim Meadows.

Stewart Francis, technically he's canadian but it's still in the american continent lol. I also like chris rock and dave chapelle.

W.C. Fields often gets overlooked simply due to the era in which he existed, but his humor would NOT be out of place in the world today.

When asked why he never drank water (he was a notorious alcoholic) he responded, "Because fish fuck in it."

Not a bad excuse! :rofl:

Zach Galifinakis has gotta be my favorite as of right now.
http://www.mamapop.com/photos/uncate...07/26/zach.jpg

Maybe I just love food too much: