I'm no fan of lists. Name your top ten this or your top five that. In the spirit of doing the exact thing that you hate ( what we in the industry call hypocrisy ) here's a list of my favourite comedians sans numbering.
Bill Burr ( "Eating a donut is the easiest way to tell the world you don't give a fuck." )
Jim Gaffigan ( "Isn't it a red flag that you need a hammer to eat a crab?" )
John Mulaney ( "By now I thought I would look older. Instead I just look worse. People on the street say "Whoah! That tall child looks terrible!")
Hannibal Buress ( "You know who else takes things one day at a time? Everyone...because that's how time works." )
Louis CK ( "I don't know why people call taking a shit Number Twos. In my opinion, it's easily Number One." )
Tom Segura ( "If you check into a hotel room after I have been in there, expect to be itchy." )
Dave Chappelle ( "It goes without saying that blacks and chickens are quite fond of one another." )
Patton Oswalt ( "A clown seen during the day from a distance is ball retractingly terrifying.")
Billy Connolly ( "No sooner had we found the clitoris then we were in search of the G Spot. I don't think you could find that with a wetsuit and a diver's helmet." )
Richard Pryor ( "What happened was I like to have milk and cookies before bed. I mixed some full fat milk with some skim milk...and the shit blew up." )
Nick Offerman ( "Manscaping is an abomination against nature. One should maintain a proud bristling thicket that is swampy but just short of the conditions needed to grow fungus. Hence the term full bush." )
Ricky Gervais ( “My greatest hero is Nelson Mandela. What a man. Incarcerated for 25 years, he was released in 1990 and he hasn't reoffended. I think he's going straight, which shows you prison does work.” )
Stephen Colbert ( " I respect George W Bush because he is a man that doesn't just stand up for things, he stands on top of things...like piles of rubble, the decks of aircraft carriers and statues in recently flooded town squares." )
The great thing about all of these comedians is how different they all are. Billy Connolly is a gifted storyteller and the father of alternative comedy. Louis CK is incredibly self deprecating and Bill Burr is a self confessed 'psycho' ( watch his stand up where he talks about owning a dog ).
I also think that all of these comedians show how comedy is a powerful catharsis. Watch the anger that bubbles through so many of them...the disillusionment and the frustration over the direction humanity is headed in.
