The Funniest Stand Up Comedians in Entertainment By dukethepcdr  [14 more lists]

While Eddie has less broad-based appeal than Cosby, he is still a very talented comedian and actor. I like his movies better than his stand-up really. He probably has the most unique laugh in the business :)

While his 'don't get no respect' shtick might get a bit old after listening to him for a bit, he's still very funny. He's had some funny roles in moves in the past too. I think my favorite is 'Back to School'.

Best known for his sit-com these days, Bob Newhart was pretty funny back in the day when he still did stand-up.

Steven Wright is a brilliant joke writer. He's a cerebral comic. While some comics get laughs by doing silly things or making funny faces, Steven has the guts and brilliance to make us laugh almost exclusively with his ideas. Few others can stand almost totally still on a stage with a serious look on their face almost the whole time and make us laugh till our sides hurt by saying the funniest one-liners you've ever heard. He's like a live-action book on tape :)

Bruce has been nearly forgotten these days but if you look up some of his stuff, you'll see why he's on this list.

Known almost exclusively for his funny sitcom Sanford and Son, Redd also did a mean stand-up routine that was really funny.

Don Rickles is one of those rare comics who can make you laugh without even meaning to. He's the 'grumpiest man in the world' and can be hilarious when he's just interacting with a host on a TV show. He was a favorite guest on the Tonight Show.

Jonathan Winters has been making us laugh for a very long time and he just got funnier and funnier with age. Many people only know him, like Don Rickles, as a guest on TV talk shows, but Jonathan used to host his own variety show on TV and also did a hilarious stand-up routine. He's a genius at impersonating character types. Not famous people, but just many widely different types of people.

Bob Hope got started in radio before there even was TV. He became one of the first people to be a star on live stage, radio, movies and TV all at the same time. He's also famous for entertaining our troops in many wars from WWII all the way up through the conflicts in the Middle East. He's brilliant in all venues. Best known for his very clever turns of phrase and masterfully hidden verbal jabs.

Gilbert is funny even when he's trying to be serious. That silly face and funny sounding voice make me smile no matter what I see him doing. He's a great bit-part actor too.

Larry is the best of the sub-genre of comedians some call 'blue collar' or 'redneck'. The best thing about him is that he's the genuine article. He doesn't just act like a redneck on stage, he grew up as one on a pig farm in Nebraska. He's also very talented at telling funny stories. His optimism and patriotism is a nice break from the pessimism and whining that has come to pervade comedy these days.

Rich Hall has been all but forgotten these days, but back in the 80's, he was a big deal. His stand-up comedy was really funny. One of my favorite bits that he did was his 'sniglits'. These were made-up words for things, events, situations, emotions etc in everyday life that lack a proper word to describe them.

The Unknown Comic has also been forgotten for the most part, but his unique style has yet to be copied with any success. He's the only comic I know of who could pull off telling hilarious jokes with a brown paper bag on his head the whole time. No one knew, and as far as I know, still don't know what his real name was. He was famous for being unknown. Pretty hard to top that shtick.

While some may get annoyed at his voice, you can't deny that he isn't funny. His stand-up routines are very good and he is almost as good at telling stories as Cosby. His sitcom "Everyone Loves Raymond' was very funny and people have tried, and failed, to copy his style of sit-com ever since.

Best known as the 'King of Late Night' and the host of The Tonight Show, Carson (also from Nebraska) was also very good at stand-up comedy. We got a taste of his stand-up routine at the start of each Tonight Show episode, but he was wowing audiences long before that. I think he still holds the record for being the host of one late nite show the longest.

Long before he shaved his head and grew that silly patch of hair under his lip, Howie Mandel was the curly headed, silly, child-like comic who made everyone laugh whether it was in his hilarious stand-up routines or his movies. He is a pretty good mimic like Winters, with his best known character being Bobby the four year old.

Tim Allen was pretty much unknown by most of America until he did his sit-com 'Home Improvement'. Which is unusual. Usually, comics are quite widely famous before they get a show. His sitcom was also rather realistic and did a great job of balancing the silly with the serious and the wacky with the warm-hearted family sitcom. It was sweet without being saccharine. It was also rather unusual for being almost better known by the name of the made-up do-it-yourself TV show that his character starred in. It was a clever spoof of those home project shows like This Old House and The Yankee Workshop. Many people thought the real-life show was called 'Tool Time'. He went on to become a successful actor in kid's movies too.

I heard Flip Wilson's records at the same time that I did Bill Cosby's. His stand-up was brilliant and he was almost as good at telling stories that anyone could relate to as Cosby was.

Jack Benny is better known for his variety show than for his stand-up comedy but back in the 50's, he was a very popular stand-up comic.

George Burns adapted with the times so amazingly well, that each generation (and there were many of them) remembers him best in many different ways. By the time I was a kid, he was mainly in movies and guest starring on talk shows. He was a grouchy old man kind of like Rickles who was funny just by being there and talking with people. He made so many jokes about being over 100 years old, that a lot of people thought he actually was. But way before that, he was half of the famous duo of Burns and Allen. He co-starred in many radio shows, movies and TV shows with Gracie Allen and often entertained the troops with Bob Hope. Gracie Allen was one of those rare female comics who can put on an act of being a bubbly idiot while writing much of her own material and being very clever with it.

While Dennis Miller has somehow morphed into a radio talk show host and political commentator (how'd that happen?) these days, he's better known to the 80's and 90's generations as a funny stand-up comic and actor on Saturday Night Live. I maintain that Miller was one of the last genuinely funny people to be on that show. He did a funny spoof of a TV anchorman in the 'Weekend Update' SNL bits long before Comedy Central started the 'Daily Show'.

I remember Phyllis best as a member of the game show Hollywood Squares, but she was a brilliant stand-up comedian and I've only recently found some of her great work. One of few female comics who are funny without having to slam men constantly.

Lily Tomlin is both a brilliant actress and a stand-up comic. She's best known for playing characters kind of like Winters was, but she could be quite funny on stage telling jokes too. Her Edith Ann bit is my favorite. And that's the truth! Phhhhhhhhhit!

Rita is one of those comics who is also a brilliant joke writer and who can keep an audience spellbound and laughing by just standing on stage telling funny jokes. She's almost as good at it as Wright. One thing she's better at than him is the bit where she says something that seems normal enough then almost under her breath adds something totally hilarious at the end.