Who is the funniest comedian ever?

I got in trouble last time I tried to get people to listen to my favorite comedian. Like a moron I posted a link to his webstore, because it had audio of his comedy, and the moderators considered it a plant. I won't do that this time.

However, I want to know who everyone thinks is the funniest commedian ever?

Obviously, I think it is Frank Caliendo. He ranks up there with Bill Cosby. In fact, he does a whole Bill Cosby bit (making fun of the Cosby Kids), that I think even Bill Cosby would think is hilarious!

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Biggest Frank Caliendo fan EVER!! He is the funniest man in the whole world! check out his website: http://www.frankcaliendo.com

Lenny Bruce all-time, George Carlin still working.

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"Film is a disease. When it infects your bloodstream it takes over as the number one hormone. It bosses the enzymes, directs the pineal gland, plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to Film is more Film." - Frank Capra

I could never pick just one. George Carlin's busted me up pretty bad before...though sometimes he gets too political and the comedy suffers (yes, even when I agree with him). Harland Williams sure can work a house, too. Good at extracting material from the audience.

Harland Williams is pretty funny. Ever heard of Brian Regan. He is a really amazing comedian as well.

The name sounds very familiar. Did he have one of those Comedy Central Presents specials? (I watch a lot of those)

I saw Tom Rhodes live, in Sacramento. The man had us rolling on the floor. He's such an prick.
I think the stand-up I most jive with, because his humor is so in touch with what I find funny, is David Spade.
I saw him live in Lake Tahoe, and my cheeks and stomach hurt from the continuous laughing. He busts me up.

Stand-ups I've seen live:

George Carlin, Dennis Miller, Steven Wright, Jerry Seinfeld, Jay Leno, Kevin Pollack, Jay Mohr, Jake Johannsen, Gallagher, Tom & Dick Smothers, David Alan Grier

Must be missing a couple others. They'll come to me.

Lucky bastard. Kevin Pollack is awesome. Of course I'd love to see Jerry...his sh*t is funny. I think the most I have ever laughed outloud while reading a book, was his book, Seinlanguage. Funny, funny stuff.
Holden, ever read Letters From a Nut & More Letters From a Nut? (of course Jerry only wrote the intro..."Ted Nancy" wrote the letters...mmm-hmm.)

Yeah, those Letters From A Nut books are hysterical. So much better to me than all the phony phonecallers in the world, even the good ones - though Jim Florentine's "Terrorizing Telemarketers" CDs are a hoot and a half.


Probably the hardest I ever laughed at a book was something Chris Elliott wrote years ago (1989) and long out-of-print called Daddy's Boy: A Son's Shocking Account of Life with a Famous Father. It's a fictional biography about growing up with his Dad, legendary comedian Bob Elliott, with rebuttal chapters by the senior Elliott. Forward by Letterman, naturally. I have to re-read it every couple years just to remind myself how brilliant it is. It was published about a year or so before "Get A Life" premiered.


Pollak is fantastic. Seen him twice now, once in about '93 and then again just the beginning of this year. So fu*kin' funny. I could listen to him tell Alan Arkin stories alone for hours.

I loved that book...though I didn't laugh as hard as I would have, had I not heard a lot of the material before. My favorite to this day remains his description of the before and after of dinner out:

"Bring us more food! Wine! Bread! Money is no object! It'll be the greatest meal of our lives!"

"Why are people coming into this restaurant? We're done eating. How can they be hungry?"

I gotta ask you Holds, do you think there really is a Ted Nancy? My family and I were reading different letters out loud to each other and just dying...when my sister mentioned that a specific letter sounded so much like Jerry...what do you think?
Is it hard to find in bookstores or used bookstores? Gawd, I LOVE Pollack. Did you watch that show he was in...cripes, what was the name of it...why am I even hurting my brain trying to think of it...you know what it's called. Anyways, that's when I first saw him and liked him. I've followed his work ever since. Even recognized him as one of the Brownies in Willow.

Which Pollak show, the Rob Riener-produced "Morton & Hayes" (1991)? It was conceived and written by Christopher Guest, as well as Michael McKean, Joe Flaherty and others, but it never took off at all. It was a Summer replacement series but was unceremoniously cancelled after only a handful of episodes.

Pollak played Chick Morton, one half of a forgotten Abbott & Costello-like comedy team from the '40s. The premise was every week Reiner (as himself) would introduce a rare Morton & Hayes two-reeler that hadn't been seen for years. Each film was a different parody of one genre or another, but as if it were done in the late '30s or ealry '40s - just like all those Three Stooges shorts. One week they're detectives, then barbers or stowaways or whatever. Probably a little too high-concept for CBS circa 1991. If HBO or somebody had gotten hold of it, it just might have run for a couple years.


Or were you talking about that average little sitcom he did with Nancy Travis a few years back, "Work with Me"? Unfortunately there was nothing interesting going on there, other than Pollack's natural funniness. Rather unremarkable otherwise, I thought. It only lasted a month or so too, but that one I understood disappearing so quickly. I remember Lynda Carter - TV's Wonder Woman, was their big guest star in the first couople episodes. That's not a good sign right there.


As for Chris Elliott's Daddy's Boy, I don't really know how difficult it would be to find. In this day and age of eBay and Amazon.com and such, it certainly wouldn't be impossible. I got mine in 1989 and have held onto it ever since, so I don't know from finding it used other than on my bookshelf.


Now, is Jerry Sienfeld Ted Nancy? I don't see that Seinfeld plain would have had the time or energy to devote to such an endeavor while "Seinfeld" was on the air. Don't know who Nancy 'really' is, but I somehow doubt it's a pseudonym for Jerry. It may be some other fairly-well know comedian, I dunno. They're funny books either way.

Okay. First, it was driving me nuts so resorted to IMBd, finally; most times, I just use you. We've ben spelling it wrong, first off...it's 'Pollak' no 'c'. However, I still couldn't find what I was looking for, so maybe it wasn't him. I thought for damn sure it was, though. The show was about these cousins that lived in New York...one of the guys was from another country or something, his name was Balki. Ring any bells? I guess it wasn't him.






That's what my Dad and I were saying, how would he find the time...but my sisters are convinced it's him. You're right, whoever he is...it's funny as all hell.

Richard Pryor
Richard Pryor: Live and Smokin' (1985)
Richard Pryor Here and Now (1983)

Chris Rock: Bigger & Blacker (1999) (TV)
Eddie Murphy Raw (1987)
Seinfeld

A Couple of the top of my head. I'm a huge Pryor fan any of you guys fans of his stuff.

Oh God! It just came to me! Perfect Strangers was the show, and the guy I thought was Kevin Pollak...was named, Larry Appleton! Now I'm going to go see if it was him...

I love Pryor. His Richard Pryor: Live in Concert was funny as hell.

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One of the biggest myths told is that being intelligent is the absence of the ability to do stupid things.

Pryor is definitely a genius of the first order, no doubt about it.


Sadie:
"Perfect Strangers"!?!? No, that definitely wasn't him. That was Mark Linn-Baker as Cousin Larry Appleton and Bronson Pinchot as Cousin Balki Bartokomous.

Besides "Perfect Stangers", Mark Linn-Baker is best-known as Benjy Stone in the charming My Favorite Year (1982), with Peter O'Toole earning an Oscar nomination as a lecherous drunkard ex-Movie Star, modeled on Erol Flynn, doing a live '50s TV sketch comedy show, ala "Your Show of Shows".

I suppose he looks somewhat like Kevin Pollak...at least in that they're both short, Jewish and have curly dark hair.

But NO.

yeah, richard pryor and jay mohr are great. jay moher has a sports show on espn now.

Well at least I know there's some love for the guy around here. I guess I better rent Live in Concert eh?

yeah yeah...I already looked it up. Damn it. I was so sure. Of course IMBd doesn't have a pic of the guy...but I'm tellin' ya...they look very similar.