Okay, let me start with a disclaimer: This is just a list.  It's not the absolute last word on the topic and any list you compile will be just as valid as this one...except, of course, that yours will be wrong and this one is right.

This list started on a computer BBS a few years back.  The topic was what constitutes a great stand-up comedian and which ones set the standards.  Who were the role models?  About a dozen comedy writers chimed in and we voted and cobbled up a list of ten men who had showed the world how stand-up comedy should be done.  (No women made our list, not out of sexism but because for far too long and during the formative years of the art, females didn't have much chance to distinguish themselves.)

A few weeks later, I was delicatessening it with several oft-working, successful stand-up comedians and I brought up the subject, scribbling the list down on a mustard-stained napkin.  Now, comedians usually can't agree on what month it is but, to my amazement, everyone agreed with the list.  For a time, I polled anyone I encountered who made their living either performing stand-up or writing for those who did.  I'm sure there are those who would disagree with the list but I haven't encountered any serious dissent.  Where there has been any, it has mainly been a matter of assessing who has distinguished themselves sufficiently as a stand-up only.

This is key to understanding this list: It is based only on what a person does when they are standing or sitting, performing solo, in front of a live audience.  We told everyone, "Forget about everything else this person has done except for standing on stage with a microphone and talking to the audience.  Evaluate only that."  The fact that a person may also be a great writer, actor, talk show host, talk show panelist, sketch player and/or anything else is irrelevant.  Jack Benny, Bob Hope, Groucho Marx, Johnny Carson, Sid Caesar, Don Rickles, David Letterman, Jonathan Winters, Milton Berle, Steve Martin and many other very funny folks did not make the Top Ten because, we decided, they either (a) did not do pure stand-up work or (b) their fame/success came primarily from their other work, even though they may also have done stand-up-style performing.  We'll explain more about this on the next page.

Also, this is not "The ten people I find funniest" but more like, "The ten people who have most distinguished themselves in this art form and been influential."  We excluded teams, ventriloquists, singers of comedy songs, folks who only do impressions or other novelty acts.

In a moment, you'll go to the page where I list the Top Ten and also a bunch of explanations.  Before you go there though, stop and compile your own list...and remember: This is only about standing or sitting all alone on a stage, making a live audience laugh...and it also only applies to folks who've been successful and influential doing that in the latter half of the twentieth century.

So give it a little thought and, when you're ready to see the list my friends and I developed, click here.