When stand-up comedians talk about other comedians, they speak with reverence of "the four". This select group is considered almost inviolable. There is some dispute over order of brilliance and innovation, but little dispute over who "the four" are, and virtually no dispute over who ranks number one.

The stand-up comedians other stand-up comedians consider the greatest are:

1) Richard Pryor

2) Jonathan Winters

3) George Carlin

4) Robin Williams

Many think Lenny Bruce belongs in this select group, and Eddie Murphy, so it's sometimes the group of five or six, but few dispute the four.

Richard Prior changed comedy forever with his trenchant, heartbreaking, revealing glimpses into an underworld of ho's and pimps and winos and convicts and a whorehouse-born life most of us will never know.

Jonathan Winters could pick up a stick or a rock and do a ten minute riff on it, and his acolyte, Robin Williams, could do it even better.

George Carlin took political and social satire to heights his mentor, Mort Sahl, could never attain; heights nobody has really matched since.

For what it's worth, here are my Top Ten, chosen for unprecedented innovation and brilliance, and a couple of honourable mentions:

1) Richard Pryor

2) Jonathan Winters

3) Robin Williams

4) George Carlin

5) Eddie Murphy

6) Lenny Bruce

7) Rodney Dangerfield

8) Don Rickles

9) Jackie Mason

10) Mort Sahl

Honourable Mentions: W. C. Fields and John Cleese, who, had they ever done stand-up, would probably top the list.

You will note there are no women in this list.

The feminist Camille Paglia once made a very perceptive observation: "There are no great women painters for the same reason there are no female Jack the Rippers", and I suspect this dictum applies also to composers and comedians.

Who do you think the Greatest Comedians Ever?

1. Gallagher

2. Carrot-Top

3. Horatio Sanz

4. Andy Kauffman

5. The Wayans Sister

6. Robin Williams

7. Whoopie Goldberg

8. Whoever Writes Those Geico Commercials

9. Germans

10. Anyone Appearing in a "Just For Laughs" Skit Shown on Airplane TV Channels.

Very fair epitaph for Carlin. As to who's the best comedian, what would be the time period? Most of us only consider the recent era--say from Richard Pryor onward. The era of Standup comics, IOW. But surely there were comic greats in other forms? Chaplin, The Marx Brothers. Jackie Gleason (e.g., Honeymooners), Sid Caesar, and other acts of the 1930s-50s came at the dawn of the TV age or before. There was musical comedy, of which my favorite for trenchant and biting wit was Lehrer, though he may be too jejeune for many.

Asking who was the greatest comedian is worse than asking who was the greatest composer, for with the latter at least we may compare artifacts in similar forms: a symphony with a symphony, an opera with an opera. Some comics wrote their own material and some didn't. It's more akin to asking who is your favorite singer or movie star. Very incommensurate.

I can't rank them, so they're alphabetical:

Milton Berle
Carol Burnett
George Carlin
Steve Carrell
Steve Martin
Groucho Marx
Dudley Moore
Bill Murray
Richard Pryor
Robin Williams

Hon. Mention: Tim Conway, Dick Van Dyke, WC Fields, Eddie Murphy

Carlin has to be considered the best, imo. Followed closely by Richard Prior.

I don't care for the comedy of either Eddie Murphy or Robin Williams (but Williams is a great actor).

I like, in no particular order:

Rodney Dangerfield

Tim Conway

Ron White

Sam Kineson

The greatest comedian that ever lived was Jack Benny. No one else even comes close.

I never thought Jack Benny was funny.

Jack

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If I could have met anyone in the world when I was a kid, I would have wanted to meet Mr. Mel Blanc. Jack set the stage for all modern comedians with his timing, wit and ability to turn so little into so much. All comedians recognize his gifts, check this one out for laughs.

To each his own, of course.

Hey, when are you coming to Dallas?

Jack

(eom)

the only guys on your top 10 that made me lol were Dangerfield and Rickles (on Carson). Carlin, maybe, but how many times can you do "weather for tonight: dark", that's like Wayne's World stuff.

Guy I liked as a kid (me not him): Alan King. Had to see him on Ed Sullivan.

Guy who killed me on Letterman: Richard Lewis. In his prime, and when he got going on his mother and neuroses, he was unstoppable. Of course Letterman read him perfectly, so that helped.

Have to put a note in for Jerry Seinfeld + Larry David. To sustain what they did for 8-9 years ... (but then I suppose no different for Jackie Gleason or Lucille Ball, etc)

Canadian Corner: Norm MacDonald, either really really good or really really bad. Mike Bullard, unbelievably unfunny, uninteresting, he must've had the greatest agent in the world. Rick Mercer, good stuff; John Candy (et al), sometimes they hit it just right.

No votes for Andrew Dice Clay?

I'm with Woolley: Jack Benny was the finest comedian ever. I would add Bob Hope, George Burns and Red Skelton to the list. Their humor was not black or even dark, but their hey day was in times filled with enough drakness, dreariness, toughness that their audiences did not need to be reminded of the seriousness of life.

I would add Shelley Berman to the list as well. Like Benny, Hope and the rest, he had superb timing and delivery bred in vaudeville in front of very tough audiences.

I have certainly enjoyed the humor of all on your list, but I grew up when the older guys were still going strong and the younger generation was starting out.

Speaking of humor, Will Rogers deserves special mention for his gentle wit and his skill with the political dagger.

Bob and Ray also deserve mention, though they were not strictly stand-up comedians.

Jack Benny, though, was the master. He made people laugh by saying nothing at all. Just a look, a glance portraying fear or disgust or astonishment or wonder or shock would do it. And he was often at his funniest when he played the straight man.

arrive next sunday, staying downtown sheraton on North Olive, we have nothing to do most days as the games start in the evening, I can give you a call, my personal email is fsoos2001@yahoo.com, send me your details...

As a conceptualist, I have to bow a little to concept, so I'd have to cast votes for Lenny Bruce and Andy Kaufman (not because the latter was funny, the way we usually understand that, but because he demanded that we ponder what "funny"--indeed, what "performance," "art," or even "being"--actually means).

I'd love to throw my hat in with the fogies in here talking about Jack Benny, but I don't really understand old stand-up. I can bow before some old masters of wit (Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw), and am a rabid disciple of some of histories great physical comedians (Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd, and my personal fave, the inestimable Jacques Tati), but I imagine that's not in the spirit of the enterprise.

So, given the caveats of the last paragraph (lest the fogies should think I don't at least know about some of their heroes), my list would be:

1) Bill Hicks

2) Richard Pryor

3) Lenny Bruce

4) Andy Kaufman

5) George Carlin

And just because I'm not happy unless I'm fucking something up, I'll throw in a list of favorite comedic actors . . .

1) Buster Keaton

2) Harold Lloyd

3) Charlie Chaplin

4) Jacques Tati

5) Harpo Marx

. . . and some of my favorite writers, directors, and/or verbal comic actors (i.e., people who didn't do stand-up or pratfalls, but who were nonetheless indispensable to the cause of great comedy):

1) Groucho Marx

2) Oscar Wilde

3) Joe Orton

4) Preston Sturges

5) Aristophanes

Great news. I am taking my grandson to San Antonio to see the Alamo this coming Friday (6/27) and will be back on Sunday.

I will e-mail you my cell phone number so we can coordinate.

You won't be too far from the Papadeauxs on Oak Lawn in the Arts District. We might try that or some other places, if you like.

Jack