“Rolling Stone” put together a list of ‘The 50 Best Stand-Up Comics of All Time.’ They say they considered, quote, “artistic merit, technical proficiency, sense of timing, quality of their written material, their delivery, and degree of influence.”
And they mostly focused on modern day comics, which basically means they weren’t interested in actually researching comedians outside the past 40 or 50 years, but they still wanted to call it a list of the best of “ALL TIME”. (???)
Anyway, here’s the Top 20:
1. Richard Pryor
2. George Carlin
3. Lenny Bruce
4. Louis C.K.
5. Chris Rock
6. Joan Rivers
7. Jerry Seinfeld
8. Bill Cosby
9. Dave Chappelle
10. Mort Sahl
11. Steve Martin
12. Robin Williams
13. Bill Hicks
14. Andy Kaufman
15. Steven Wright
16. Billy Connolly
17. Bill Burr
18. Kevin Hart
19. Albert Brooks
20. Mitch Hedberg
(RollingStone.com has the whole list, along with brief write-ups for each)
