You can tell a lot about a person by knowing what he/she laughs at. Keeping that in mind, these are the humorists/comedians that I find the most amusing or witty: Dave Barry, The Three Stooges, Gary Larson, and Eddie Izzard.
Dave Barry is one of the funniest people in the world. His columns--and books--are extremely hilarious. It's his style, as much as what he says, that makes him as great and popular as he is. He is a columnist for the Miami Herald, but his columns also appear in several other newspapers nationwide. I'll include a quote by Dave Barry, so you can get a basic feel for his stuff, and hopefully start thinking of him as a comic genius, as I do.
"The typical Nintendo game involves controlling a little man who runs around the screen trying to stay alive while numerous powerful and inexplicably hostile forces try to kill him; in other words, it's exactly like real life. When I play, the little man becomes highly suicidal. If he can't locate a hostile force to get killed by, he will deliberately swallow the contents of a little electronic valium bottle. So all my games end instantly, whereas my son can keep the little man alive through several presidential administrations. He is always trying to cheer me up by saying, "Good try, Dad!" in the same sincerely patronizing voice that I once used to praise him for not getting peas in his hair. What is worse, he gives me Helpful Nintendo Hints that are far too complex for the adult mind to comprehend. Here's a verbatim example: 'OK, there's Ganon and miniature Ganon and there's these things like jelly beans and the miniature Ganon is more powerfuller, because when you touch him the flying eagles come down and the octopus shoots red rocks and the swamp takes longer.' And the hell of it is, I know he's right."
I don't care how stupid the three stooges' humor is, because I love it, no matter what anybody says. I kind of grew up with the stooges, so I am a little biased. We had all of their shorts recorded on tapes, and I had every other line memorized...in fact, there are still several routines I can recite word for word. For those who don't know, the Three Stooges were comprised of Moe and Shemp Howard, and Larry Fine; Shemp left, and was replaced with Curly Howard, who was vastly more popular. When Curly fell ill, Shemp replaced him once again, but when he(Shemp) suddenly died, Curly was forced to replace him once again, despite his sickness.
Moe is my favorite stooge, probably because he was the "brains of the outfit", although he was still rather stupid. Curly was hilarious, in a zany, childlike sort of way, and was the most popular of them all. He was also a drinker and a womanizer, and he died young, of heart failure. Larry Fine was more into gambling and having fun than he was involved with the stooges, and on the screen he seems nearly inconsequential. But it's hard to imagine the Stooges without him, since he needed to be there as the "middleman"--for Moe to bonk on the head, or to help Curly with one of his knuckleheaded schemes. Finally, Shemp was the oldest of the brothers, and the most experienced. His comedy was definitely different from Curly's (Curly had very little stage experience; his high voice was a product of his stage fright), and although he wasn't as popular, I think he was underrated.
I definitely can't recommend the Three Stooges to everybody, but I love them, so I have to defend them.
I love Larson's twisted, unique, obsessive sense of humor. Gary Larson draws the "Far Side" comics, and they are very, very funny. Again, I can't really demonstrate how funny Larson and the Far Side are, without showing you. So here are some choice comics:
I would have two comics here, one with a pilot saying something over an intercom, and one about natural selection...but my html teacher claims that Larson would "have a cow" if I posted them, so sorry:)>.
Eddie Izzard, the great comedic "bloke with a dress"! He's an Englishman, and a stand-up comic, and he performs his routine in heavy makeup and women's clothing. Yes, he is a transvestite, but he "fancies girls," and he reminds us (repeatedly) that he's an *EXECUTIVE* transvestite, an *ACTION* transvestite, not a "f****** weirdo" transvestite like J. Edgar Hoover. His humor is observational, satirical, historical and (for the most part) intelligent. In his "Dress to Kill" show, for example, he spent a good amount of time making fun of the Church of England ("cake or death?"), Adolf Hitler (he never played "Risk" as a kid), imperialism ("Do you have a flag?"), Italian scooters ("ciao"), the French ("quoi?"), the pompousness of the English royalty ("So you're a plumber? What on EARTH is that?"), the pompousness of the English cinema (A Room with a View and a Staircase and a Pond), the violence of the American cinema (A Room with a View of Hell! Staircase of Satan! Pond of Death!), the Heimlich Maneuver ("It's more of a gesture, really..."), etcetera. But I'm sure you can't laugh at the stuff I'm writing it down; it's the EXECUTION of it that makes it so great. If you can, I highly recommend watching his routine--if you have a good sense of humor, you'll enjoy it.
This is my section for Colin. He did NOT tie me up and gag me in order for me to include him on my humor site, but he did strongly suggest that I make some mention of him. One other funny thing that I could do, that could generate some honest-to-goodness laughs, would be to make this a "smack" section, and talk about all the stupid rumors (actually, most are quite true) going around school which I think are ridiculous, and yet which interest me to no end (probably because I have nothing better to do than to listen to them and repeat them...) Anyway, though, let me tell all you people who visit my site (aka: Colin and some people in Michigan) something about Colin: he was born in the same hospital as I was, in Long Beach, CA, and that has cursed him for life. He can imitate anything or anybody, except for (perhaps) me. To his credit, I should probably mention that if it weren't for him, I'd never ever have discovered the humor diety who is Eddie Izzard. Right now, I am in posession of "Dress to Kill," but he has "Glorious," which I have not yet had the privilege of seeing. Eddie is a part of our personal pantheons, although I doubt that Roger Waters finds a place in his. This is really sad. Speaking of sad, this is a saturday and I have just spent significant time (a) Updating my website, and (b) Talking to a 12-year-old and a 10-year-old on instant messenger (ok...because Colin just said this makes me seem like a pedophile, let me say that I am NOT, by ANY means, a pedophile--these are the kids who my friend babysat for...long story). This is truly, truly sad.
The people I have mentioned above are the funniest I can think of, but other funny acts/people/actors include Matt Groening (The Simpsons), Jerry Seinfeld, Jim Carrey, Scott Adams (the guy who makes the "Dilbert" cartoons), Wiley (Non Sequitur), and the Farelly Brothers.
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