Comedy Central is running a five-part special this week…The 100 Greatest Standups of All Time. Each night, they cover 20 comedians on their list, counting up from the bottom. A group of comics sit around Canter's Delicatessen talking about each comic and there are short clips…and if you can get past the fact that the list is highly arguable, it's a rather entertaining exercise. As I've mentioned, I think people take such lists too seriously, and the end credits of this show include a fast disclaimer that says as much. Still, you can't help but watch the rankings and go, "That's nuts" every now and then. Here's as much of the list as they've posted on their site so far.
The first three nights, they've unveiled #41-100 and a few gross injustices leap out at me. Shelley Berman (who Comedy Central has as #66) and Jackie Mason (their #63) should both be in the top ten. I'm guessing that Comedy Central's #1 comic will be either George Carlin or Richard Pryor with the other as first runner-up.
I thought I'd try to guess their entire Top Forty but that gets into a problem of definitions. I don't know if they're considering folks like Johnny Carson, Bob Hope, Lily Tomlin, David Letterman and Jonathan Winters. So, keeping in mind that I may be way off in their criteria, I'll guess that they'll count those folks plus (in no particular order) Robin Williams, Andy Kaufman, Albert Brooks, Jay Leno, Steve Martin, Garry Shandling, Mort Sahl, Lenny Bruce, Woody Allen, Bill Cosby, Dennis Miller, Robert Klein, Bob Newhart, Sam Kinison, Phyllis Diller, Eddie Murphy, Rodney Dangerfield, Lord Buckley, Jerry Seinfeld, Bill Maher, Buddy Hackett, Don Rickles, Bill Hicks, maybe Jim Carrey, maybe Roseanne, maybe Godfrey Cambridge, Redd Foxx and Chris Rock, plus Carlin and Pryor. That's 35 names. Let's see who else they have on their list and if they leave any of these people out altogether. If Carrot Top gets in, it'll be the biggest scandal since the invention of the Hanging Chad.