Jess Wainwright wrote to ask me this:
I can't find it on your blog now but I know I read it somewhere that one should never judge a comedian by five minutes on some talk show. You said you need to see them live and in person doing a long set. Can you tell us some of the comedians you've been impressed with seeing them live like that and maybe some who were less than impressive?
Sure. I can't find where I said that either just now but the example I probably gave was Sam Kinison. I thought he was awful on TV, even on HBO where he could cuss as much as he liked. A couple times though, my buddy Len Wein and I went to see Sam at the Comedy Store. He had an impact live that simply did not come through over television and he needed to take his time and not try to get a laugh every thirty seconds. He would tell these long, rambling stories that were always worth the wait to get to the part where he was riotously funny.
But it always had to be in something of an intimate room. The last time I saw him in person was in the big showroom at Bally's. The room was too big for him and the crowd was too drunk. A lot of his on-time stage was taken up with the crowd imitating his famous screams and Sam screaming back at them. It made me think of one time when Steve Martin was asked why he'd given up performing stand-up. He said something like — this is not an exact quote — "My act turned into forty minutes of the audience yelling my catch-phrases at me!"
I never saw Martin perform on a stage but here's a partial list of comics I have seen in long, live sets: Jay Leno, George Carlin, Robert Klein, Bill Cosby, Eddie Murphy, Jim Jefferies, Lewis Black, Ricky Gervais, Paula Poundstone, Bill Maher, Marc Maron, Richard Lewis, Richard Jeni, Dennis Miller, Jackie Mason, Rita Rudner, Bill Kirchenbauer, Jeff Altman, Louis Anderson, Mike Birbiglia, Roseanne Barr, Louis C.K., Robin Williams, Paul Rodriguez, Paul Mooney, Gallagher, Don Rickles, Shelley Berman, Bob Newhart, David Spade, Richard Belzer and at least another twenty I'm forgetting.
Less than impressive? Roseanne Barr didn't get a laugh the time I saw her and it was, of course, all our fault. Dennis Miller (and this was before he got political) rattled off a lot of old hunks I knew from his HBO specials with the attitude of "Can I get my check and get outta here?" Jackie Mason was brilliantly funny the first time I saw him. He was dreadful — and filled with a lot of hate for certain people he talked about — the second time.
Rickles was awful the first time I saw him. It was during a period of his life when he was trying to put insult comedy behind him and to do mostly song and dance. He also spent much of his time on stage scolding us like children for not understanding that Frank Sinatra was the greatest human being who ever walked the Earth with Jesus Christ a distant second. The second time I saw him, he was back to Classic Rickles and it was much better but still not quite up to the legend.
Mr. Belzer left me untickled, as did Mr. Spade. Maybe those were just off nights. I saw Maher being not too impressive when he was new and I saw him be much, much better later.
My two favorites who are touring these days are Jim Jefferies and Lewis Black. And I didn't put him on the list above but the most I ever laughed in my life was one night in the mid-seventies at (I think) the Troubadour over on Santa Monica Boulevard. It was one of the last times Albert Brooks ever did stand-up and I can still make myself laugh by repeating a few well-remembered lines from that show to myself. If I think of some more, I'll post a follow-up to this answer.
