On January 22, A&E Biography is airing a program called Laugh Out Loud, which — well, here. I'll let you read it for yourself…
We polled over 250 comedians, journalists, and academies to find out which TV comedians made them laugh over the years and which had the most influence on television comedy today. The result is their list of the 15 greatest TV comedians of all time. We won't reveal the list until the program airs, but we can tell you it will be full of hilarious clips showing our legendary comedians at their best.
I always think these "best" polls are silly and arbitrary and that folks take them way too seriously. But one of my spies sent me a list that purports to be the fifteen funny folks that the poll chose and I have to admit, it ain't a bad list for what it is…
Steve Allen, Lucille Ball, Jack Benny, Milton Berle, Carol Burnett, Sid Caesar, Johnny Carson, Bill Cosby, Jackie Gleason, Bob Hope, Ernie Kovacs, Steve Martin, Groucho Marx, Richard Pryor, Robin Williams
Assuming this is indeed their list, I can't argue with too many inclusions or omissions, except possibly that I don't think of Mssrs. Pryor or Martin as really having done their strongest work on TV. Had it just been me deciding, I'd have bumped them for Bob Newhart, Dick Van Dyke, Phil Silvers or one or two other guys. I might also have argued that Jonathan Winters has been both funnier and more influential than Robin Williams and that Jackie Gleason's greatest contribution to televised humor was hiring Art Carney. But all in all, it's not a bad list. I have another list of great comedians that some friends of mine and I compiled once, and I'll post it here in a week or two.