print
Page 1 of 2
“Good evening, my name is Bill Hicks. I’ve been on the road now doing comedy 12 years, so, uh, bear with me while I plaster on a fake smile and plow through this shit one more time. I’m kinda tired of traveling, kinda tired of doing comedy, kinda tired of staring out at your blank faces looking back at me, wanting me to fill your empty lives with humor you couldn’t possibly think of yourselves.” —Bill Hicks, Dark Poet
Being a funny person on a stage is not easy. It takes a unique determination to stand in front of complete strangers and hope they get it the way you get it. Oftentimes, they simply won’t, but the trick is to keep going. The folks below did, and it is with great pleasure and great awe that we honor them—the 10 best comedians of the decade:
10. Aziz Ansari
With a cultishly popular MTV show (Human Giant), a flourishing stand-up career, a scene-stealing turn in Judd Apatow’s Funny People, and a blog he actually posts on regularly, it’s only fitting that twentysomething comic Aziz Ansari make our list. Whether he’s hanging with idol Kanye West or bloodying up Ted Leo as “Clell Tickle: Indie Marketing Guru,” Ansari stays connected to the music world while taking us all on the highway to the comedy zone. And watch out, entertainment journos; Ansari recently started writing articles for the likes of Interview. Besides, who else can lay claim to literally being the A to Z of comedy? Sara Miller
Click here to watch Clell Tickle: Indie Marketing Guru.
9. Mitch Hedberg
Mitch Hedberg was a master at relating simple observational ironies to his audience. His stand-up routine could’ve been achingly unfunny in someone else‘s hands, but an atonal, stream-of-consciousness delivery teased an almost confessional humor out of life’s idiosyncrasies. His death from a drug overdose in 2005 only added to his mystique, transforming him into a cult comedy icon. Michael Saba
8. Eugene Mirman
Eugene Mirman’s dozens of online video clips and his three brilliant standup albums this decade—along with the work of peers like Zach Galifianakis and Patton Oswalt—have taken comedy in a bold new, hilariously absurd direction. Mirman is the undisputed king of the perfectly executed non-sequitur (“This is a bag of dandelions! These aren’t chicken strips at all!”), an expert lampooner of all things pop-cultural (check the Mötley Crüe Behind the Music clip at Eug-Tube), and a master at adapting angry screeds to soulless corporations into stage plays. Plus, he’s a Maxim-magazine-certified “sexpert.” Steve LaBate
7. Ricky Gervais
No one else can pull off the role of the oblivious blowhard like Gervais. The Office showcased his knack for playing a self-important ass, and his brilliant BBC series Extras extracted hilarious performances out of the biggest stars in show business. But the real surprise is how his stand-up comedy sometimes even surpasses his character acting. Emily Riemer
6. Sarah Silverman
Like more than a couple funny people on this list, Silverman specializes in the thorniest of topics—race. The woman who once delivered a bit about Martin Luther King just couldn’t help herself, even in the get-out-the-vote video below, which mixes earnest enthusiasm for Obama with wicked jokes about ethnicity. Nick Marino
Good Hair
Anger Management: Growing Up With Patton Oswalt
10 Funniest Twitterers: Comedians Worth Following on…
Rhymes with Crouton: The Touching Story of…
The 10 Greatest B-52's Songs
Ten Great Pepsi Super Bowl Commercials From…
Eleven Wimpy Sports Songs
Ten February 2010 Albums Worth Checking Out
Flaming Lips, Weezer, Phoenix Lead Bonnaroo 2010…
The 50 Best Movies of the Decade…
The 17 Best Romantic Comedies This Decade
Josh Ritter Announces New Album, Tour
Listen Up: Playing "The Circle Game" (and…
The 10 Best TV Finales of All…
Is Indie Dead?
MTV Removes "Music" From Logo
Galactic - Frends of Science
Lissie - Little Lovin'
Avett Brothers - The Avett Brothers -…
Dawn Landes - Wanderin' Eye
This list is incomplete without Brian Regan.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWzYaZDK6Is
thank you, thank you, thank you. if i saw Dane Cook listed, i am certain that i would've thrown my laptop out the window.
Have to agree with Keith on this one. Brian Regan is still one of my fav comics.
louis c.k?
jim gaffigan?
love patton oswalt. glad he is on here.
Chris Rock needs to be off of this list along with a few others so they can make room for Jim Gaffigan and Louis C K.
Yup, Jim Gaffigan and Luis C.K. are obviously missing on this one.
Louis C.K. is the George Carlin of the 21st century. Talk about a glaring omission.
Louis CK should be on the list and your staff should commit mass suicide.
Louis CK should be on the list and your staff should commit mass suicide.
No Eddie Izzard? Seriously? A good list, but very incomplete.
Disappointed to see only one woman on this list, Paste. Margaret Cho? Kathy Griffin? Wanda Sykes?
I was hoping to see Demetri Martin, because no one's standup has me laughing harder. Steven Wright with more exuberance and stranger connections. He belongs where Sarah Silverman is, who has yet to make me laugh. Being crude to get a laugh is cheap.
Too many US comics. Patton Oswalt, really? Zach Galifianakis? Awful. Look up Tommy Tiernan, Dara O'Brian, Frankie Boyle, Al Murray, Stewart Lee, Simon Amstell. The quality of standup is much higher in the UK/Ireland alone, let alone the rest of Europe.
Hate to say the same thing everyone else is saying, but leaving LCK off is a bit like showing someone the glories of the west coast and leaving out San Francisco.
No Jon Stewart??
No Lewis Black?!?!?!
I agree with others about the absence of Louis C.K. and Jim Gaffigan (not that the writer's should commit mass suicide, but that they should be on this list, I would go so far as to say that they should be in the #1 and #2 spots respectively). I also think that Mike Birbiglia should be on this list. This suggestion may just be a personal preference, but objectivity was never an option anyway.
Oh yeah, and Eddie Izzard (obviously).
I agree with exactlyy four of these (Zach Galifianakis, Patton Oswalt, Mitch Hedberg and Eugene Mirman). And I am sad that Paul F. Tompkins didn't make the list. (There are other people I'm sad didn't make the list, too.)
Louis CK? Attell? Otherwise, you got my list.
I agree with Kevin, also.
Thank god that skank Wanda Sykes is not on the list, because I would have become unglued at paste. (I am not a comic for a reason)
#1 LOUIS CK and jim gaffigan has to be on list as well but dont sleep on jim norton dave attel and doug standhope 3 comediens that def talk about drugs whores and perersions better then any.
What about Katt Williams?
Stanhope, fuckheads. Stanhope.
I think Eddie Izzard belongs on any list of this type. His standup work is brilliant.
What this list totally sucks!! Where's Carrottop?
Good list overall. But the omission of Jim Gaffigan is more stomach-turning than a plateful of partially frozen hot pockets.
If list is supposed to be the best "stand-up comics" of the past decade its only about halfway decent. Nothing personal against David Cross, Eugine Mirman or Aziz Ansari but I don't think there act is clearly in the top 10 of the past decade. Where's Louis CK, Jim Gaffigan and the highly underrated Bill Burr???
I really have to ask what qualifications the staff had to judge standup. Would you let a staff member who had only heard 20 new album releases to judge the best of the year? I say this because this is my guess on what at least most of the staff has done for comedy. This was such a alternative comedy/hipster list, with a lot of really great comics left off of it. Any list without Greg Giraldo or Louis CK in 2009 is faulty. Have you heard people like Dan Cummins or David Crowe? They have performed for more people than have ever come out to see TV on the Radio or Animal Collective, but are unknown in non-comedy circles.
I appreciate all the talents you listed, but to put a comedic actor like Ricky Gervais, who had done little standup is kind of lame. Cross is pretty great, but he's been more of an actor this decade as well. I would suggest you take a little time away from keeping your hipster cred and spend a little more time exploring less ironic standup.
Ummm... What about Eddie Izzard? Kudos for including Mitch Hedburg, though. And I can't really argue with Dave Chappelle as #1 - he's a damn funny guy. But, really? No Eddie Izzard?
don't forget louis c.k.
this is a shit list. whoever put it together is crap.