5 Best Up & Coming Comedians I Just Made Up

There are a lot of great comedians. Some of them you know and some of them you don’t. Ideally a list like this would be helpful to spotlight some of those comedians you don’t know and then you’d pay more attention to their output this year. I agree that would be much better than the list we’re currently both dealing with, which is one that I am completely unprepared for. I don’t know any up and coming comedians to spotlight but I have to make this list anyway so I’m just going to do my best to make it up as I go along and hopefully by the end we’ll all get out of here okay.

Jimmy Johnson

There’s a lot of buzz around Jimmy this year. Jimmy is from Alaska. There’s actually a really big comedy scene in Alaska because it’s cold there and everyone can bond and laugh over how cruel the planet’s temperatures can be. He has the same name as the football personality but he’s a different person. It’s a generic name and Jimmy has a lot of great jokes about that. You should definitely check out Jimmy if you can which would be impressive because again I am just typing to fill space here and I’m 99% sure there is no Jimmy Johnson comedian but then again maybe there is because like I said I did 0% research for this.

Dave Atellooski

Dave Attellooski is basically a Polish version of the famous comedian Dave Attell. He’s a guy who tells a lot of dirty jokes. The way Dave Attellooski tells them is different because there’s more jokes like “how many lightbulbs does it take to screw in a Polish?” which is a different take on joke structure that only Dave Attelooski could think of but also me because I actually thought of it and I’m typing this as fast as I possibly can. This article needed to have been finished 2 days ago but I kept telling my editor I had leukemia until I realized that was not a smarter doctor-y way to say “diarrhea” and I had to confess I don’t know what leukemia is. The reality is I haven’t had sober sleep in years.

Betty Petty

Betty is from New York and has a lot of great jokes about bagels and dating and the Manhattan skyline. She’s not petulant but sometimes she jokes about being related to Tom Petty which is her closer. People love that joke. I hope that seems believable because it’s in this list format. I have no idea what a closer is. I thought “opener” was the first person at a comedy show and “closer” was the last person, like in baseball or the TNT show. To be totally honest with you I haven’t been to a comedy club since the late ‘90s. I promised myself I would never go back after what happened. I don’t need to go into it but let’s just say “I watched a man run through a comedy club and he was completely on fire.” Anyway, Betty is a great comedian. Two more to go.

Gay George Carlin

George Carlin hasn’t released a special in a few years and everyone thought his career was over but guess what this year he comes back older and stronger than ever and also now he’s gay. If you thought his material was insightful before, get ready to think that again, because he’s still insightful, he’s just gay now so he talks about that instead of pussy farts or whatever he was talking about before. I’ve said this a thousand times but I don’t know how the man in the comedy club got lit on fire. Okay fine I know his name was Dave. Listen it wasn’t my fault. I didn’t know anything about grease fires back then. Anyway one thing led to another and then Dave was on fire and it didn’t matter how much water I threw on him, that fire was not going out until Dave was dead. Believe me, Dave held up his end of the bargain because that guy died very very horrifically. So yeah I really just haven’t had as much interest in going to comedy clubs since I changed my identity. I hope that is a good reason to not know anything about comedy and makes you sympathize with me for not doing my job because I think George Carlin’s new direction is bold and honest and I feel like there’s a good chance I could be right about this even though I am not thinking even for a second before typing.

Amy Schumer

Okay so the point is I need money. I spent all of the money I used to have on lawyers to convince Dave’s family that he didn’t actually die, he just didn’t love them anymore. Then I spent some other money that Dave left me as a gift on methamphetamines. In some ways maybe I should probably get my act together. I mean, what am I doing? Writing lists, making stuff up just to fill the void because nobody cares? I guess in a lot of ways that’s what I’ve always been running from is the core truth that at the end of the day nobody cares about anybody else. At least that’s what I kept yelling to Dave the last time I saw him. I think it would be in everybody’s best interest if I finished this list now that I’ve hit the word count. So let’s all root for these comedians this year and let’s all get sober. 2008 is definitely going to be our year.

Follow Grant on Twitter.