Comedy's Game Changers: The Definitive List
When you talk about comedy game changers, you have to be careful that you’re not just talking about comedy greatness. These are comedians that are simply the finest in their genre. Richard Pryor is the greatest storyteller (Although Patton Oswalt and John Mulaney have really taken the ball and run with it); Don Rickles, the greatest insult comic; Rich Little, the greatest impersonator; It would be hard to argue against Jerry Seinfeld being the premier observational comic; Comedy Magic? Do you think of anyone but The Amazing Jonathan? Mitch Hedberg took one-liners to a level that almost makes it impossible to continue the style. (Although an argument could be made for his changing the game in that his brilliance forced any who followed to take on an extreme edge – enter Anthony Jeselnik.)
Then there are those who couldn’t be considered a game changer because nobody else can compete in their game. Nobody had the processor Robin Williams had. Dave Chapelle is so singularly creative that he will never be successfully copied. I don’t even know how to describe what Cosby did but I know nobody else ever did it. The matchless Andy Kaufman is still difficult to define years later. And Brian Regan is always mentioned by himself. As if he’s somehow not to be grouped with any other comics.
There are the firsts or, at least, first widely recognized: Moms Mabley was the first black, female, and gay comic. Phyllis Diller and/or Joan Rivers are also included in that first famous female comedians discussion. Non-white or non-Jewish comedians like Freddie Prinze, Paul Rodriguez, Johnny Yune, Henry Cho, Margret Cho. Too, there’s Blaire’s cousin, but while she paved the way for comics with disabilities could you call her a game changer when compared to Josh Blue? And what about Yakov Smirnoff?
Finally, there are those like Lorne Michaels, Carson and Letterman, Mitzi Shore, Matt and Trey, Tina Fey, Norman Lear, Mel Brooks, Neil Simon, and Woody Allen just to name a few of comedy’s greatest writers and producers. And comedy actors like Lucile Ball, Bill Murray, Will Ferrell, Carol Burnett, Tim Conway, Lily Tomlin, Christopher Guest, and Ricky Gervais. While all of these have had a hand in influencing the direction of comedy, that impact tends to be a probable step in an inevitable direction.
But when talking about game changers, those who have unexpectedly turned the direction of, or added to, the focus of comedy, There have only been a few in the modern era and they are usually stand-up comics.
With stand-up being birthed from the stages of Vaudeville where you’d first find people like WC Fields, Sid Cesar, and Milton Berle, which relied heavily on slapstick and clowning the first unique voice to make it into the country’s consciousness has to be Groucho Marx. To this day, his timing and wit is not only copied (From Andy Kindler to Paula Poundstone to Alan Alda’s Hawkeye Pierce) but is a necessary weapon in the arsenal of any great comic.
From Groucho’s quick-witted roasting came the approach of insult comedy. There were, of course, those that came before, but the first comedians to be widely known for this style of humor were Jackie Mason, Alan King and Shecky Greene. All, old Catskill comedians. Who influenced who is unknown so…hey, Rickles is the Greatest. Let’s call him the game changer.
From insults comes angry comics. The first that might pop into your head could be Joey Bishop or Pat Cooper. If you’re a little younger it might be Sam Kinison or even Lewis Black. But since it sprung from the insult comedy of the Borscht Belt it is really just a steppingstone to the next real change which was the cynical comic. And that simply started with Lenny Bruce. Bruce was NOT the preeminent cynical, too-cool comedian. That distinction goes to Bill Hicks, but Lenny Bruce started it. Every open micer, and every other feature, and every third headliner is the cloned illegitimate stepchild of Bill Hicks, but Lenny Bruce is the one that got their mom pregnant.
What’s interesting is that, since Hicks and his cohorts – Carlin, Belzer, Dennis Miller, Rosanne – are the ones that these comics of the 21st century are copying, there were two decades where a whole generation took the observational route. As mentioned, Seinfeld is probably their King David, but their Abraham looks a lot more like Robert Klein. Klein kept much of the edge of the Lenny Bruce style but made it more palatable for the law-abiding club patrons with a healthy mix of observational and topical humor. So Robert Klein must be the next game changer right? Ah, you forget about the role Moses played in the survival of the Hebrews. The leader [Not the greatest speaker, but leader] of the observational school which has lasted down to our day; the comic who brought the humor of daily life to the Tonight Show and beyond; the original, “Did you ever notice?” guy, was David Brenner. With out Brenner, you don’t have a market for Seinfeld, Leno, Brian Regan, Louie Anderson, Ellen, or Sinbad. (That’s not true, I’m sure they would have made it big, But Brenner did it first!)
We haven’t discussed political humor. That’s mostly because it’s been around since long before, even, Vaudeville. Long before Mark Twain. Probably before Petronius’ Satyricon. That, of course, didn’t stop the rise of Tom & Dickie Smothers or Rowan & Martin or Mira & Stiller (These radicals seem to always come in twos), or the evolving George Carlin. But the next game changer came from breaking out of that structure of comedy. Steve Martin decided to zig when everybody else was making fun of Nixon. And here’s the thing about the genius of Steve Martin. He’s a genius. He was purposely looking for a different way to entertain people. He disguised his endlessly clever intellect in the character of an arrogant buffoon long before that would win you the highest office in the land. What makes that so impactful is that other comedians saw that a character, other than a souped-up version of themselves, can do routines that wouldn’t work as just regular people. The result was the 80s boom of hyper-schtick acts like, Bobcat, Emo Phillips, Dice, Tree, Judy Tinuta, Howie Mandel, Gallagher, Jake Johannsen, Steven Wright, Gilbert Gottfried, Sandra Bernhard even Tim Allen and Dennis Leary. All of those different voices were allowed a shot because of the success of Steve Martin…possibly the biggest game changer of them all.
There may be an argument for one sub-game changer in the 1980s. Richard Lewis took the self-deprecating charm of Rodney and mixed it with the neurotic angst of Woody Allen and started a whole new genre. The anxious Jew which also spawned Gary Shandling, Larry David, and a young Jon Stewart. Also, if you mix Richard Lewis with Steve Martin and an extra X chromosome, you get the hybrids known as Sarah Silverman and Emmy Blotnik.
Then there’s the filthy comics. Many have reached for that blue ring from Buddy Hackett to Redd Foxx to Bob Saget to Amy Schumer, not to mention quite a few of the people already mentioned here. But I don’t think anybody would ever argue against Eddy Murphy. The commercial success of his potty mouth makes him the Ty Cobb of dirty game changers (Excluding Ty Cobb, of course).
Now this list leaves out many, many great comics. I can think of about 40 that I believe are the funniest people to ever walk the planet (With Groucho, Rickles, and Steve Martin being three of them). But there is one more type of stand-up that I think includes at least four of those funniest people. I call it contrary humor. Some will call it angry humor depending on the delivery but that’s because many, who like to take offense to things, dismiss its context and tend to take the punch lines as opinion. In reality it’s a type of absurdist offshoot of observational humor where you look at things from the opposite side of conventional thought rather than just giving an unpopular opinion because it’s yours, a la Bill Maher, Joe Rogan, or Nick Di Paolo. The comics that I believe are the most seasoned at this are Louis CK, Bill Burr, and Daniel Tosh. And I believe all three of them, as well as others trying to make this their voice, would agree that the originator was Norm Macdonald. It reminds me of Norm’s line (Nowhere near one of his greatest by the way). He mentioned that Patton Oswalt had stated that, “the worst thing about the Bill Cosby thing is the hypocrisy of it all...” Norm disagreed. He thought the worst part was the raping.