How does one "rate" comedians in terms of who is the funniest?
In short, you can't. What one person finds funny, another will find offensive. By way of example, as a young child, perhaps around 10-12 years old, my parents foolishly allowed me to watch "The Benny Hill Show". I loved it. The slapstick element appealed to my childish sense of amusement. Fast forward some 25 years and I chanced to watch a fragment of an episode on Pay TV. Not amusing in the slightest. A bit of life experience afforded me the perspective of seeing it as the same old recycled, sexist gags. It wasn't intelligent, didn't make you think. It plain out wasn't funny.
I'll try and be as objective as possible and my criteria for selecting the "funniest" is a combination of:
1. Natural ability - their humour must appear spontaneous and effortless;
2. Intelligence - humour that works on many levels or makes you think;
3. Versatility - they have to be more than a one trick pony; and
4. Status - regarded generally as being "funny" and acknowledged as such by their peers (and/or recognised by way of awards).
So, drum roll please, the funniest comedians of all time (in no particular order) are:
ROBIN WILLIAMS
Anyone who spent a fair chunk of their childhood in the 1970s will remember "Happy Days". It was popular enough to launch the careers of Ron Howard and Henry Winkler (although "Welcome Back Cotter" gave him the kick start) and it was here that we were introduced to Robin Williams in the character of the alien Mork. This minor role proved so popular with viewers that it led to the spin-off "Mork and Mindy" and,as they say, the rest is history.
Williams is a great improviser and his routines are characterised by his rapid fire delivery, frequent tangents and change of accents. No subject is sacred and, despite an extensive film career, he has continued to perform stand up. His work comes across as arguably the mosy spontaneous of any comedian in history and he never stops performing. Regardless of whether it is stand-up, film, appearing in interviews, hosting events or just out in public, Williams pace is frenetic and he is always funny.
As a film actor, he cut his teeth on comedic roles, starring in "Popeye", "The World According to Garp" (one of my favourite novels) and "Good Morning Vietnam", where he pretty much carried the film single-handedly and earned a deserved Golden Globe, as well as Best Actor nominations in the Academy and BAFTA Awards. He showed his Juilliard training in moving comfortably in to more mainstream roles, scoring further Best Actor nominations for his work in "The Dead Poets Society" and Terry Gilliam's "The Fisher King" as well as scoring an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in "Good Will Hunting". His versatility is apparent in his taking on roles across genres, such as thrillers with "One Hour Photo" and "Insomnia", drama in "Awakenings", the supernatural "What Dreams May Come" and science fiction in "Bicentennial Man" (a very under-rated film in my view where Williams plays a robot who eventually realises his dream of becoming human).
He is arguably best known for his Golden Globe winning performance as the cross-dressing Mrs Doubtfire in the film of the same name. What is not as well known is that his former class mate at Juilliard was none other than Christopher Reeve and that the two were life-long friends. Williams visited Reeves after the horse-riding accident, pretending to be a Russian doctor there to give him a colonoscopy. It was apparently the first time since the accident that Reeves laughed and helped him regain a determination to live and make the most of his life.
JOHN CLEESE
I was going to include the whole Monty Python team, but Cleese is where it all began. Cleese's career began in university as part of the Footlights Revue at Cambridge. Their 1963 production "A Clump of Plinths" was so successful during the Edinburgh Fringe Festival (the Mecca for British comedy), that its name was changed to "Cambridge Circus" and it was taken to West End and Broadway. Cleese soon found himself appearing in sketches on "The Ed Sullivan Show" and "The Dick Emery Show". He worked with another Revue member, Graham Chapman and they put together the popular "The Frost Report". This launched the careers of a generation of British comedians, including Marty Feldman, "Goodies" Bill Oddie and Tim Brooke-Taylor and "Thw Two Ronnies" Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett. It also helped kick start the collaboration with Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin that would soon find fame under the moniker of Monty Python.
The success of Frost led to an offer of a series for broadcaster ITV. The sketch based "Monty Python's Flying Circus" ran for four seasons (1969-74). By the end of the third series, the standard of the comedy had begun to wane and the group were scouting for a new project. And so was born one of the funniest movies of all time "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" in 1975, which was essentially a movie length connected series of sketches on the Arthurian legend that made a mockery of religion, the British class system, the monarchy and everything else in between. It was a more mature and thematically consistent piece of work than their first film "And Now for Something Completely Different" (which it wasn't; that is completely different from other Python work). Made on a piffle of a budget, almost everything that could go wrong on set did, but it was hugely successful.
With such an outstanding film credit under their belts, the pressure was on for a follow up and 1979's "Life of Brian" matched it and raised the ante. This tale of a child born in the stable next to Jesus is arguably the funniest movie of all time. If 'Holy Grail' made fun of religion, "Life of Brian" took the fun to an entirely new level. EMI, who backed their previous film, found it all a little too sacreligious and pulled the rug from under the project. Thankfully, along came former Beatle, George Harrison, to set up the production company Handmade Films and bring this classic to our screens. This was followed by "The Meaning of Life", more of a sketch based comedy on existence and the big questions of life, death and all the stuff that matters.
Between these two classics, Cleese found time to co-write a series with then wife, Connie Booth, about a neurotic hotel manager. The series, "Fawlty Towers" has proved one of the most popular and enduring British comedy series on television. American audiences are probably more familiar with Cleese for his efforts in "A Fish Called Wanda" and its sequel "Fierce Creatures", his roles as R and Q in a couple of James Bond films ("The World is not Enough" and "Die Another Day") and as the voice of King Harold in the "Shrek" movies (as well as voices in many other animated films).
DAVE ALLEN
Allen was an Irish comedian (he passed away in 2005) whose career didn't progress beyond television but who has been noted as the inspiration for so many (mostly British) comedians. He first appeared on television as the host of the BBC talent show "New Faces" and then toured in 1961 with a then unknown band called 'The Beatles'. His career took off following an offer to headline his own talk show in Australia. "Tonight with Dave Allen" in 1963 proved very popular in Australia, the UK and Canada and re-runs still rate very well (and is proving popular in the US).
His trademark routine involved sitting in a chair and telling jokes while smoking and sipping a glass of whiskey (well, he is Irish). Much of his material poked fun at religion, the British class system, and his comedy involved a mixture of jokes, sketches and long stories while sitting in his chair. Dave Allen had a piece missing from the index finger of his left hand and over the years we heard seemingly countless versions of how this happened - from his brother biting it off, to doing it himself to avoid National Service, to it being eaten away from continually dipping it into his trademark glass of whiskey. He ended every show with the line 'Good night, thank you, and may your god go with you'.
Outside of television, Allen maintained a fairly private existence and was an amateur artist who exhibited his work. He also made a number of documentaries and had a successful stage career.
JERRY SEINFELD
Seinfeld's career in comedy began after brief stints in college stage productions. He would get up and do the occasional stand-up routine, prompting him to give it a go at a more formal level in 1976's "Catch A Rising Star" in New York. This led to guest appearances in a number of television shows, including "Benson" and "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson". Carson was that impressed by Seinfeld that he became a regular guest as well as appearing on "Late Night with David Letterman" and "The Merv Griffin Show".
Seinfeld's humour is observational, poking fun at the ordinary and trivial details of daily life that most of us wouldn't even notice. The guest apperances and stand-up work became the apprenticeship for what is so far his defining work, the hit series "Seinfeld". This was created with Larry David for NBC and hit our screens in 1989. It soon became the most popular and successful sitcom on American television, running until 1998, and still receives regular screening in syndication. It is famous for Seinfeld playing a parody of himself, its quirky characters and essentially being a comedy about nothing. When "Seinfeld" ended, Seinfeld returned to his roots in stand-up comedy and has pursued a writing career. He also voiced the lead character in the animated 2007 film "Bee Movie".
ROSS NOBLE
This is a left field entry. Noble doesn't have the vintage of the others (he was born in 1976), but what he lacks in longevity, he more than makes up for in originality and ability. Like Robin Williams, he performs at a frentic pace, goes off on multiple tangents and his planning for each show is, according to Noble: 'four words on a scrap of paper'. His stand-up routines are a surreal experience juggling many topics and stories, flitting between each, while diverging into areas that he just happens to think of at the time and usually include a cast of several audience members, usually hecklers, who become a part of the story and are referred to at frequent intervals and items left or thrown on stage.
He credits his performing style to a combination of being diagnosed with dyslexia and growing up in what he considers the most boring place in England (Cramlington, Northumberland). He is an avid motorcyclist and nearly experienced a premature end to his career after a motorcycle crash while touring Australia in 2006 - as luck would have it, he crashed outside a hospital. He is a regular at the major comedy festivals and his shows are regularly sold-out. In 2007, he simulcast one of his performances to 43 Vue cinemas in the UK and is a regular guest star on television shows in Australia and the UK. Thanks to his Australian born wife Fran, Australian audiences are lucky enough to receive a regular dose of Noble's unique brand of comedy.
SPIKE MILLIGAN
Born Terence Alan Patrick Sean Milligan, Milligan is often thought of as an English comedian. The truth is that he was born in India to an Irish father and English mother and his nationality is noted as Irish. His early career was in music, Milligan was an accomplished jazz vocalist and trumpeter, before being called up to serve in the Second World War. It was here that he developed a taste for comedy, writing and performing comedy sketches to entertain the troops. He served as a signaller in North Africa, before becoming a gunner in Italy, where he was wounded. After recovering from a mortar wound to his right leg and shell shock, he went through a series of behind the lines military jobs, all the while continuing to perform before his colleagues in an effort to maintain morale, eventually becoming a full time entertainer.
After the war, he returned to jazz, while writing parodies of plays in his spare time, continually trying to break into radio comedy. These parodies formed some of the routines for what would eventually become "The Goon Show", partnering with Harry Secombe and Peter Sellers in a British radio program that would run on the BBC Home Service from 1951 to 1960. He appeared in more than 70 television programs, plays and films and has been the credited source of inspiration for a generation of comedians. Outside of comedy, he was a serious poet and campaigner for environmental issues and against domestic violence.