The 5: Simon King’s Five Comedians That Are Criminally Overlooked
Vancouver Comedian Simon King completely changes a room when he takes the stage. His aggressive, insightful and unique delivery is captured beautifully on his new album, As Good As Or Better Than. Released by 604 Records comedy arm, Comedy Here Often, Robin Williams called King “a unique talent” and “truly gifted comedian” delights his audience with intelligent and flat-out hilarious comedy at lightning speed. He has played some of the world’s most prestigious comedy competitions and festivals and has also been featured on Comedy Network, CBC, CTV, TBS, Comedy Central and many more.
“In their life, long or short, an artist may sadly never feel the bliss and tragedy of creating a true masterpiece,” says King. “Many will forever chase a distant horizon anchored to diminishing hope and one day realize the art they have poured their life into has slowly become the prison bars on which they dull their teeth. This may just be that last faint cry from the abyss of a broken heart. A scream so loud it escapes self imposed purgatory to be heard even amongst the living. Or maybe it’s just some stupid wacky jokes and dirty words.”
Simon’s fifth album, As Good As Or Better Than, his first with Comedy Here Often/604 Records, is available now.
To commemorate the new release, Simon King shared with us his list of the 5 most criminally underrated comedians. Enjoy!
The conversation about who may be the best in any field is usually a loaded one. People have their opinions and if the modern world of internet communication has taught us anything, it’s that people cannot wait to tell you what they think. These conversations become much more impassioned when the topic turns to the arts. Subjectivity abounds and one person’s perfume is invariably someone else’s poison.
However, within this line drawn world of adversarial opinion there are often generally accepted members of the top of the top club. In the corner of entertainment, we call stand-up comedy and particularly amongst comics themselves there is an almost robotic adherence to who can be allowed on the proverbial comedy Mount Rushmore.
Pryor, Carlin, Bruce, Hicks are the first names to drop and often the most defended and championed by those who wish to walk amongst the comedians in the same direction as opposed to those willing to face the other way and stand still while the herd passes.
I’m not saying these people are not worthy of that praise but I am saying it may be time to talk about some less mainstream comedians who have been quietly changing stand up and making this art form so much better while never really making their way into that discussion.
MARIA BAMFORD
I defy you to find a better character driven absurdist comedian working today. You could certainly bring Jonathan Winters into the mix if you were to dust through the history books and his improv and chameleon like abilities are certainly legendary but he may be the only stand up who can claim a place in this arena alongside Bamford. Not only is she incredibly funny, a prerequisite for this list for certain but she brings something truly unique to the stage. A master of voices and harnessing the power of a self-admitted unpredictable brain, she finds and magnifies the smallest pieces of the humanity puzzle in the cracks between the real world and the one she builds so completely. If you have never seen Maria Bamford then you are missing one of the most interesting and incredibly honest and layered acts in stand up. She is the only one holding the keys to a door to a strange world of mad characters, odd observations, emotion and infectious energy that she generously opens up to comedy tourists with every word she says behind a microphone.
BRIAN REGAN
Some would say Brian is already well recognized amongst the public and his peers and they’d be right. In fact, I have honestly never heard a comedian ever say anything but the most fawning praise about the man and his comedy. That’s why he’s on this list as overlooked. You see, when discussing the top five comedians to ever take the stage his name, although celebrated in general conversation, is nearly never spoken. I cannot for the life of me figure out why. He is universally admired and respected as one of the most room shakingly funny comics ever but he so very often takes second place to the Carlins and Pryors of the world. I think it comes down to material. Brian is a clean comedian and some would argue that’s an even harder degree of difficulty than working blue etc. I don’t know about that but I do know comedians tend to get up their own butts a bit about “truth telling” and “speaking to power”. The fact is, having consumed as much of this man’s incredible stand up as I have, I can say he’s one of the most honest and best stand-up comedians there has ever been. Just because he isn’t telling a story of a time he did blow off a dead cow in a field in Idaho with some motorcycle enthusiasts, doesn’t mean you aren’t getting to know the real him.
Supremely funny doesn’t even begin to cover it. Prolific, a master of word economy and flow, beautiful energy that draws you in and obvious intelligence while coming across as a lovable buffoon, who he is on stage is who you want him to be. You can read his generosity of spirit, inquisitiveness and supreme observational ability with every word he says. I’ve also yet to meet a comedian who isn’t jealous of his ability to find water in what we all thought was a dry well. Brian Regan deserves to be in the discussion of the best ever all day every day. I mean, you know, if you like funny comedians that is.
DICK GREGORY
Carlin before Carlin, Pryor before Pryor and a contemporary of the legendary Lenny Bruce, Dick Gregory was a voice of dissent and dissatisfaction with the status quo while most comedians where still trying to figure out how to not get fired for saying “damn” in their act. Born in the early 1930’s, he started performing in the mid 1950’s. This was a time in America when being black in entertainment was hard enough but Dick found the hardest part of that business and excelled. I think he doesn’t often get the credit he deserves because although in the public eye almost all of his life, his stand-up career was relatively short lived compared to others in the mainstream top five. By the early 1970’s he had moved to activism more than stand up and so that part of his body of work may have fallen out of view. However, he was a best-selling author, an activist, a speaker and the definition of a rule breaking, path finding comedian. He appeared on television doing stand-up as early as 1961 and was known for his deft ability to throw rocks at the king and hit the crown most every time. Here’s a black man in the early 1960’s pitching hard heat against the institutions of the day, war, hate and particularly the systemic and societal racist norms. Not only is he getting away with it but he’s making some of the very people who probably wouldn’t let him use the same bathroom as them, laugh and happily pay to be skewered. If he doesn’t belong in the conversation of best ever, I have no idea what you’d have to do to be there.
JOAN RIVERS
Before you say anything, I know what you’re thinking and yes, I mean that Joan Rivers. It’s pretty fair to say that Joan spent most of her later career trying to be something she was not. I’ve heard it said she was “always running a race she had already won.” That sounds about right. She seemed to be everywhere and a lot of it wasn’t good. However, this list is about stand-up comics, not sometime talk show hosts, home shopping sell outs, plastic surgery connoisseurs etc. So why Joan? Well, head back in time with me. If part of hanging on the walls as one of the hallowed top five is being influential then Joan is up there. Ground breaking? Yup, that too. Hilarious, well that’s a given. A lot of think pieces these days pontificate on the topic of the access and role of women in stand-up comedy. Many are great pieces with very good points but the thing that bothers me is I have yet to see one them mention Joan. She started in the mid-sixties when women had little more than a homemaker role most of the time. She broke free of that and brought an acerbic, strong-willed and energetic style she used to attack beauty norms, relationship dynamics and the expectations of women in an outdated and highly sexist society. She did all this by being one of the very few stand-up comedians around anywhere, let alone female stand ups. Joan kicked down doors like she was a swat team with a hot tip. Is her stand up a bit dated today? Yes, somewhat but so is the majority of the other stand up from comedians we speak about in hush tones like they dispensed ageless genius that never hit a best before date.
Comedy is born of struggle and sadly for Joan she seemed to struggle endlessly. Even after she was more successful than most of her peers, having blazed a trail many were even afraid to take one step down, she was still at war. That fighting spirit, boundary pushing material, unique approach and longevity (even if it wasn’t all great by the end) plus the fact that she legit destroyed rooms, makes her an easy candidate for this discussion. On a side note: A good friend of mine used to open for her in her later years. I trust his instincts and we share a somewhat refined (for good or bad) taste in comedy. He assures me she was just as sharp, just as aggressive and just as take no prisoners up until she died. I only wish she would have given us more comedy and less jewelry.
DOUG STANHOPE
I said earlier in this article that subjectivity is the rule of the day when discussing stand-up comedy and pretty much all art. Well I can say, from my point of view, having watched and performed thousands of hours of stand up in my twenty two plus year career, Doug Stanhope is the best all-around stand-up comedian ever. I know there’s probably someone starting out at open mics right now who is sure they’re going to be the Neo to our comedy Matrix, but when it comes down to it, as it stands I think Doug may be the final boss of all comedy. The best thing is not only is he still pretty much alive physically he is still stronger than any other comic working today, or ever.
How did a master of the filth joke make it to this lofty position you say? Well, it’s because he is so much more than he was or pretty much anyone else is. Doug started with material that was much more blue than poignant. However, he grew. And grew. And grew. One of the signs of a truly great comedian is that they can adapt and change but still remain the same. Your voice stays but your delivery system and material evolve. George Carlin was Hippie Dippy Weatherman long before he was Seven Dirty Words. Pryor was a watered-down Cosby knockoff before snapping and unleashing the beast he became. It’s not mandatory when it comes to being one of the greats but it seems to be a trend. Did Stanhope do that? He did indeed. Around about ten years in is when most comedians who are ever going to get free, break out of their cocoons. In 2004, around that time in, Doug put out special called Dead Beat Hero and it was a turning point. He had arrived. He had had some TV stuff and some success as a stand-up but when he started baring his teeth and ripping everything apart it was over for the rest of us. Not only extremely prolific but incredibly consistent, Doug brings something to stand up that was never really there before. He actually cares so much he doesn’t seem to care. I don’t know if it was by design or just happy fate but as his work progressed his outsider stance never came indoors. In fact, instead of trying to be one of the “in crowd” in showbusiness he pulled so many people out into the cold with him. And you know what, it wasn’t cold at all. I don’t have enough room to go over every special, album and book he’s written to explain in detail why I think what I do and I know that as he’s said before “He’s not for everyone” but comedy itself isn’t. Comedy is for the few that get it. In Doug’s case it’s way more than you’d think given what he talks about and how but it’s because there is an underlying intelligence and great communication that comes with him. Doug sees things differently and is one of the smartest comedians to pick up a mic. He takes the hard thing and just makes it funny.
He has an almost “tragic author” lifestyle with all the booze and drugs you could think of that contributes to his strange upper class vagabond point of view. He attacks without mercy and still surprises. I saw him live a few years ago and in one bit he went down a path that even I, with a comedy constitution of an elephant, was concerned about. He took us all so close to an edge I was worried he might, for the first time, go for the brakes and they’d fail sending us off a cliff. Not only was I wrong he surprised me and everyone else with just how tight he can pull that rubber band before he lets us go. He’s a genius. I don’t say that lightly but he is. He really is.
Most comedy specials that are an hour long are about 20/20/20. Twenty minutes of good comedy, twenty minutes of “ok that’s fine” and twenty minutes of garbage. And those are the good specials. Consistently Stanhope gives you specials and albums that are way out of whack with those numbers. Take “No Refunds” or “Beer Hall Putsch” for example. There is not a single track or piece on those specials that isn’t great. But that’s him. He just tears along making this incredible comedy that most of us dream of doing and he does it seemingly effortlessly. The fact that he isn’t a household name is probably because he’s a high degree of difficulty comedian. He doesn’t subscribe to the concept of “too soon” or “off limits” but he rarely ever puts a foot wrong. He’s also seemingly uncancellable in a world where one wrong move may get you gone; Doug navigates it with aplomb. Most people may not all get him because most people can’t yet get their heads around him. While stand-up comedy in general is made up of mostly comedians who are like painters making art for crappy hotel rooms, Doug is Van Gogh. Mad, genius and over most people’s heads. At least in his lifetime.
He’s political, social, intelligent, relevant, timeless and powerful. He checks all the boxes for being at the top if this list. Has he struggled? Yes. Has he evolved? Yes. Is he prolific? Extremely. Is he unique? There’s nobody like him. Is he relevant? Painfully so. Is he funny? What a stupid question.
Until someone who can eclipse him comes along, which I doubt very much, I can confidently say that in my humble opinion Doug Stanhope is the greatest stand-up comedian ever.
And yes, that’s even includes Gallagher Two.
