So many of my favorites have already been mentioned...Pryor, Gaffigan, Hedberg, Kinison....but no one has mentioned my very favorite yet, and that's Greg Proops. You might know him if you're a fan of "Whose Line Is it Anyway," (great show btw, if you watch the old British version and not the wannabe, Drew Carey hosted American version), but his stand up is even better than his improv. He's quite a bit like Pryor in that he's very quick on his feet, had a very sharp, sometimes caustic wit, and is very, very good at making extremely true (sometimes painfully so) and funny observations. Worth checking out if you're a stand up fan, imho.

Cattivo wrote:

Syd Lexia wrote: Comedy Central used to show one of Proops stand-up specials, and it was pretty good. I seem to recall him talking about how much different America would be if it had be founded by Italians instead of uptight British outcasts. Heh, I remember that. In fact, I just did a quick google search and found the transcript: Quote: We work too hard. Can we agree on that? (hardly any applause) Not a groundswell of support for that, but all right. (goofy voice) "No, we work just hard enough, Greg." Harder than everyone else, right? 40 hours a week, two weeks vacation a year. All the other countries in the world, in the *G-7*, they get four weeks. (goofy voice) "I did not know that." Well now you do. The Japanese, they might work harder than us, right? Die in front of their televisions of coronary thrombosis when they're like four. Been singing the corporate anthem since they were a zygote. We work *so* hard, man, and for very low. I don't know if you've ever been to like Spain or Italy, but it doesn't break down that way. In Italy, one o'clock rolls around, work *stops*. Everyone goes to bed, they get up, they drink wine, they get up in the morning and they look *fabulous*. How did we miss out on that?! How come we got the grubby boat of bandy-legged Puritans? How come we didn't get the Italian party boat with the cappuccino maker and the gelato machine? That was the sexy boat, man. Those guys have a million saints, we'd have a holiday every other day! We'd *never* work! (sexy Italian voice) "One o'clock now, I go to bed! Then I get up, I drink wine, I make love, I get up in the morning, I have strong coffee, I look very sexy in my suit. Beep-beep-beep, get out of my way, I do not use brakes on my sports car, beep-beep-beep. La dolce vita, Bambina!" Can you tell that it's a slow day for me at work?

Classic! Although my personal favorite has got to be: "So often this country iis...y'know...kind of redneck, dickhead, peckerwood, bo-hunk, hee-haw, gun-toating, anti-choice, homophobic, psycho-Christian, gimmie-cap-wearing, militia armband sporting, big belt buckle with your name on it that you wear upside down so you can look at it an go, 'oh shit that's my NAME' ....kind of place..."

Love that one. (And yes, that was all from memory.) Thanks for the nice reminder...its been years since I've seen that special. Wish they'd put it on DVD or something.