Stand-up comedy has been growing in popularity a lot in recent years, and while its critics say that there are few performers who are actually worth watching, guess what? They might be right!
Stand-up comedy is an art where the performer needs to be very strong emotionally and mentally. Sometimes he even has to be physically strong as well, as you never know when an upset person may attack him, as it happened recently with Dave Chapelle.
Watching a comedy movie instead of a stand-up comedy act is obviously more interesting, in general. We’re warning you that the performances that we’ll be presenting to you here usually contain foul language. If you don’t want to hear them, you should better not hit the “play” button!
A stand-up comedian needs to dominate the stage in order to cause laughter for most of the audience. However, we believe that we know a few artists who are capable of such great things, and we’re showing you them below:
Dave Chapelle – Killing Them Softly (2000)
Dave Chapelle has a vast experience when it comes to stand-up comedy, and that is reflected by every phrase he says on stage. He even performs nowadays, as we said earlier. This guy is that type of comedian who has the potential to spoil any trace of racism in you, if you have any. He seems to be capable of making the lion and the lamb live together in peace. Chapelle makes racism become more amusing than ever, and you can convince yourself easily by watching his show from 22 years ago:
Louis CK – The Lost Hour
Louis CK learned a lot of stand-up material from George Carlin, while both of them are titans when it comes to this form of entertainment.
“The Lost Hour” show was named like that because none of the material present here appears in any of the comedian’s specials.
George Carlin – Jammin’ in New York (1992)
George Carlin made us laugh and think for many years until he passed away in 2008. His stand-up style was more philosophical but also amusing at the same time. His favorite topics were society, human nature, religion, and more. During his later years, Carlin’s shows contained more antisocial jokes than before, but he remained an incredibly amusing guy.
“Jamming in New York” is one of George Carlin’s numerous shows that we can recommend.
Joe Rogan – Strange Times
Joe Rogan is known for criticizing many aspects of society as well, and we find him both amusing and intelligent. In his “Strange Times” special that came out in 2018, Joe is tackling topics such as veganism, politically correctness, time travel, and more.
We can also remember a very good passage of one of his shows where Rogan had an important message to send to the world: “we’re getting dumber,” in a nutshell. Joe Rogan was saying there that many people like to believe about themselves being smart just because they’re using highly advanced technological stuff invented by smart people. But in reality, very few of us have any idea how all that stuff works. He also seemed worried that if somehow all the smart people on the planet would disappear, it wouldn’t be long until the planet came back to the Stone Age level. While it was basically a comedy show, many people have perceived the claims of Joe Rogan as concerning for our world.
We recommend you listen to Joe Rogan more often! The guy even has a podcast.
These are our recommendations for today. Stay tuned for more memorable stand-up comedy shows that we’ll be speaking about soon!
Louis CK’s “Lost Hour” was just bits of stand-up from his FX show. It was named to fool people into thinking it was a lost hour.