My Top Five Favorite Stand-Up Comedians of the 80's

Ever since I was a child, I have always loved comedy. I grew up watching reruns of the Three Stooges, giggling at the silent film antics of Charlie Chaplin, and watching various comedy movies with my family (my mother loved all the Smokey and the Bandit films). In the 80's, though, I was finally introduced to the world of stand-up and I fell in love. Any kind of stand-up comedy special I could find, I would watch it. To this day, I believe one of the main reasons I ever got cable tv was just so I could watch the Comedy Channel.

During the 70's and 80's, many brilliant new comics emerged. Of course, there are the obvious greats - Robin Williams, Billy Crystal, Eddie Murphy, Whoopi Goldberg and Gilda Radner, just to name a few, but I paid particular interest to the up-and-coming comedians. While the big names, like Richard Pryor, were obvious hits, I enjoyed watching the shows that featured some of the new faces to comedy. Here's my top five favorite comedians, from the 1980's, in no particular order:

"I think men who have a pierced ear are better prepared for marriage. They've experienced pain and bought jewelry." - Rita Rudner

Rita Rudner was a late bloomer to the comedy scene, not getting into stand up until she was 25 years old. Her particular brand of comedy always appealed to me because she had this sort of sweet and friendly attitude, without having to resort to vulgarity or crude jokes. Rita tends to play a little dumb and a little vacant, but she's as smart as a whip and her sly brand of humor proves this. She's a delight, through and through.

Joking about everything from family and friends to various observations about life, in general, Rita usually has something for everyone and can entertain a crowd, no matter what age. She's currently booked at Hannah's, in Las Vegas, until 2012.

"I don't know why I should have to learn Algebra... I'm never likely to go there." - Billy Connolly

As a child, he wanted to be a tramp when he grew up, thinking tramps could walk up to any door and get a strawberry jam sandwich. Of course, he actually did go on to get a job - as a welder first, working in the Glasgow shipyards, though he'd eventually give this up to become a folk singer. This would hold him over through most of the 70's but, by the 80's, he'd be changing his career again. Billy Connolly's a hilarious stand up comic that still maintains this unique childhood charm about him - he still finds jokes about farts funny, and you can't help but be drawn in by his infectious humor. I remember the first time I heard him, it was on a mixed tape of various comedians, and he was talking about a recent trip to Australia. Hearing him go on about dangerous spiders and boxed jellyfish, that potentially showed up gift wrapped, had me in stitches. I've loved him ever since.

"Isn't it a bit unnerving that doctors call what they do "practice"? - George Carlin

He was an angry comic, but he was a man that made you sit back and think. Even if he was a bit abrasive and his language was a little strong for some tastes, you couldn't sit there and listen to George Carlin without nodding your head and agreeing - this guy was on to something.

George Carlin was a brilliant man and an amazing stand-up comedian. While he originally started doing comedy during the 1960's, he became a household name during the late 70's and 80's, when he was broadcast into our homes. Bitter and cynical about many of the practices going on in America, he was not afraid to tell it like it is, making it both understandable and pointing out the scary and sometimes sick humor behind the obvious truth.

"I think we should take Iraq and Iran and combine them into one country and call it Irate. All the pissed off people live in one place and get it over with." - Denis Leary

Denis Leary started to carve a place for himself on the comedy scene during the 1980's, when he first gained attention for ranting about popular Georgia band, R.E.M. This would lead into numerous successful comedy shows and two recordings, "No Cure for Cancer" and "Lock and Load." Perhaps one of his most popular pieces was his controversial stab at middle-class Americans, the song "Asshole."

I was quite taken with Leary's rapid-fire delivery and his sharp wit. Another angry stand-up comedian, this cigarette smoking, swearing Irish-American jabbed at you over and over again, but did it in such a funny way that you laughed until you hit the floor. He's sarcastic and can come across as a little mean at times, but he's right on the money. If you love a good sense of sarcasm, you'll love this guy.

"In the beginning there was nothing. God said, 'Let there be light!' And there was light. There was still nothing, but you could see it a whole lot better." - Ellen DeGeneres

I first saw Ellen DeGeneres on an HBO one hour special and I spent the evening laughing about her skit. A great mixture of seeming innocence and a sort of ditzy sweetness, she's sharp as a tack and can fire off jokes and contradictions and more jokes fast enough to make the head spin. While she's recently earned a name for herself with her talk show and place on American Idol, a search for her old comedy sketches is a must. This girl is amazing.

Many great stand up comics emerged in the 1970's, the 1980's and the 1990's. Just missing the 80's by a hair, yet two remarkable talents include Eddie Izzard and Janeane Garofalo. Be sure to check them out, the next time you're scanning Youtube.