{"id":8019,"date":"2015-12-04T23:07:40","date_gmt":"2015-12-05T04:07:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hardwoodandhollywood.com\/pop-culture-spin\/?p=8019"},"modified":"2015-12-04T23:07:40","modified_gmt":"2015-12-05T04:07:40","slug":"top-50-stand-up-comedians-david-cross-kristen-schaal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hardwoodandhollywood.com\/pop-culture-spin\/2015\/12\/04\/top-50-stand-up-comedians-david-cross-kristen-schaal\/","title":{"rendered":"Top 50 Stand-Up Comedians: David Cross, Kristen Schaal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hardwoodandhollywood.com\/pop-culture-spin\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2015\/12\/kristenschaal.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-8036\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hardwoodandhollywood.com\/pop-culture-spin\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2015\/12\/kristenschaal.jpg\" alt=\"kristenschaal\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1080\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hardwoodandhollywood.com\/pop-culture-spin\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2015\/12\/kristenschaal.jpg 1920w, https:\/\/www.hardwoodandhollywood.com\/pop-culture-spin\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2015\/12\/kristenschaal-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.hardwoodandhollywood.com\/pop-culture-spin\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2015\/12\/kristenschaal-1024x576.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\" \/><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">40. David Cross<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Remember David Cross from that thing? <\/span><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Men in Black<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">? No, that other thing. <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Arrested Development<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">. Well, sure. But also, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Modern Family<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Tim and Eric<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bob and David<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, and he played Allen Ginsberg in <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I\u2019m Not There<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">. Should we mention <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Small Soldiers <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">for the second time on this list? We absolutely should.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">But I didn\u2019t mean any of that. I of course was talking about his voiceover work in the <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Halo<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Grand Theft Auto<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> series\u2019 as well as <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Archer<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Family Guy<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Megamind<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, and <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Kung Fu Panda<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">. Yup. That David Cross. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Turns out in addition to being a master of screens big and small, Cross is a master of the stage. He\u2019s dry and pointed without being overly cynical. He doesn\u2019t have to talk about politics or sex or race or religion or even be particularly edgy, though he is in moments. He occasionally touches on those subjects, but he&#8217;s\u00a0just as funny investigating the reasons behind Coors Light\u2019s incessant need to change their cans.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Cross is a fantastic story teller who always comes off as someone talking to a room full of his friends. He doesn\u2019t have the body of work to propel him further up the list &#8211; I guess he is busy appearing in every summer blockbuster ever &#8211; but David Cross on a stage exhibits observational humor at its best.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"702\" height=\"395\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/97CuAQ_xxM4?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">39. Kristen Schaal<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">You may know Kristen Schaal as a correspondent on <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Daily Show<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> or as \u201cThe Fan\u201d from HBO\u2019s <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Flight of the Conchords<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">. You might even recognize her voice as Louise on <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bob\u2019s Burgers<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">. But it should be more well known that Schaal is on the cutting-edge of modern stand-up comedy.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">She is \u2026 well \u2026 weird. She bends and breaks the form a la Andy Kaufman and it can be difficult to tell where her character ends and she begins. In fact,<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/jezebel.com\/5993355\/is-kristen-schaal-a-wildly-successful-kaufman-esque-comedy-troll\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> she has come under some scrutiny in a Kaufman-esque manner<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> most famously for a Comedy Central special in which she appears to break down and lose confidence, and then leave the stage. The finale then includes a now famous bit where she and her comedy partner Kurt Braunohler dance around the stage singing \u201cKristen Schaal is a horse\u201d endlessly \u2026 or at least until the audience leaves. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Is trolling one\u2019s own audience a good idea? I\u2019m not sure. But I admire Schaal\u2019s commitment and personally find her methods hilarious. Though I try to avoid the term, there are some who \u201cjust don\u2019t get\u201d Schaal, and that is okay, but makes her that much more interesting. She also has plenty of material that is closer to what you would traditionally expect out of a stand-up, so however you slice it, her place on this list is well earned.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"702\" height=\"395\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/P3z_UDlP-uQ?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>40. David Cross Remember David Cross from that thing? Men in Black? No, that other thing. Arrested Development. Well, sure. But also, Modern Family, Tim and Eric, Bob and David, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and he played Allen Ginsberg in I\u2019m Not There. Should we mention Small Soldiers for the second time on<\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hardwoodandhollywood.com\/pop-culture-spin\/2015\/12\/04\/top-50-stand-up-comedians-david-cross-kristen-schaal\/\" title=\"Read More\">Read More<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":144,"featured_media":8036,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[1446,2904,753,2771],"class_list":{"0":"post-8019","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-celebrities","9":"tag-david-cross","10":"tag-kristen-schaal","11":"tag-stand-up-comedy"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hardwoodandhollywood.com\/pop-culture-spin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hardwoodandhollywood.com\/pop-culture-spin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hardwoodandhollywood.com\/pop-culture-spin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hardwoodandhollywood.com\/pop-culture-spin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/144"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hardwoodandhollywood.com\/pop-culture-spin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8019"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hardwoodandhollywood.com\/pop-culture-spin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8019\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hardwoodandhollywood.com\/pop-culture-spin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hardwoodandhollywood.com\/pop-culture-spin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hardwoodandhollywood.com\/pop-culture-spin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hardwoodandhollywood.com\/pop-culture-spin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}