{"id":8782,"date":"2015-12-21T12:31:23","date_gmt":"2015-12-21T17:31:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hardwoodandhollywood.com\/pop-culture-spin\/?p=8782"},"modified":"2015-12-21T12:31:23","modified_gmt":"2015-12-21T17:31:23","slug":"top-50-stand-up-comedians-cheech-and-chong-joan-rivers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hardwoodandhollywood.com\/pop-culture-spin\/2015\/12\/21\/top-50-stand-up-comedians-cheech-and-chong-joan-rivers\/","title":{"rendered":"Top 50 Stand-Up Comedians: Cheech and Chong, Joan Rivers"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_8789\" style=\"width: 1290px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hardwoodandhollywood.com\/pop-culture-spin\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2015\/12\/cheechandchong.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-8789\" class=\"wp-image-8789 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hardwoodandhollywood.com\/pop-culture-spin\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2015\/12\/cheechandchong.jpg\" alt=\"cheechandchong\" width=\"1280\" height=\"720\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hardwoodandhollywood.com\/pop-culture-spin\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2015\/12\/cheechandchong.jpg 1280w, https:\/\/www.hardwoodandhollywood.com\/pop-culture-spin\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2015\/12\/cheechandchong-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.hardwoodandhollywood.com\/pop-culture-spin\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2015\/12\/cheechandchong-1024x576.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-8789\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Image courtesy of the &#8220;Cheech Teaches Chong the Spanish word PENDEJO&#8221; video posted on YouTube.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>26. Cheech and Chong<\/p>\n<p>The pair started as a stage play, a two-man sketch comedy routine without sets or costumes. Most widely known for weed\/stoner jokes that carried over into their successful run of movies, including the true classic \u201cUp in Smoke,\u201d Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong are often pigeonholed as \u201cdumb\u201d comedy which couldn\u2019t be further from the truth.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The irony is that their humor requires quick wit, not of their characters but of their audience. Long <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">before satirists like Stephen Colbert or Sasha Baron Cohen would use the concept of the \u201cdolt\u201d to highlight the absurdities of the \u201cstraights,\u201d Cheech and Chong were splitting audiences and splitting sides. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The two have been reunited in recent years and are just as funny as ever. They inhabit the thoughts of our pets, our weird friends, and are still on that everlasting search for \u201cDave.\u201d The comedy still stands up as though it hasn\u2019t aged a day.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">My father used to tell me the story of the time he saw the \u201chippie version of Abbott and Costello\u201d live before they hit the big time. He said it was the funniest thing he\u2019d ever seen. Not enough of the good material has survived for the YouTube generation, making them the Julius Erving of comedy. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"702\" height=\"527\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/cxLRAxN651w?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">25. Joan Rivers<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Another comedian whose work has stood the test of time, Joan Rivers brought a unique voice to the stage. A pioneer in the industry, not <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">just<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> but especially for women, Rivers was a powerhouse to be reckoned with. When I searched her name on Google, the first video that came up was from five years ago, the next one was from 1984.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Not afraid to get edgy or dirty\u00a0&#8211; starting at a time when women were highly stigmatized against such things\u00a0&#8211; Rivers earned the respect to be able to do whatever she wanted and still be loved by comedians and fans everywhere. She never slowed or tamed down. In fact, comics like Chris Rock and Eddie Murphy went soft after they became family men but Rivers never wavered, if anything getting racier as she aged.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The comedy world lost a giant in September of 2014 but Joan Rivers left behind a trail of laughs that will never be covered up. Her legacy is firmly in place as one of the funniest and most influential entertainers of all time.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"702\" height=\"527\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/YNUkLzi46OI?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>26. Cheech and Chong The pair started as a stage play, a two-man sketch comedy routine without sets or costumes. Most widely known for weed\/stoner jokes that carried over into their successful run of movies, including the true classic \u201cUp in Smoke,\u201d Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong are often pigeonholed as \u201cdumb\u201d comedy which couldn\u2019t<\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hardwoodandhollywood.com\/pop-culture-spin\/2015\/12\/21\/top-50-stand-up-comedians-cheech-and-chong-joan-rivers\/\" title=\"Read More\">Read More<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":144,"featured_media":8789,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[1446,3065,807,2771],"class_list":{"0":"post-8782","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-celebrities","9":"tag-cheech-and-chong","10":"tag-joan-rivers","11":"tag-stand-up-comedy"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hardwoodandhollywood.com\/pop-culture-spin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8782","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=8782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hardwoodandhollywood.com\/pop-culture-spin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8782\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hardwoodandhollywood.com\/pop-culture-spin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hardwoodandhollywood.com\/pop-culture-spin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hardwoodandhollywood.com\/pop-culture-spin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hardwoodandhollywood.com\/pop-culture-spin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}