{"id":9428,"date":"2016-01-08T14:00:10","date_gmt":"2016-01-08T19:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hardwoodandhollywood.com\/pop-culture-spin\/?p=9428"},"modified":"2016-01-08T14:00:10","modified_gmt":"2016-01-08T19:00:10","slug":"top-50-stand-up-comedians-lewis-black-ricky-gervais","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hardwoodandhollywood.com\/pop-culture-spin\/2016\/01\/08\/top-50-stand-up-comedians-lewis-black-ricky-gervais\/","title":{"rendered":"Top 50 Stand-Up Comedians: Lewis Black, Ricky Gervais"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_9432\" style=\"width: 1930px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hardwoodandhollywood.com\/pop-culture-spin\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2016\/01\/lewisblack.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-9432\" class=\"wp-image-9432 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hardwoodandhollywood.com\/pop-culture-spin\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2016\/01\/lewisblack.jpg\" alt=\"lewisblack\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1080\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hardwoodandhollywood.com\/pop-culture-spin\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2016\/01\/lewisblack.jpg 1920w, https:\/\/www.hardwoodandhollywood.com\/pop-culture-spin\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2016\/01\/lewisblack-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.hardwoodandhollywood.com\/pop-culture-spin\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2016\/01\/lewisblack-1024x576.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-9432\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Image courtesy of the &#8220;Lewis Black insists The Rant is Due&#8221; video posted on YouTube.<\/p><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">14. Lewis Black<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Not since Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark has there been a more perfect casting than Lewis Black as Anger. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes, his insightful, politically driven comedy might be filled with rage but that no more makes him a one-note comedian than Mitch Hedberg who has the exact opposite energy level. Both personas are performances for effect, caricature extrapolations of their true selves.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Black is an interesting case because being yelled at and laughing tend to be mutually exclusive experiences. I can see why one might be turned off by it, but it is also important not to confuse loud noises with mean-spiritedness. Some might be inclined to wonder how I could rate Black so high while comedians like Bill Burr fell further down the list, and the answer is because Black\u2019s anger masks a romantic who yearns not to be cynical, where those other comedians seem to revel in it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Black saves his outrage for the moments and topics that show he is a true student of the world and not just someone who likes to hear themselves piss and moan. The irony is that although he is yelling to them at our faces, the vast majority of Black\u2019s jokes and stories come from a place of human empathy.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Don\u2019t let the crude demeanor fool you, Lewis Black is one of the smartest, most hard working, and most thought provoking stand-up comedians who has ever stood on stage.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"702\" height=\"527\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/tXS5GBuk-GQ?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"702\" height=\"527\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/LGrlWOhtj3g?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">13. Ricky Gervais<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I\u2019m probably not going to change anyone\u2019s mind for or against Ricky Gervais. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The only reason he isn\u2019t in my Top 10 is that he just hasn\u2019t amassed the body of work that many others have. If this were baseball, his career counting stats wouldn\u2019t be quite good enough for the Hall of Fame, but his rate stats are off the charts. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Gervais was a bit busy early in his career creating all-time great comedy programs <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Office<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Extras<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> but now that he has taken to the stage, he is fulfilling his rightful place as the next in a line of successions that stretches back to Eddie Izzard, The Monty Pythons, and Jonathan Winters.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">If British and\/or crude humor aren\u2019t your thing, Gervais is not the comedian for you. I made all those points about Lewis Black not being mean-spirited and Gervais crosses that line so perhaps I\u2019m being inconsistent here, but I grew up on the Pythons and I laugh so hard I cry <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">every time<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I see Ricky Gervais on a stage.<br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">He\u2019s raunchy and purposefully offensive, though the sarcasm undercuts the offensiveness and allows it to be thought provoking &#8211; asking the audience to question where the line is instead of just obviously crossing it for effect. He talks about all the things you aren\u2019t supposed to in casual conversation &#8211; politics, religion, sex, race &#8211; so offending someone somewhere was going to be inevitable.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">As such, I\u2019m not likely to convince anyone one way or the other on Gervais, but if he keeps releasing specials, eventually his genius on stage &#8211; as opposed to just on TV &#8211; will speak for itself.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"702\" height=\"527\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/6ktBQ51iGWw?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"702\" height=\"395\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/gOmqNKAuYdM?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>14. Lewis Black Not since Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark has there been a more perfect casting than Lewis Black as Anger. Yes, his insightful, politically driven comedy might be filled with rage but that no more makes him a one-note comedian than Mitch Hedberg who has the exact opposite energy level. Both personas<\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hardwoodandhollywood.com\/pop-culture-spin\/2016\/01\/08\/top-50-stand-up-comedians-lewis-black-ricky-gervais\/\" title=\"Read More\">Read More<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":144,"featured_media":9432,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[1446,3138,465,2771],"class_list":{"0":"post-9428","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-celebrities","9":"tag-lewis-black","10":"tag-ricky-gervais","11":"tag-stand-up-comedy"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hardwoodandhollywood.com\/pop-culture-spin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9428","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=9428"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hardwoodandhollywood.com\/pop-culture-spin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9428\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hardwoodandhollywood.com\/pop-culture-spin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hardwoodandhollywood.com\/pop-culture-spin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hardwoodandhollywood.com\/pop-culture-spin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hardwoodandhollywood.com\/pop-culture-spin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}