I reckon we all love having a good laugh! If it is a piece of I formation that brought smile to your face or a slang that has been humored around the downtown.
“Laughter is the best medicine.”
We all have heard this before. So, why not switch ON our television screens or YouTube channels to get a good laugh? Humor is a cure for depression, hardships, anxieties, and all the bad days we have gone through. Crafting good comedy is often more difficult than drama, but the art form rarely gives its due.
When it is explicitly comical, it can become difficult for people to consider it meaningful, deep, or take it seriously. Here, we have the world’s renowned and most appreciated comedians of all time who revolutionized the art of comedy and beckoned their observational skills and personal life experiences into comical slang.
Eddie Murphy
Edward Regan Murphy is an American comedian, actor, and singer. He shot to fame on the sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live, for which he was a regular cast member from 1980 to 1984. He is widely recognized as one of the greatest comedians of all time. He is known for his exuberant performances, witty humor, and a variety of humorous roles.
In 2015, Murphy was honored with the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. Murphy has had a great career as a dramatic actor in adding to his success in comedic roles. He has been praised for his work in movies like “Dreamgirls” & “Dolemite Is My Name.” Except for being a marvellous comedian he is also a singer, having frequently provided background vocals to songs released by the Bus Boys.
Kevin Hart
Kevin Hart is a very successful comedian and actor. He has won several awards, such as a BET award in 2012 for his stand-up special Kevin Hart: Laugh at My Pain, and a Grammy nomination in 2018 for his album What Now? He overcame many challenges and failures in his early career.
He started doing stand-up comedy in Philadelphia, New York, and Massachusetts, but faced many rejections and criticisms. He eventually developed his signature brand of humor, based on his personal experiences and observations. Hart landed his first movie role in the movie “Paper Soldiers”. Kevin Hart followed his passion to become a world-class entertainer. But it took more than just passion for him to achieve the massive success.
Trevor Noah
Trevor Noah is a South African comedian, writer, producer, political commentator, actor, and television host. He is best known for hosting The Daily Show, an American satirical news program on Comedy Central. Trevor Noah is a remarkable comedian who has used his talent, intelligence, and courage to make people laugh and think.
He often uses his comedy to comment on politics, current events, and his own experiences of growing up in a racially divided society. He became one of the most popular comedians in South Africa, hosting several TV shows and performing sold-out shows across the country. He hosted the Grammy Awards four times, from 2021 to 2024, and the White House Correspondents Dinner in 2022. He also continued to perform stand-up comedy around the world, releasing several specials on Netflix and other platforms.
Ellen DeGeneres
Ellen DeGeneres is an American comedian, actress, and television host. She is best known for her daytime talk show, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, which has won numerous awards, including 64 Daytime Emmy Awards. She made history in 1994, as the first openly homosexual woman to star in her own Sitcom, “Ellen”. After taking a break from the Sitcom she made a comeback in 2003 with her daytime talk show “The Ellen DeGeneres Show”.
The program is well-known around the world for its sparkling interviews and humorous skits. DeGeneres has hosted the Academy Awards, Grammy Awards, and the Primetime Emmys. She has authored four books and started her own record company, Eleveneleven, as well as a production company, A Very Good Production. She has won the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, 20 People’s Choice Awards, and numerous other awards for her work and charitable efforts.
Dave Chappelle
Dave Chappelle is an American stand-up comedian and actor who is best known for his satirical comedy sketch series Chappelle’s Show and his Netflix specials. Chappelle was called the “comic genius of America” by Esquire and, in 2013, “the best” by a Billboard writer. In 2018, Chappelle received five Grammy Awards for Best Comedy Album for The Age of Spin.
In 2003, Chappelle debuted his own weekly sketch comedy show on Comedy Central called Chappelle’s Show. The show parodied many aspects of American culture, including racial stereotypes, politics and pop culture. Along with comedy sketches, the show also featured musical performances by mostly hip-hop and soul artists. . He has received numerous accolades, including six Emmy Awards and five Grammy Awards, as well as the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 2019, which is presented by the Kennedy Center as America’s highest comedy honor.
Jerry Seinfield
Jerome Allen Seinfeld is an American stand-up comedian, actor, writer, and producer. From 1989 to 1998, he played a semi-fictionalized version of himself in the sitcom Seinfeld, which he created and wrote with Larry David. In 2004, he was named the 12th-greatest stand-up comedian of all time by Comedy Central. Seinfeld has garnered a dedicated following in the comedy community because of his observational humor. He is the creator and host of the web series Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. Seinfeld has received twenty Primetime Emmy Award nominations for his work on Seinfeld and Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee as well as four Grammy Award nominations for his comedy albums.
Russell Peters
Russell Dominic Peters is a Canadian stand-up comedian, actor, and producer. His extended family lives in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India. He began performing in Toronto in 1989 and won a Gemini Award in 2008. In 2013, he was number three on Forbes’ list of the world’s highest-paid comedians.
He became the first comedian to get a Netflix stand-up special. He has also appeared in several films and TV shows, such as Source Code, New Year’s Eve, Chef, and Hip-Hop Evolution. He also won the Peabody Award and the International Emmy Award for Best Arts Programming for producing .
George Carlin
George Denis Patrick Carlin (May 12, 1937 – June 22, 2008) was an American comedian, actor, author, and social critic. He is regarded as one of the most influential stand-up comedians of all time, he was dubbed “the dean of counterculture comedians”. He was known for his black comedy and reflections on politics, the English language, psychology, religion, and taboo subjects. Carlin was a frequent performer and guest host on The Tonight Show during the three-decade Johnny Carson era and hosted the first episode of Saturday Night Live in 1975. Previously, he focused on sociocultural criticism of American society. Retrospectively, Carlin was awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 2008.
Tina Fey
Elizabeth Stamatina “Tina” Fey is an American comedian, actress, writer, and producer. Fey was a cast member and head writer for the NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live from 1997 to 2006. You may remember her from the all-time favourite movie “Mean Girls” where she played the role of Ms. Sharon Norbury.
After her departure from SNL, she created the NBC sitcom 30 Rock and the Netflix sitcom Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, the former of which she also starred in. She joined Saturday Night Live (SNL) as a writer, later becoming head writer and a performer, appearing as co-anchor in the Weekend Update segment. In 2011, she released her memoir, Bossypants, which topped The New York Times Best Seller list for five weeks and garnered her a Grammy Award nomination. In 2007, she was named one of the magazine’s Entertainers of the Year.
James Coden
James Kimberley Corden is an English comedian, actor, singer, writer, producer, and television host. In the United States, he is best known as the host of The Late Late Show with James Corden, a late-night talk show that aired on CBS from 2015 to 2023. In the United Kingdom, he is best known for co-writing and starring in the critically acclaimed BBC sitcom Gavin & Stacey.
Corden created his Carpool Karaoke sketch in 2011. He hosted the Tony Awards in 2016 and 2019 and the Grammy Awards in 2017 and 2018. n 2011, Corden starred in the National Theatre one-man show One Man, Two Guvnors, which transferred from the West End to Broadway, where Corden won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play.
Jimmy Fallon
James Thomas Fallon is an American comedian, television host, actor, singer, writer, and producer. Fallon’s breakthrough came during his tenure as a cast member on the NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live from 1998 to 2004. He started his late night talk show Late Night with Jimmy Fallon in 2009. Later on, he became the anchor of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon following his departure from Late Night.
In addition to his television work, he has released two comedy albums and seven books, mainly aimed at children. He co-hosted Weekend Update with writer Tina Fey which further increased his profile. Fallon also hosted the 62nd Primetime Emmy Awards in 2010.
Azizi Ansari
Aziz Ismail Ansari is an American actor, filmmaker and stand-up comedian. He began performing comedy in New York City, while a student at NYU Stern in 2000. In 2015, Ansari co-created, and starred in the first two seasons of Netflix’s critically acclaimed series Master of None, for which he also served as a writer and director. In 2019, Ansari released his fifth comedy special Aziz Ansari: Right Now, which was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album. He won several acting and writing awards for the NBC series Parks and Recreation, including two Emmys and a Golden Globe, which was the first award received by an Asian American actor for acting on television.
Mindy Kaling
Vera Mindy Chokalingam, professionally known as Mindy Kaling, is an American actress, screenwriter, and producer. Known for her extensive work on television. She first gained recognition starring as Kelly Kapoor in the NBC sitcom The Office for which she also served as a writer, executive producer, and director.
She gained much more attention for creating, producing and starring as Dr. Mindy Lahiri in the Fox comedy series The Mindy Project. She then expanded her career creating numerous shows such as the NBC sitcom Champions, the Hulu miniseries Four Weddings and a Funeral (2019), the Netflix comedy series Never Have I Ever. She was recognized by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2013 and was awarded the National Medal of the Arts from President Joe Biden in 2022.
Lilly Singh
Lilly Saini Singh is a Canadian YouTuber, television host, comedian, actress and writer. She began making YouTube videos in 2010. She initially appeared under a pseudonym “Superwoman”. In 2016, she was included in Forbes list of world’s highest paid YouTubers ranking third and earning a reported $7.5 million. Forbes named her one of the 40 most powerful people in comedy in 2019. She is the first person of Indian descent to host an American major broadcast network late-night talk show. She has received an MTV Fandom Award, four Streamy Awards, two Teen Choice Awards and a People’s Choice Award. In addition, Singh has received nominations for a Daytime Emmy Award and two Canadian Screen Awards.
Amy Schumer
Amy Beth Schumer is an American stand-up comedian, actress, writer, producer, and director. Schumer wrote and made her film debut in a starring role in Trainwreck, for which she received nominations for the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Original Screenplay.
Schumer ventured into comedy in the early 2000s before appearing as a contestant on the fifth season of the NBC reality competition series Last Comic Standing in 2007. She was the creator, co-producer, co-writer, and star of the Comedy Central sketch comedy series Inside Amy Schumer, for which she received a Peabody Award and was nominated for five Primetime Emmy Awards.
Ron Sexton
Ron Sexton was a diversified American comedian, stand-up comedian, voice actor, radio personality, and actor. He was appreciated for his incredible comedic range and character creations, which included the beloved personas of Donnie Baker, Kenny Tarmac, and Floyd the Trucker. His exceptional talents and impressions of notable figures made him a recognized name on “The Bob & Tom Show,” where he also served as a writer. Comedian Ron Sexton flourished in various roles, including working in the broadcast department of the NFL’s Indianapolis Colts and contributing to Fox Sports Radio, aptly combining his love for sports and comedy.
Comedian Gallagher Watermelon
Leo Anthony Gallagher Jr. is known simply as Gallagher, was an American comedian who became one of the most recognizable comedic performers of the 1980s for his prop and observational routine that included the signature act of smashing a watermelon on stage with a wooden sledgehammer. Comedian Gallagher performed twice on The Tonight Show when Johnny Carson was hosting, though Carson disliked prop comedy. Gallagher remained for the most part a touring comedian, and he once noted that he performed “200 shows a year for 35 years.” Per Variety magazine, comedian Gallagher did over 3,500 live shows over the course of his career.
Rowan Atkinson (Our Dear Mr. Bean)
Rowan Sebastian Atkinson is an English comedian, actor and writer. Atkinson portrayed Mr. Bean in the film adaptations Bean (1997) and Mr. Bean’s Holiday (2007).
He met screenwriter Richard Curtis and composer Howard Goodall, at the Oxford University Dramatic Society during the 1970s and throughout his career he has collaborated with them on multiple projects. In 2003, Atkinson was listed in The Observer as one of the 50 funniest actors in British comedy, and he was among the top 50 comedians ever in a 2005 poll of fellow comedians. But he first gained recognition on the BBC sketch comedy show Not the Nine O’Clock News.
Vir Das
Vir Das is an Indian comedian, actor and musician. He was raised in Nigeria and India. Das moved to Hindi cinema starring in films like Badmaash Company, Delhi Belly, and Go Goa Gone in supporting roles. He has appeared in approximately 35 plays, over 100 stand-up comedy shows, 18 films, eight TV shows and six comedy specials. In 2017, he performed the Netflix special Abroad Understanding.
In 2021, he also performed a comedy monologue at the Kennedy Center called “Two Indias”. He won the 2023 International Emmy Award for Best Comedy Series for the Netflix comedy special Vir Das: Landing.
Bob Marley
Bob Marley is an American comedian. He has appeared on The David Letterman Show, Late Night with Conan O’Brien, and Comedy Central. He can be seen in the film The Boondock Saints. Marley’s comedic bits are mostly about life in Maine. Marley entered the Guinness Book of World Records with the longest continuous stand-up routine, beating the record held by Lindsay Webb from Australia. He completed 40 hours of comedy, the first 17 hours and 14 minutes without any repetition of material.
These comedians changed the look of the world. Their satirical limericks not only made everyone laugh but also made them shocked at first. These are the ones who are great comedians, wonderful writers, and marvellous storytellers. Their storytelling attitude is the one that made them stand out from the crowd. If not these people, then who is going to make you smile? Go today and browse these global comedy icons!
