Least Funny Mark Twain Prize for American Humor Honoree

Obviously a fake bullshit award like all other fake bullshit awards, but its still an absolute crime that Chris Rock had to help induct Sandler and Kevin Hart without getting called up himself

Lorne Michaels, but he never claimed to be funny

Whoopi Goldberg was honored for her work on Theodore Rex

Voted Hart before I noticed Michaels. But Hart still isn’t funny.

I mean, Lorne may not be very funny himself, but he's probably more responsible for the success of funny people than anyone.

I kind of gotta go with Kevin Hart on this one too, despite him being an eminently likeable personality

He is?

Obviously a fake bullshit award like all other fake bullshit awards, but its still an absolute crime that Chris Rock had to help induct Sandler and Kevin Hart without getting called up himself

Yeah - when framed like this it's quite BS. I'm surprised both are on the list honestly. Voted for Lorne because he's super unfunny, but knows how to inspire and lead funny people in making a show that's survived the test of time, but he's just really unfunny. If not Lorne I would have voted for Hart or Neil Simon

voted Leno, because fuck that guy. But given the arbitrariness of this award's existence, it's a decent overall hit rate I think.

oh this isnt close

the 1% of anything steve martin ever had anything to do with that was actually possibly potentially funny was nevertheless ruined because it was him doing it

absolute neverfunny shite. and never on beat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gi9zFRBCIM

I like martins stand up albums from the 70s quite a bit. His acting, not so much

absolute neverfunny shite. and never on beat.

― tuah dé danann (darraghmac), Monday, March 24, 2025 6:51 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gi9zFRBCIM

― Brad C.,

How is this video not Steve Martin clapping along in the Jerk

or indeed any of his other unfunny things

would make you weep for the subtleties of chevy chase

Steve Martin deserves whatever American humor prizes there are just for Bowfinger

I wished we’d polled the funniest person—and that person was Bob Newhart.

Maybe I'm putting too much thought into it, but I figured a Mark Twain Prize winner would have to be more than just "funny" - the guy isn't considered an American treasure only because people laughed at his stuff. I was glad Conan O'Brien worked that into his speech in timely fashion (just as Letterman did in 2017, and I'm sure it's no accident Conan quoted the same line from Twain as Letterman).

True, they should also have a bushy moustache.

I have some residual fondness for some stuff Billy Crystal is in but can't say he belongs in this company.

Ellen did make me laugh once at the Oscars (making Spielberg hold the camera while she got a photo with Clint Eastwood) but outside of that not so much, and I actually watched her sitcom (it was on Portuguese TV when I literally only had one channel). Used to think of her as likeable but not funny, obviously time has not vindicated me.

Ellen DeGeneres is funny?

An awful lot of talk show hosts in this list? I shudder think would a British equivalent of this would look like tbf.

Ellen DeGeneres is funny?

No, it's the likable part that I was wrong on.

I shudder think would a British equivalent of this would look like tbf.

Roy "Chubby" Brown
Cannon & Ball
That lady that impersonates Margaret Thatcher
Ken Dodd
Emu (but not Rod Hull)
Stewart Lee
Norman Wisdom
Ed Balls
LadBaby

Bill Cosby is certainly the one whose name makes my stomach turn the most when I read this list, so I'm going to say him. Although Adam Sandler has never, ever, ever been even slightly funny, not once. I don't care how nice a man he is.

(xp) That list is preferable to the shower of wankers who infest our television screens these days tbh

I don't know, Ed Balls is on the telly plenty.

And the lady who impersonates Margaret Thatcher was on an old TOTP the other day.

I’m sure Kevin Hart has made me laugh on one of those dumb Condé Nast or Radio 1 YouTube interview clips so I’d go with Lorne Michaels. If roughly three SNL sketches per show are good (being generous) that amounts to a serious landfill of shit comedy over 50 years.

I once spoke with one of Neil Simon’s childhood friends at a Panera. Elderly guy, history of mental illness, inscrutable political beliefs, but some good stories about New York in the 50s.

Bill Cosby is certainly the one whose name makes my stomach turn the most when I read this list, so I'm going to say him

Cosby is retroactively horrible, but when I heard his albums as a kid they probably made me laugh harder than many of these other people have.

If roughly three SNL sketches per show are good (being generous)

i rather feel that we would have to conceive of a universal scale of generosity where double lung donorship was a 5 and this opinion is several million powers of ten

billy crystal is the answer

its like you guys havent seen americas sweethearts

pretty sure Whoopi Goldberg has never made me laugh.

Or if she was funny for a moment in 1984, she's been coasting off that ever since

man I forgot about Jonathan Winters. the guy for whom the word "genial" might have been invented.

yeah but she's funny--she has a life sparkle. billy crystal are you freakin serious

So Leno is funnier than Billy Crystal?

yes but not by much

is Lorne Michaels actually funny or is he a funny enabler.

How about Steven Wright ?
Mitch Hedberg?

I think Lorne being funny by proxy counts as "funny" for the purposes of this poll. He's responsible for like five of the careers on here, and that number shoots up to like eight if you count just "creating SNL"

Eddie?

Surprised this list is lacking professional humorists of the Twain school: Keillor; Calvin Trillin; Roy Blount, Jr.; Dave Barry; Erma Bombeck, for chrissakes.

all of those except Trillin are pretty dated though

Is this the place where I mention that I own all 21 of Bill Cosby's comedy albums?

Yeah, I didn't realize the prize only started in 1998 (good legacy for Clinton). Still, an Award for Humor named for Twain seems especially suitable for columnist humorists.

Bill Cosby is an absolute monster but I still say even his last special from 2013 was masterful comedy

xpost, again, absolutely fake-ass award where the logic is probably more about "What level of famous people can we get to show up," but a fairly decent list of funny people all told.

Also, Robin Williams and Mel Brooks both turned it down

Maybe Trump will take it over this year and give the award to Jesse Waters or Stephen Crowder.

Trying to think who the funniest living right-wing comedian is — actual rw, not libertarians that the rw tries to claim as their own

I guess its a pretty uncontroversial opinion that the two most influential people in contemporay comedy are Rogan and Hinchcliffe, both Trump supporters

and neither especially funny

Dennis Miller probably made me laugh at some point

If roughly three SNL sketches per show are good (being generous)

i rather feel that we would have to conceive of a universal scale of generosity where double lung donorship was a 5 and this opinion is several million powers of ten

Will admit I originally read that as "roughly three SNL sketches per year" and still thought "yeah that's a bit generous"

Comedic work arguably dates a lot more than any other form of entertainment. I agree with most of these choices, but I can't say I found most of them all that funny in my lifetime - if a case is made for them, it's due to a very specific era.

Jay Leno was considered a very sharp and "edgy" comic in the beginning. When he was on Letterman in the early years, you can see how things went wrong. They genuinely get along but then Letterman questions him about doing shit like hosting "Bloopers and Practical Jokes." It's clear from Letterman's skepticism that he thinks Leno was kind of pushed into the gig and probably needed the money, but in hindsight, it's merely the first sign of the careerism that would come to define his career for the worst.

Billy Crystal was huge in the '80s and considered cutting edge in the late '70s. It seems bewildering in hindsight, but based on anything he did in the last 30 years, I never would have guessed he was the lead actor in one of the most popular and beloved romantic comedies of the '80s. (I don't think it's that good of a film, but I can't deny its massive popularity.)

Dennis Miller was everything Charlie Rocket was supposed to be. At the time he was probably considered hands down the best anchor on Weekend Update, and it was probably more impressive because he was one of the few since Chevy Chase who did it solo (which then became standard until Tina Fey and her co-anchors). I remember articles during the Iraq War that were like "what happened to that guy?"

Ellen DeGeneres drew comparisons to Jerry Seinfeld at the height of his career for sharing his type of humor (and arguably doing it just as well) and was considered one of the best comics out there before her sitcom and then her talk show came to define her.

Jonathan Winters was considered one of the most influential comics ever. I never would've guessed that from his later talk show appearances until Robin Williams made it clear how much he was indebted to him. (And I think Robin Williams was at his best and most consistent on stage, not on screen.)

Bill Cosby similarly was massively influential, many comics said they were indebted to him (Seinfeld most vocally) and many African Americans in the business have expressed their gratitude for him in the past. (Spike Lee says he gave the most money when he needed to pay off a bond to get control of Malcolm X back.) When his horrendous crimes were exposed, I don't think there was a single performer in modern history who fell so far in terms of the height of their achievements and the depths of their wrongs, but since then we've had Kanye West.

actually i’m rethinking “genial” for jonathan winter. there was a desperation to his geniality, which swung from sad to frenzied

When his horrendous crimes were exposed, I don't think there was a single performer in modern history who fell so far in terms of the height of their achievements and the depths of their wrongs

Oddly it took about a decade after the crimes were exposed for the fall to happen.

Comedic work arguably dates a lot more than any other form of entertainment.

Some truth to this but a funny one to bring up in this thread soecifically - the oldest choices, like Pryor and Newhart, seem inarguably very funny to me in 2025, while recent entries like Sandler and Hart (neither of whom I hate or anything) feel less so.

Oddly it took about a decade after the crimes were exposed for the fall to happen.

― Iza Duffus Hardy (President Keyes), Tuesday, March 25, 2025 12:34 PM (twenty-one minutes ago)

yes, thank you Hannibal Burress

Remember reading about one of the victims being absolutely furious that no one cared for years until a man (Buress) brought it up.

I have a couple old Newhart LPs from the 60's, and it's crazy to me that something that old is still actually funny.. Like I respectfully listen to Lenny Bruce but half the time I have no idea what the fuck he's talking about, same with Shelley Berman

Lenny Bruce super topical, Newhart much less so.

Winters had a well known battle with depression and mental illness.

Winters had a well known battle with depression and mental illness

pretty sure the same was true with Dangerfield

If Trump himself picks one, I'm guessing we'll see Gutfeld up there.

True about Pryor and Newhart, but I didn't think their later stuff was all that great - all I knew of them growing up came from mediocre films and late-in-life TV work. The older stuff was a revelation.

which comedians have great later stuff?

Aren’t all of the Lenny Bruce recordings after his troubles with The Man and so they are him recounting court goings ons, and it’s a drag? Is there audio of the funny stuff?

I remember a Lone Ranger cartoon that was totally laugh-free.

There are earlier recordings, but I don't find them that funny either. So much of Bruce's comedy (and so much comedy in general) was about taboo breaking, and that doesn't age particularly well.

and that doesn't age particularly well

yeah, that was my point about Newhart - I guess it's more folksy 'humor' rather than hardcore standup, but for whatever reason it does kinda hold up

So Andrew Dice Clay has never been awarded this prestigious honor?

Per that birdistheword post, yeah, a lot of these people were like legit funny at one point but then Hollywood came calling and there's obv a lot more money to be made in being genial and anodyne and starring in mid comedies, a.k.a. being famous.

Winters had a well known battle with depression and mental illness.

― Crack's Addition (Boring, Maryland), Tuesday, March 25, 2025 4:14 PM (fifty-eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

pretty sure the same was true with Dangerfield

― Andy the Grasshopper, Tuesday, March 25, 2025 4:24 PM (forty-eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

pretty sure the same was true with 95% of stand-ups

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kx15sQnlhno

I feel like Neil Simon is the odd man out on that list... yeah, his writing can be humorous at time, but he's not the same as all the others

xpost See: the first few hundred episodes of WTF

Back when I had a proper broadcast television, I used to watch the Bernie Mac Show reruns in the evenings, and Don Rickles was a pretty steady guest star.. his mirth and sad-eyed compassion were a real treat to see, I'm surprised to see he never received this award but Jay Leno did

these lists are practically designed to provoke “whattabout” retorts so here’s mine: a good half of these names have probably, in at least one interview, cited mort sahl as a foundational influence

Tom Lehrer still alive

I bet he's still funny too.

I assure you, Tom Lehrer is still funny

The track "Dope Peddler" samples Tom Lehrer's song "The Old Dope Peddler". In 2013, Lehrer said he was "very proud" to have his song sampled "literally sixty years after I recorded it". Lehrer went on to describe his official response to the request to use his song: "As sole copyright owner of 'The Old Dope Peddler', I grant you motherfuckers permission to do this. Please give my regards to Mr. Chainz, or may I call him 2?"[31]

my parents fucking LOVED Lehrer when I was little, I think I know most of those songs through osmosis

Lehrer was king of the mid-syllable rhyme:

As the judge remarked the day that he acquitted my Aunt Hortense,
"To be smut
It must be ut-
Terly without redeeming social importance."

Tom Lehrer is a righteous dude

Giving dave chappelle an award in 2019 for being a bigot on stage is the worst choice, even if he was funny once.

If I had to go with someone who was the least funny at any time, it's Whoopi.

When it comes to comedy Whoopi has just about the thinnest resume of anyone on the list - a couple years of standup and her big breakout one-woman show on Broadway in the early 80s, and after that it was straight to the Hollywood shit factory with no looking back

She was also one of the faces of Comic Relief, along with Billy Crystal and Robin Williams, and I feel like that upped their profile as the deans of comedy in the 80s.

Same as Andy The Grasshopper, those Lehrer songs are seared into my memory. Took years to figure out what he was singing about, but they were still hilarious.

somehow i can't believe this is real

She has stated that her stage forename ("Whoopi") was taken from a whoopee cushion: "When you're performing on stage, you never really have time to go into the bathroom and close the door. So if you get a little gassy, you've got to let it go. So people used to say to me, 'You're like a whoopee cushion.' And that's where the name came from."[16]

also her weird thing about just inventing the surname Goldberg is so, so weird

i mean, she sucks in a lot of ways. and she's not funny. but i enjoy her on star trek TNG

I thought she got her name from a joke about a Jewish cowboy?

No, the cowboy's name was Bucky Goldstein

Yes but hers is just a variation on that?

consult paragraphs 3-5 of the "Early life" section of her wiki

That just convinces me even more that she got the name from the joke.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Hmm.

I don’t know Kevin Hart well enough to have an opinion. I have a hard time believing that he’s less funny than Leno, but I would say that about anyone.

Hart is funnier than Leno, but the existence of Leno is funnier than the existence of Hart.