Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
I’ve never before pulled together a Best Of or Top 10 year-end ranking of stand-up comedians, not in my decade of publishing The Comic’s Comic, nor in my newspaper years before that. But after a full year of critiquing stand-up specials for Decider, 2016 provided more than enough fodder to size them up upon further review. So to speak.
Of course, 2016 set a new record for hours recorded on video by stand-up comedians. In addition to several hundred new comedy albums, this year also saw more than 80 new hour-plus specials just from American comedians on Amazon Prime Video, Comedy Central, EPIX, Facebook Live, Gumroad, HBO, Hulu, Netflix, Seeso, Showtime, VHX, Vimeo, YouTube and independently on comedian websites such as LouisCK.net and ChristopherTitus.com.
Seeso launched at the beginning of 2016, and released 11 new stand-up specials just in the last three months of the year. Vimeo chose a South African comedian for its first solo special this year. Netflix not only puts out new stand-up hours weekly, but also now sends me regular emails about new stand-up hours from Mexico and around the world. Overall, we finally saw the first hourlong sets on video from veteran headliners such as Barry Crimmins and Joey “Coco” Diaz, as well as two from pregnant women (Ali Wong and Kira Soltanovich) and one trans man (Ian Harvie). One special roasted police officers, while another roasted a dead dad.
How to winnow the 80-odd specials down to just 16? Especially when almost all of the hours easily could make your list, or qualify as funny enough to watch more than once? Your sense of humor is entirely unique and subjective, so your results may vary. What makes a comedy special special enough to make the cut on my list? I asked the same questions I use on myself, when I’m having good days, to decide a comedy special’s importance and ultimate strength: 1) Does this need to be said? 2) Does this need to be said out loud? 3) Does this need to be said out loud right now? 4) Does this need to be said out loud right now by this comedian?
Or as Hannibal Buress relayed to me, some wonderful advice he received while making his own new hour: “Chris Rock would say, he says it a lot…’Make sure it’s a special and not a normal. A lot of people put out normals, so you make sure it’s special.'”
'Hannibal Buress: Comedy Camisado'
RELEASED BY: Netflix
Buress undercuts his natural vibe of nonchalance time and time again, as he finds himself in situations that frustrate him to the point where only his carefully crafted punchlines can save us all. Exasperation suits him well, even if it makes Buress sweat harder, and both tightens and heightens his vocal delivery. His specificity and attention to detail have served him well on his rise up the comedy ranks, and he continues to carve out his particular niche in this set. (Read my full review.)
'Jim Jefferies: Freedumb'
RELEASED BY: Netflix
Jefferies gained a much wider audience thanks to his previous special’s stance on gun control going viral, and he takes advantage of it here with his thoughts on rape, religion and Donald Trump. (Read my full review.)
'Doug Stanhope: No Place Like Home'
RELEASED BY: Seeso
Stanhope gave everyone a reason to finally sign up for a Seeso subscription when his newest hour dropped in mid-September, where he acknowledges he’s trying to appeal to the angry, disaffected youth that ISIS is, although he cares much more about them than the terrorists do. In fact, Stanhope may bark a lot and drink too much, but his rants about mental illness and prison make me think even more that he me may be a time-traveler, sent from the future to try to steer us back in the right directions. (Read my full review.)
'Ian Harvie: May the Best Cock Win'
RELEASED BY: Seeso
Harvie already had to come out twice to his parents; first as a lesbian, then as a trans man. He may look and sound more like a gay man upon first impression, but make no mistake about it: Harvie not only conveys how self-confident he is, but also how much humor he can find in his personal transformation without having to make it sound like a political public service announcement.
'Janeane Garofalo: If I May'
RELEASED BY: Seeso
Garofalo makes so many disclosures in the opening minutes of her first new hour in six years. Among them, “Not a strong joke writer!” and “A real onion in the ointment since 1985.” And you may not find her on Facebook or Twitter. But her fingers remain firmly on the pulse of popular culture, and she has such a joyful winning aura now that you’ll gladly follow her stream of consciousness and pop cultural tangents wherever they may lead her. So yes, she may. She definitely may.
'Patton Oswalt: Talking For Clapping'
RELEASED BY: Netflix
Oswalt already has won the Emmy and earned a Grammy nomination for this, his first Netflix special. He jokes about his worst-ever gig in stand-up, which came very early in his career. For this hour, he reminds us that life presents much realer, more important battles than anything social justice warriors are harping about, and finds light moments in a disinterested clown hired to work at the birthday party of one of his daughter’s friends. (Read my full review.)
'Reggie Watts: Spatial'
RELEASED BY: Netflix
Watts is a singular performer, a mad musical genius, and Spatial is a unique improvised performance that shows off his skills that mash up the vocal wizardry of Bobby McFerrin, the profundity of a TED talk and the improv daring of the late Del Close. Don’t let his mission confuse you. It’s as clear as the all-caps words on his T-shirt – CHAOTIC GOOD. (Read my full review.)
'Rory Scovel: The Charleston Special'
RELEASED BY: Seeso
Scovel’s first solo hour helped launch Seeso in January, and he’s never been one to run away from a risky proposition. In fact, he thrives in situations that might scare off most other comedians. Scovel plays with both the process of comedy as well as audience expectations, without ever making you feel like you wasted your time or money on him (Read my full review on The Comic’s Comic)
'Gary Gulman: It's About Time'
RELEASED BY: Netflix
The way Gulman stakes out a position, like a great painter or a virtuoso, coloring the scenes behind the scenes of the essence of his jokes, really makes him stand above most stand-ups. In this hour, he mines a story about Trader Joe’s for comedy gold, and works up a bit about a fictional documentary films on postal state abbreviations so wonderful — not only was it the best late-night stand-up bit of the year, but also makes you wish you could see this as an actual documentary (Read my full review on The Comic’s Comic.)
'Pete Holmes: Faces and Sounds'
RELEASED BY: HBO
Spending time with Holmes feels like a bonus. He wants his company, onstage or off, to share in the same joy he feels – even if he’s making goofy jokes, faces and sounds about diarrhea in an ornate, old theater. He’s a big and tall, “silly silly funboy,” and he wants you to join in the fun. Watch this, and you’ll certainly be in the proper mood to enjoy his new 2017 series on HBO, Crashing. (Read my full review.)
'Ali Wong: Baby Cobra'
RELEASED BY: Netflix
Wong’s fierceness belies any meekness you may have implied by looking at her onstage, particularly when she recorded her first solo hour while seven-and-a-half months pregnant. Which she doesn’t even address until the second half of her hour! That she also jokes about a previous miscarriage, has written for ABC’s Fresh Off The Boat, and co-stars in the new ABC sitcom American Housewife, proves how much potent comedy Wong packs into her small package. She’s as unapologetically awesome as the character she writes for on Fresh Off the Boat. This was a great year for Wong to emerge front and center.
'Kyle Kinane: Loose in Chicago'
RELEASED BY: Comedy Central
Kinane might be my favorite pure stand-up comic working today. Everything he talks about makes me laugh. In his newest hour, Kinane makes you rethink mass shootings in America, discovers a great angle by comparing open container alcohol laws with open-carry gun laws, finds joy in pushing “the morals of strangers for a few bucks” by playing craps, and even devotes a large chunk of his hour to a battle with gout. It’s all laugh-out-loud funny.
'Bo Burnham: Make Happy'
RELEASED BY: Netflix
Burnham posted his first YouTube video 10 years ago this week. Now everyone fashions himself or herself as a performer, thanks to social media. So Burnham in his third televised special, he finds himself sometimes painfully self-aware about his place in the comedy boom, and mocking the very nature of what passes itself off as entertainment now. (Read my full review.)
'Jeff Ross Roasts Cops'
RELEASED BY: Comedy Central
Ross followed up last year’s roast of inmates at Brazos County Jail in Texas with an even more timely target in police officers. Ross finds willing participants with the Boston Police Department, but bookends the hour with footage from New York City: a Black Lives Matter protest at the start, and an NYPD funeral procession at the finish. Can’t we all get along? The question is painfully more relevant now than two decades ago. At least Ross is willing to bridge the gap for us. (Read my full review on The Comic’s Comic.)
'Laurie Kilmartin: 45 Jokes About My Dead Dad'
RELEASED BY: Seeso (coming December 29, 2016)
A cathartic release, first expressed via Tweets during her bedside vigil of her father, and now as an hour set up with a mini-documentary of Kilmartin, her father and her family, including interviews with her sister, mother and friends (among them, her employer Conan O’Brien). She explains how she tried to process this overwhelming tragedy the way she knew best, then realized how therapeutic it was to document every moment to remember it. “I think this bodes well for my upcoming musical about Ebola,” she quips.
Watch 'Laurie Kilmartin: 45 Jokes About My Dead Dad' on Seeso (staring 12/29/16)
'Colin Quinn: The New York Story'
RELEASED BY: Netflix
If Hamilton remains the hottest ticket on Broadway, then you’d do just as well to see Quinn’s one-man show which demonstrates his own spin on the phrase, “Immigrants: We get the job done.” Waves of newcomers to America have kept putting the new in New York City, and Quinn weaves their stories into his own as a Big Apple native for the funniest and most significant expression of how we remain the great American melting pot. (Read my full review.)
Sean L. McCarthy works the comedy beat for his own digital newspaper, The Comic’s Comic; before that, for actual newspapers. Based in NYC but will travel anywhere for the scoop: Ice cream or news. He also tweets @thecomicscomic and podcasts half-hour episodes with comedians revealing origin stories: The Comic’s Comic Presents Last Things First.
