Edward Regan Murphy is an American actor, comedian, and singer. He rose to fame on the sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live, for which he was a regular cast member from 1980 to 1984. Murphy has also worked as a stand-up comedian and is ranked No. 10 on Comedy Central's list of the 100 Greatest Stand-ups of All Time. Murphy has received a Grammy Award and Emmy Award and was honored with the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 2015 and the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2023.
Steven Alexander Wright is an American stand-up comedian, actor, writer, and film producer. He is known for his distinctly lethargic voice and slow, deadpan delivery of ironic, philosophical and sometimes nonsensical jokes, paraprosdokians, non sequiturs, anti-humor, and one-liners with contrived situations.
Mary Jean "Lily" Tomlin is an American actress, comedian, writer, singer, and producer. She started her career as a stand-up comedian as well as performing off-Broadway during the 1960s. Her breakout role was on the variety show Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In from 1969 until 1973. She starred as Frankie Bergstein on the Netflix series Grace and Frankie, which debuted in 2015 and earned her nominations for four Primetime Emmy Awards, three Screen Actors Guild Awards, and a Golden Globe Award.
George Robert Newhart is an American actor and comedian. He is known for his deadpan and stammering delivery style. Having started performing as a standup comedian, he transitioned his career acting in television. He has received numerous accolades including three Grammy Awards, an Emmy Award, and a Golden Globe Award. He was honored with the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 2002.
Jonathan Harshman Winters III was an American comedian, actor, author, television host, and artist. Winters started performing as stand up comedian before transiting his career acting in film and television. Winters received numerous accolades including two Grammy Awards, and Primetime Emmy Award as well as a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960, the American Academy of Achievement in 1973, and the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 1999.
Richard Franklin Lennox Thomas Pryor Sr. was an American stand-up comedian and actor. He reached a broad audience with his trenchant observations and storytelling style, and is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential stand-up comedians of all time. Pryor won a Primetime Emmy Award and five Grammy Awards. He received the first Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 1998. He won the Writers Guild of America Award in 1974. He was listed at number one on Comedy Central's list of all-time greatest stand-up comedians. In 2017, Rolling Stone ranked him first on its list of the 50 best stand-up comics of all time.
David Khari Webber Chappelle is an American stand-up comedian and actor. He is best known for his satirical comedy sketch series Chappelle's Show (2003–2006), which he starred in until quitting in the middle of production during the third season. After a hiatus, Chappelle returned to performing stand-up comedy across the U.S. By 2006, Chappelle was called the "comic genius of America" by Esquire and, in 2013, "the best" by a Billboard writer. In 2017, Rolling Stone ranked him No. 9 in their "50 Best Stand Up Comics of All Time".
The Mark Twain Prize for American Humor is an American award presented by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts annually since 1998, excepting the years 2020 and 2021. Named after the 19th-century humorist Mark Twain, it is presented to individuals who have "had an impact on American society in ways similar to" Twain. The JFK Center chose Twain due to his status as a controversial social commentator and his "uncompromising perspective of social injustice and personal folly." A copy of Karl Gerhardt's 1884 bust of Twain is presented in an autumn ceremony at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall in Washington, D.C., during which the honoree is celebrated by his or her peers. The event is a significant fundraiser to benefit the Kennedy Center, which sells tickets as well as access to dinners and after-parties featuring the celebrities.
The American Comedy Awards were a group of awards presented annually in the United States recognizing performances and performers in the field of comedy, with an emphasis on television comedy and comedy films. They began in 1987, billed as the "first awards show to honor all forms of comedy." In 1989, after the death of Lucille Ball, the statue was named "the Lucy" to honor the comic legend.
American humor refers collectively to the conventions and common threads that tie together humor in the United States. It is often defined in comparison to the humor of another country – for example, how it is different from British humor and Canadian humor. It is, however, difficult to say what makes a particular type or subject of humor particularly American. Humor usually concerns aspects of American culture, and depends on the historical and current development of the country's culture. The extent to which an individual will personally find something humorous obviously depends on a host of absolute and relative variables, including, but not limited to geographical location, culture, maturity, level of education, and context. People of different countries will therefore find different situations funny. Just as American culture has many aspects which differ from other nations, these cultural differences may be a barrier to how humor translates to other countries.
Bicentennial Nigger is the sixth album by the American comedian Richard Pryor. David Banks produced the album, while Warner Bros. Records released the album in September 1976. It is often considered one of his most influential recordings. The CD version of the album was released on 20 June 1989. It won the 1977 Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album.
Janelle James is an American comedian, actress, and writer. She is best known for her role as Ava Coleman in the television series Abbott Elementary, for which she won a Black Reel Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and an NAACP Image Award, in addition to nominations for a Primetime Emmy Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Critics' Choice Award, and an Independent Spirit Award.
