Sit Down and Vote! Best Stand Up Comic Megapoll: Round 1g: Bill Hicks vs Tom Papa

[Zeener Diode]

Bill Hicks "I don't do drugs. I want to thank management for offering."



Tom Papa "I made a horrible business decision: I got married and have two children."

[SNFaulkner]

Bill hicks was good, sure. But Tom Papa is in my profile pic, and the voice of El Superbeasto. Gotta vote for him.

[Borborygmi]

I don't have a lot of time to deep dive into this megapoll and sample all the comedians I don't know well, but after the plagiarism stuff about Denis Leary earlier in this round I did wind up listening to several Bill Hicks bits on YouTube. They were... really not good. I remember thinking Tom Papa was okay, so that's enough to get my vote here based on my current level of exposure to both.

[TROZ!]

Originally Posted by Zeener Diode

"I made a horrible business decision: I got married and have two children."

"We have a mean girl. I didn't know they were real. I feel guilty. I made it. I feed it. I'm keeping it alive."

Hicks was growing comedy in that he was saying shit before it's time. Papa is funny. Papa gets the vote.

[Random Precision]

@Rebo - please change my vote from Bill Hicks to Tom Papa. Thanks!

This was a coin toss for me and after reading the other comments I decided it came down heads after all.

[Pogo]

Originally Posted by Borborygmi

I don't have a lot of time to deep dive into this megapoll and sample all the comedians I don't know well, but after the plagiarism stuff about Denis Leary earlier in this round I did wind up listening to several Bill Hicks bits on YouTube. They were... really not good. I remember thinking Tom Papa was okay, so that's enough to get my vote here based on my current level of exposure to both.

As I said in the Denis Leary thread, Leary's delivery was better. Hicks is overrated and his death grew his group of followers. It was like Derek Stevens producers after the success of 'The Lady I Know.' {deep reference to a Dana Carvey sketch}

[Rebo]

Originally Posted by Random Precision

@Rebo - please change my vote from Bill Hicks to Tom Papa. Thanks!

This was a coin toss for me and after reading the other comments I decided it came down heads after all.

Done.

[Zeener Diode]

Originally Posted by Pogo

As I said in the Denis Leary thread, Leary's delivery was better. Hicks is overrated and his death grew his group of followers. It was like Derek Stevens producers after the success of 'The Lady I Know.' {deep reference to a Dana Carvey sketch}

Ok, I'm confused: are we dissing Hicks and praising Leary now?

I agree with Pogo: Leary's delivery hit harder and faster, but stealing is stealing. And Hicks became more bitter and savage at his audience towards his end, but in the middle he was acerbic and witty.

[Borborygmi]

Myself, I was dissing the Hicks' material I recently sampled, but not certainly praising Leary because, yeah: stealing is stealing.

I do like this video better than the audio clips I had sampled, which were all from Rant in E-Minor and were lovingly selected just for me by YouTube's recommendations algorithm. But that's low praise; there isn't anything that got more than a half-smile out of me here.

I'm sure there is some Hicks material out there that I would find funny and/or thought-provoking but I'm establishing my first impression of him only now and it is one that makes me think my time would be better spent pursuing other performers.

[mjmlabs]

Try these ....







https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3f9buz



Bill Hicks wasn't really a one-liner guy, although he had a few good 'uns. He was more of a long-form jazz-improv guy, weaving themes and callbacks through the whole set. A whole show is the best way to experience him, and Revelations (a whole show from November 1992 in London) is perhaps the best artifact available.

But hey, when The Complete Collection was coming out back in 2015, Paste ran this story, with ten brief embedded clips; maybe it's more suited to our present task (it's certainly worth skimming, at the very least):

10 Jokes that Prove Bill Hicks was the Best Comic of His Time

[NAF1138]

How is this so close?

Upon reading the responses to this thread I am somewhat dumbfounded.