We’ve listed the 20 best stand-up comedians of the 80s in this article. The 1980s appear to be your childhood’s wheelhouse that you miss more than anything else. Aside from incredibly fantastic attire, the 1980s are often regarded as the golden period of stand-up comedy. Comedians who are well-known and respected today got their start back then.
The funniest stand-up comedians of the 1980s were at their peak during this decade. Still, most of their popularity spanned several decades. Follow the list of your favorite comedians from the 1980s.
1. Robin Williams
The actor and comedian Robin McLaurin Williams hailed from the United States. On July 21, 1951, he entered this world, and on August 11, 2014, he left it.
During a televised appearance on Inside the Actors Studio in 2001, Williams recognized his mother as a key early influence on his comedy. He sought to make her laugh to seek attention.
He describes himself as a timid boy who struggled with shyness until he joined his high school theatrical department. His friends remember him as a hilarious person.
2. Roseanne Barr
Roseanne Cherrie Barr, born November 3, 1952, is an actress, comedian, writer, producer, and former presidential candidate from the United States. Barr got her start in stand-up comedy.
She received an Emmy and a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress for her role in the program.
She appeared in a Rodney Dangerfield particular and on Late Night with David Letterman in 1986. The following year, she had her own HBO special, The Roseanne Barr Show, which earned her an American Comedy Award for being the funniest female comedian in a television special.
3. Richard Pryor
Stand-up comedian and actor Richard Franklin Lennox Thomas Pryor Sr. was born in the United States on December 1, 1940, and passed away on December 10, 2005.
He acquired a massive following and is regarded as one of the best and most influential stand-up comedians because of his sharp observations and storytelling style.
Pryor has received a Primetime Emmy Award and five Grammy Awards. He was given the Writers Guild of America Award in 1974.
He came in first place on Comedy Central’s list of the greatest stand-up comedians ever.
He was ranked first among the 50 best stand-up comedians of all time by Rolling Stone in 2017.
4. Ellen DeGeneres
Ellen Lee DeGeneres was born on January 26, 1958, and is an American comedian, television host, actress, writer, and producer.
She collected 33 Daytime Emmy Awards from 2003 to 2022.
DeGeneres began her stand-up comedy career in tiny clubs and coffee shops. By 1981, she was the emcee of New Orleans’ Clyde’s Comedy Club. Woody Allen and Steve Martin are two of DeGeneres’ current influences.
She began touring nationwide in the early 1980s, and in 1984 she was crowned Showtime’s funniest person in America.
5. Jerry Seinfeld
Jerome Allen Seinfeld is an American stand-up comedian, actor, writer, and producer. He was born on April 29, 1954.
Seinfeld is a stand-up comedian who specializes in observational humor. In 2004, Comedy Central ranked him as the 12th best stand-up comic.
She has gotten twenty Primetime Emmy Award nominations and four Grammy Award nominations for his comedy albums.
6. Elayne Boosler
Elayne Boosler is an American comedian, author, and actor born on August 18, 1952.
She was one of the few female stand-up comedians of the 1970s and 1980s. She invented an observational style that combined political commentary with open remarks about her life as a single woman.
The first hour-long comedy special by a female comic was her independently produced 1985 cable television series Party of One.
They listed Boosler as one of the “50 Best Stand-Up Comics of All Time” in 1988 and 2017.
7. David Letterman
David Michael Letterman was born on April 12, 1947, and is an American television presenter, comedian, writer, and producer.
He overtook his friend and mentor, Johnny Carson, to become the host of the late-night talk show with the longest tenure in American television history.
On TV Guide’s list of the 50 greatest TV stars of all time, Letterman was ranked number 45 in 1996. The Late Show with David Letterman was ranked sixth in 2002.
8. Pamela Adlon
Pamela Fionna Adlon was born on July 9, 1966, and is an American actress, comedian, director, producer, and playwright.
She is recognized for her role as Bobby Hill’s voice actress in the animated comedy series King of the Hill (1997–2010), for which she received a Primetime Emmy Award.
Pamela received four Primetime Emmy Award nominations for her role in Louie.
She received two Primetime Emmy nominations for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series, and the series earned a Peabody Award.
9. Jason Alexander
Jason Alexander is the stage name of Jay Scott Greenspan, an American actor, comedian, filmmaker, and television personality (born September 23, 1959).
He was nominated for seven straight Primetime Emmys and four Golden Globes for his performance as George Costanza in the television comedy Seinfeld (1989–1998), for which he is best known.
For “The Bad Guys?” from Brainwashed By Toons, he won the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Original Song in 2020.
10. Sandra Bernhard
Sandra Bernhard is an American actress born on June 6, 1955.
She originally came to public recognition in the late 1970s with her stand-up comedy, in which she frequently criticized politics and celebrity culture.
On Comedy Central’s list of the 100 best stand-up comedians of all time, she is ranked number 96.
11. Louie Anderson
Louis Perry Anderson was an American stand-up comedian and actor who died on January 21, 2022, and was born on March 24, 1953.
On January 13, 1984, Anderson made his HBO debut as a part of Rodney Dangerfield’s Young Comedians Special.
Anderson had three consecutive nominations for Primetime Emmys for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series, and he took home the prize in 2016.
12. Janeane Garofalo
Born in the United States on September 28, 1964, Janeane Marie Garofalo is a comedian, actor, and former co-host.
Garofalo participated in a comedic talent competition sponsored by the Showtime cable network as a history student at Providence College and won the title of “Funniest Person in Rhode Island.”
Garofalo started her career as a stand-up comic before joining the casts of Saturday Night Live, The Larry Sanders Show, and The Ben Stiller Show. She has since acted in more than 50 films.
13. Louis C.K.
Louis Alfred Székely, best known by his stage name Louis C.K., is an American stand-up comedian, screenwriter, actor, and director born on September 12, 1967.
Throughout his career, C.K. won six Primetime Emmy Awards, three Grammy Awards, three Peabody Awards, three Grammy Awards, and a Screen Actors Guild Award.
C.K. was voted fourth on Rolling Stone’s 2017 list of the 50 greatest stand-up comedians, and his special stand-up Shameless was ranked third on their 2015 list of “Divine Comedy: 25 Finest Stand-Up Specials and Movies of All Time.”
14. Paula Poundstone
American stand-up comedian, author, actor, interviewer, and commentator Paula Poundstone was born on December 29, 1959.
She began a series of one-hour HBO comedy specials in the late 1980s.
In 1979, Poundstone began doing stand-up comedy at open-mic events in Boston. She went across the United States via Greyhound bus in the early 1980s, stopping in at open-mic nights at comedy clubs.
She stayed in San Francisco, where she became well-known for improvising performances at the Holy City Zoo on Clement Street and The Other Café comedy club in Cole Valley.
15. David Cross
David Cross is a renowned American stand-up comedian, actor, director, and writer born on April 4, 1964.
For his work on The Ben Stiller Show, he received a Primetime Emmy Award in 1993 for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series.
Along with his ensemble, Cross was nominated for three Screen Actors Guild Awards for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series.
He was also nominated for a Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actor Television Series. He received multiple Grammy Award nominations for his stand-up specials.
16. Brett Butler
American stand-up comedian and actress Brett Butler was born on January 30, 1958.
She received two Golden Globe noms for her role as Grace Under Fire, which she played on ABC from 1993 until 1998.
17. Bernie Mac
American actor and comedian Bernard Jeffrey McCullough, best known by his stage name Bernie Mac, was born on October 5, 1957, and passed away on August 9, 2008.
Being from the South Side of Chicago, where he was born and raised, Mac became well-known as a stand-up comedian.
His roles as Frank Catton in the Ocean’s Eleven adaptions from 2001 and as the main character in Mr. 3000 are among his most recognizable screen appearances.
From 2001 until 2006, he starred in his show, for which he was nominated twice for an Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series.
18. Wanda Sykes
Wanda Yvette Sykes is an American stand-up comedian, actress, and writer born on March 7, 1964.
Sykes debuted in front of a live audience for the first time at a Coors Light Super Talent Showcase in Washington, DC, in 1987, launching her stand-up career.
She first rose to prominence as a writer on The Chris Rock Show, for which she was honored with a Primetime Emmy in 1999.
In 2004, Sykes was named one of Entertainment Weekly’s list of the 25 funniest people in America.
19. Richard Belzer
Originally from the United States, Richard Jay Belzer was born on August 4, 1944. He has worked as a stand-up comedian, author, conspiracy theorist, and former actor.
He was a part of the Channel One comedy group, The Groove Tube, which made fun of television and served as the basis for the cult classic.
Belzer served as the Saturday Night Live show’s opening act, making three appearances between 1975 and 1980. On the artist Warren Zevon’s tour in support of his album Excitable Boy, he served as the opening act.
20. Joan Rivers
American stand-up comedian Joan Alexandra Molinsky, who died on September 4, 2014, was also an actress, producer, writer, and television personality. She was born on June 8, 1933.
She was renowned for her direct, sometimes biting, and hilarious approach, especially when speaking to politicians and celebrities. She is seen as a pioneer of female humor by several observers.
She was ranked sixth among the 50 best stand-up comedians of all time by Rolling Stone magazine in 2017, and in October of the same year, she was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame.