Steve Harvey’s retirement from stand-up comedy

With more than 27 years of stand-up comedy touring under his belt — and gigs as host of Family Feud, a morning radio program, plus a daytime syndicated talk-show starting up after Labor Day — Steve Harvey is calling it quits, at least as far as the stand-up portion of his career is concerned.

He’s going out with a pay-per-view bang tonight with a “Grand Finale” performance in Las Vegas at the MGM Grand.

The Vegas show tonight culminates a cross-country finale tour for the former member of “The Original Kings of Comedy” tour and movie. Harvey said: “The road to this final show has been an amazing journey, doing stand-up for the past 27 years, and I can’t thank fans enough after reflecting on all those years on stage.”

You can watch Steve Harvey’s final stand-up show On Demand.

Here’s a clip of Harvey reminiscing about his first time onstage as a stand-up comedian. Roll it.

But will Harvey really stay away from the stand-up stage for the rest of his life?

Katt Williams said he was retiring a few years ago, although he since has re-emerged in comedy clubs and theaters — not always doing stand-up routines, instead often telling stories and engaging with his audiences. Steve Martin, similarly, retired from stand-up. Martin does tell jokes on Twitter these days and manages to make people laugh onstage in between songs on his current tours with a bluegrass band. Eddie Murphy, meanwhile, has talked and talked and talked in the past few years about coming out of retirement as a stand-up comedian, only to leave audiences hanging. And Dave Chappelle — despite leaving his hugely successful TV series behind several years ago — pops up now and again with little notice in cities across America to perform stand-up.

So. Whom would you like to see really make a stand-up comeback? Post your answer in today’s poll and comments thread.

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Sean L. McCarthy

Editor and publisher since 2007, when he was named New York's Funniest Reporter. Former newspaper reporter at the New York Daily News, Boston Herald and smaller dailies and community papers across America. Loves comedy so much he founded this site.

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