All lists ranking or otherwise grouping the funniest and/or hottest comedians are inherently biased — subject to the whims of the list-maker.
And yet, online media outlets continue to pump out the lists, in part because comedians remain so driven by ego and insecurity that they’ll certainly share any list that includes them to all of their friends and fans via social media networks. Make your list longer, that merely widens the potential clickbait audience for it. So at the end of 2014, comedian Zach Broussard parodied the form by blowing it up, posting his own “Top 1000 Comedians of 2014 (So Far!)” on his Tumblr.
Broussard himself is a comedian and actor who studied with the Upright Citizens Brigade in New York City, has performed on UCB sketch teams and webseries, appeared in a popular Above Average video with SNL’s Sasheer Zamata, and played the Zach roleĀ in a Saved By The Bell sketch parody for truTV’s Friends of the People. Here he is making fun of stand-up comedians doing impressions at a LIVE @ The Apt gig last year:
All of this is within typing distance of Google. And yet.
A full six months later, the gang at the Legion of Skanks podcast and guest Rich Vos still hadn’t figured out that Broussard’s “Top 1000 Comedians of 2014” list was a joke. All that mattered to Vos was that he didn’t make the list. Neither did the other guys on the podcast: Luis J. Gomez, Big Jay Oakerson, Dave Smith and Ari Shaffir. It’s as if their narcissism blinded them from seeing satire clearly. Last week on a live video podcast, Vos had Gomez call up Broussard unannounced and interrogate him.
Roll the clip!
As you can hear, Broussard rolled with all of their questions and never broke character from his justification for the list. Even when pressed on Louis CK. On Monday, Broussard found the video clip on YouTube and posted it to his Facebook, saying: “I got totally ambushed by the call too. Turned out fun!”
He told The Comic’s Comic overnight: “All those UCB classes finally paid off! That was definitely weird but so happy it happened.”
Oh, and happy birthday, Vos. Maybe for your birthday, Broussard will cut you a break and bump you up into the Top 1,000 comedians.
Clearly my sophisticated sense of humor fooled all y’all. I got it and upped it. That’s what good comics do.
Bwhahahahahahaha! Happy Birthday, Rich!
No Rich, that’s what a legend does.
Its okay Rich.
Shuckey Duckey didn’t make the cut either.
Maybe this piece is a joke about how this dude doesn’t get that this was a joke that Voss & LoS were perpetrating on the audience? I don’t even know whether I’m supposed to be amused because this is a winky face thing or annoyed because this is a side eye GIF thing.