# Recommend some surreal comedy for me!



## Hollowway (Feb 14, 2016)

I'm super into Mitch Hedberg, Demetri Martin, Jim Gaffigan (Steven Wright, etc.) and I love observational and surreal comedy. Anyone got someone I should listen to? I'm also into story telling stuff like Mike Birbiglia. Anyway, I'm running out of stuff to listen to, so let me know who is good! I'm specifically NOT into loud mouths, swearing, and sex jokes, like the, "haha, I'm so profane and talk about dirty stuff, so laugh," stuff. I just don't find it funny. (Swearing is totally fine. But I'm not gonna laugh just cuz the guy said a swear word.)


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## MFB (Feb 14, 2016)

Here's the list of comedians I tend to rec:

Tom Segura
Kyle Kinane
Tommy Johnigan 
Daniel Tosh
TJ Miller
Eugene Mirman (Gene on Bob's Burgers)
Hannibal Buress

There's a handful more but those are the off-the-dome from my stand up Pandora station. I left out some of the more famous/obvious ones like Patton Oswalt, because everyone should already be listening to him - and you already know Steven Wright, so that'd be redundant.


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## wankerness (Feb 15, 2016)

Not familiar with all those guys, but Daniel Tosh is EXACTLY what he said he didn't want, haha.

Kyle Kinane is awesome but it's mostly just sort of humor about being a slob and seeing the positive side of trashy life. Hannibal Buress is also kind of observational. "Animal Furnace" and "My Name is Hannibal" are masterpieces, his third album was one of the worst nosedives I've ever heard and was mostly just "boy, I sure am famous now!" with essentially no laughs. His fourth was a bit of a correctional, but those first two are among my favorites of all time.

Anyway, I don't really have any slam dunk recs for you. I only have a few comedians I have listened to extensively, and most of the ones you named in the OP are already on that list, and none of the others are similar! Early Louis CK (Shameless, anyway) and some of Dave Chappelle's two classic specials have a fair amount of surreal weirdness to go with wacky life stories/observations, but neither is in that rapidfire Mitch Hedberg/Steven Wright style and both have a lot of naughty words.

Maria Bamford is one of my favorites and is extremely odd with a ton of voice changing, and she's about as non-obscene as you can get, you might try her? She's definitely an acquired taste, but she's like nothing else out there and tends to be a favorite of other comedians. I'd say she's roughly comparable to Jim Gaffigan, but while he seems like sort of a boring family man "IRL", she is definitely a neurotic mess that is barely holding it together. It sort of adds to it for me, I guess. I can relate to her.

The other two that are SOMEWHAT clean that might fit the off-the-wall bill are old Woody Allen and Steve Martin albums. There's a Woody Allen compilation called "Stand-up Comic" (creative!) and Steve Martin's biggest classic is "Comedy is Not Pretty."


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## Hollowway (Feb 15, 2016)

Yeah, I actually listened to Tosh and Oswalt today. Tosh does get a little raunchy, but not too much so. And I tried Buress, but I didn't find him funny at all, and it was like he was just talking. But I only listened to about 10 min., and I may well have chose that third album. I was listening to Demetri Martin, too, and while I didn't think I liked him much, holy hell, I almost had to pull over I was laughing so hard. I gotta see that guy live sometime!


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## OmegaSlayer (Feb 15, 2016)

I suggest you to see the Lilyhammer series


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## wankerness (Feb 15, 2016)

Hollowway said:


> Yeah, I actually listened to Tosh and Oswalt today. Tosh does get a little raunchy, but not too much so. And I tried Buress, but I didn't find him funny at all, and it was like he was just talking. But I only listened to about 10 min., and I may well have chose that third album. I was listening to Demetri Martin, too, and while I didn't think I liked him much, holy hell, I almost had to pull over I was laughing so hard. I gotta see that guy live sometime!



Get Hannibal Buress's "Animal Furnace." It's probably illegally on youtube. He still talks in a really laid-back style though, it's just kind of his thing, so if you hate that you might be out of luck. He tries to get louder on the third album and it doesn't really work. It's a similar sharp contrast to the one between Mitch Hedberg's first and second albums, though in that case both of them are really funny.

Hannibal has a regular role on Broad City, which is a great show, and it does a good job of utilizing his persona, practically everything his character does is hilarious to me just cause of the dazed, bemused delivery he has on everything.


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## MFB (Feb 15, 2016)

Animal Furnace is on Netflix, as I believe they just uploaded ALL his specials the other week.


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## vilk (Feb 15, 2016)

So, when I hear "surreal comedy" my mind immediately goes to The Mighty Boosh

I understand that within the OP you explain you're looking for standup comedians, and The Mighty Boosh is a sitcom of sorts

but the fact of the matter is that said sitcom started out as these two guys sitting on stage and talking to each other. The jokes are oriented around "2-man stand up"--is there a term for that? Like Abbot and Costello (or something; I've never heard abbot and costello). "Who's on first" kind of jokes but far more... surreal


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## IbanezDaemon (Mar 3, 2016)

Humor is a difficult thing to agree on and 'Surreal' could be
quite ambiguous but anyhoo check out this vid of British
stand up Eddie Izzard.........give it a while....starts off
a bit slow but def picks up. Show starts at 5 mins in.


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## Mike (Mar 3, 2016)

Dan Mintz


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