1.  South Park (the funniest damn TV show of all time)

2.  Monty Python (bring me a shrubbery)

3.  Firesign Theater

4.  Sam Kinison

5.  My twisted parents and years of snurfling milk out my nose at the supper table from laughing so hard.

Tom Lehrer
Robin Williams
Steve Martin
Monty Python
Steven Wright

(There are lots more, but those came immediately to mind.)

1) George W Bush
2) Dan Qualye
3) George HW Bush
4) Al Gore
5) Ron Reagan

Holy shit!  I thought I was one of the only people on earth who’s EVER heard of Tom Lehrer!  That’s awesome.

You young ‘uns always think you invented sex—er, humor—er, same diff. 

Geek("Lobachevsky")Mom

1) My parents
2) Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
3) H. R. Geiger
4) Steve Martin
5) Arthur Schopenhauer

(And of course a shout out to all of the animators and writers of such fine fare as Looney Tunes, Simpsons, Family Guy, Futurama, Invader Zim, Spike and Mike’s Sick and Twisted Festival of Animation, the Disney 9, and many, many others.)

my bad - H. R. Giger

1. Crazy family - If you think your family is crazier then we might be related.

2. Army - They made us spray paint the grass green for an inspection.

3. Church - On a positive note, no known drownings due to baptism yet.

4. Steven Wright - “It’s a small world but I wouldn’t want to paint it.”

5. Patrick McManus - Just love that simple country humor sometimes.

So many to chose from, so I’ll go with early influences, from my impressionable days.

1. Eddie Murphy - first two standup albums - man, I never laughed so hard in my life as I did when I first heard them 20 years ago. I still can’t help grinning when I hear his old stuff.  “ICE CREAM!”

2. Robin Williams

3. Sam Kinison - yep, just what a rebellious teen needed to hear I remember watching the Letterman show where he got into the amatuer sex videotape bit with the “polar bear with a cold” then CBS dumped the rest of his act and you then see Dave walking off the set.

4. Steven Wright - love that deadpan delivery.

5. Bill Cosby

Richard Pryor would be in there, but at that time I didn’t have access to a lot of his standup stuff.

1) My mum - who let me stay up and watch horror movies and…
2) Monty Python - for the wonderful logic of Silly Walks, Dead Parrots and Terry Gilliam
3) Spike Milligan - for his Pakistani Daleks
4) The Young Ones - for Rik Mayall
5) South Park - just for warping my fragile little mind

1) Spike Milligan-No Spike, no Pythons
2) Bill Hicks-being funny whilst telling a few
truths
3) Laurel & Hardy- overlooked heroes
4) Douglas Adams-The Answer IS 42!
5)Tex Avery-Long live the Acme Corp.

1) George Carlin
2) Kids in the Hall
3) Bill Maher (maybe more acerbic than funny ha ha)
4) Lewis Black
5) Absolutely Fabulous

...and of course special thanks to the whole Adult Swim, Southpark, etc. gang (and Tivo!).

Oh no! I forgot my FAVORITE. Miss Manners!! Judith Martin is one hilarious broad....the zingers, the slow-builds, the flank attacks, the sugar coating. And of course she is perfect, every time. You can’t argue with Miss Manners. She’ll eat you alive.

She’s a guide for how to be a complete bitch and prevent anyone from ever being upset or questioning your propriety without looking like a dolt.

I’m hoping her next book is “101 Ways to Say “Shove it Up Your Ass”, a Compilation”.