#1 is George Carlin, hands down. This ought to require no explanation, Carlin is a fucking legend. His
piece on euphemisms is one of my favorites.
#2 is Bo Burnham. He's got a great mixture of silly bullshit and very intelligent jokes, all mixed in with crude language and songs and other non-standard stand up comedy delivery methods.
This video shows it off decently.
But then from there it's not so clear cut. I like a lot of comedians and after the two above they all sorta conglomerate into two groups of comedians I like a lot and ones that are just alright. I guess I'll just go with the first three from the great group that come to mind.
Lewis Black can have #3. He's kind of an angrier and more bitter George Carlin, which I quite enjoy.
This bit should suffice as an example.
Eddie Izzard gets #4 because why not. His delivery is amusing, fully of nonsensical little detours in longer jokes and a lot of physical humor, but still generally pretty intelligent stuff. His
long joke/story about Moses is hilarious.
And for #5, eh... How about Daniel Tosh. The over the top intentionally offensive stuff amuses the shit out of me. He doesn't do anything really fancy as far as his delivery goes, but the content of his jokes cracks me up.
Here's a good example of what I mean.
