12 Comments

Great piece.

I love Mitch Hedberg. He is a freaking legend. So smart. So unique. So attentive.

He has a joke (which I’m about butcher) about his belt holding up his pants and his pant loops holding up his belt and he says something like “who’s the real hero” — and I just think it is genius.

Expand full comment

Oh yeahhhhh that’s a great one 😂

Expand full comment

Belt holding the pants up joke always cracks me up 😊

Expand full comment

It’s such a good one :)

Expand full comment

"I want to hang a map of the world in my house, and then I’m gonna put pins into all the locations that I’ve traveled to. But first I’m gonna have to travel to the top two corners of the map, so it won’t fall down."

If this joke doesn't convince you of his genius, nothing will. He's in rarified air. Wish he were still with us.

Expand full comment

I heard that one recently and couldn’t stop laughing

Expand full comment

It really is brilliant.

Expand full comment

Mitch was the absolute best, stitching random hilarious thoughts together and moving from one to another without missing a beat. Simply a genius, like any other master of his craft he made it look easy but his style of standup might be one of the most difficult one to master.

Expand full comment

Exactly

Expand full comment

Suffice it to say, Youngman was also a one-liner master. That's why I made the comparison. He was an earlier generation's Hedberg.

Expand full comment

He was the Henny Youngman of Generation X.

Expand full comment

I’ve never heard of Henny Youngman! Maybe an article about the history of one-liner comedy is in order

Expand full comment