agent_PUNT
01-05-2005, 04:39 PM
CBC Arts
LONDON - And the funniest of them all was... Peter Cook, ahead of John Cleese, Woody Allen, Groucho Marx, and even Laurel and Hardy.
So say more than 300 comics, comedy writers, producers and directors from both sides of the Atlantic who were polled by Britain's Channel 4 television channel.
The late British comedian, who died 10 years ago this month at the age of 57, rose to fame in the 1960s.
He first gained attention at the Edinburgh Festival, where he partnered with the late Dudley Moore in a satirical show called Beyond the Fringe. It revelled in absurdist mockery of British pomposity and officialdom.
Others who worked with him on the ground-breaking skit show were the writers Alan Bennett and Jonathan Miller.
One of Cook's favourite targets was Britain's former prime minister, the Tory grandee Harold McMillan. "Though relatively harmless by today's standards, [it] was the first occasion a major establishment figure had been so mercilessly, and so publicly, mocked," the Observer newspaper wrote Sunday.
Fellow comics pay tribute
Canadian comic actor and writer Mike Myers, best known for his Austin Powers character, said of Cook's quirky and distinctive humour: "I didn't know dirty words could be done that artfully."
American stand-up comic Greg Proops explained Cook's elusive brand of charisma in an interview with the Observer. "There's a kind of insanity which is in his eyes, when he's trying to do dead corpse, and that's where all the magic is, in that evil, evil, brilliant devil."
Beyond the Fringe and the BBC's Not Only... But Also, on which he also collaborated with Dudley Moore, brought Cook iconic status.
Cook also created many of the long-running characters in the magazine Private Eye, which he owned and nurtured through its early days. These included Spiggy Topes, leader of the popular singing group The Turds.
On the strength of their television success, Cook and Moore moved on to movies, among them the cult film Bedazzled.
But the duo slowly broke up in the late 1970s as Moore struck out on his own, eventually making the hit movies 10 and Arthur in the United States. Cook became an alcoholic and died in 1995.
No woman in Top 20
John Cleese, who as the English Riviera hotelier Basil Fawlty created the archetypal English berk and countless buzz phrases such as "Don't mention the war," came second in the poll.
U.S. film-maker and angst-ridden nebbish Woody Allen came third. Eric Morecambe was fourth, but there was no place for his sidekick, Ernie Wise.
Groucho Marx came 5th, Richard Pryor was 10th, and Charlie Chaplin was 18th.
Few women made it into the top 50. The highest-ranked was Victoria Wood, little-known outside Britain, at number 27. U.S. comedienne and cosmetic surgery doyenne Joan Rivers was number 40.
LONDON - And the funniest of them all was... Peter Cook, ahead of John Cleese, Woody Allen, Groucho Marx, and even Laurel and Hardy.
So say more than 300 comics, comedy writers, producers and directors from both sides of the Atlantic who were polled by Britain's Channel 4 television channel.
The late British comedian, who died 10 years ago this month at the age of 57, rose to fame in the 1960s.
He first gained attention at the Edinburgh Festival, where he partnered with the late Dudley Moore in a satirical show called Beyond the Fringe. It revelled in absurdist mockery of British pomposity and officialdom.
Others who worked with him on the ground-breaking skit show were the writers Alan Bennett and Jonathan Miller.
One of Cook's favourite targets was Britain's former prime minister, the Tory grandee Harold McMillan. "Though relatively harmless by today's standards, [it] was the first occasion a major establishment figure had been so mercilessly, and so publicly, mocked," the Observer newspaper wrote Sunday.
Fellow comics pay tribute
Canadian comic actor and writer Mike Myers, best known for his Austin Powers character, said of Cook's quirky and distinctive humour: "I didn't know dirty words could be done that artfully."
American stand-up comic Greg Proops explained Cook's elusive brand of charisma in an interview with the Observer. "There's a kind of insanity which is in his eyes, when he's trying to do dead corpse, and that's where all the magic is, in that evil, evil, brilliant devil."
Beyond the Fringe and the BBC's Not Only... But Also, on which he also collaborated with Dudley Moore, brought Cook iconic status.
Cook also created many of the long-running characters in the magazine Private Eye, which he owned and nurtured through its early days. These included Spiggy Topes, leader of the popular singing group The Turds.
On the strength of their television success, Cook and Moore moved on to movies, among them the cult film Bedazzled.
But the duo slowly broke up in the late 1970s as Moore struck out on his own, eventually making the hit movies 10 and Arthur in the United States. Cook became an alcoholic and died in 1995.
No woman in Top 20
John Cleese, who as the English Riviera hotelier Basil Fawlty created the archetypal English berk and countless buzz phrases such as "Don't mention the war," came second in the poll.
U.S. film-maker and angst-ridden nebbish Woody Allen came third. Eric Morecambe was fourth, but there was no place for his sidekick, Ernie Wise.
Groucho Marx came 5th, Richard Pryor was 10th, and Charlie Chaplin was 18th.
Few women made it into the top 50. The highest-ranked was Victoria Wood, little-known outside Britain, at number 27. U.S. comedienne and cosmetic surgery doyenne Joan Rivers was number 40.