Bill Engvall was the first headlining comedian I had ever experienced — I was 33 years old at the time. It was at the Improv Comedy Club at the end of 1992 (the comedy club died the next year).

I laughed so hard that night my ribs were sore for two days.

That single event set the level of laughter that I wanted to achieve in my own stand-up comedy career.

Now Bill Engvall has become one of America’s top comedians and has scored #1 albums earning platinum and gold status, out-selling super star comedians like Chris Rock, Adam Sandler and Jerry Seinfeld.

 

He has also starred in “Blue Collar TV” and the Blue Collar Comedy Tour movies, whose original documented the most successful comedy tour in years.

Bill recently participated in the final installment of the Blue Collar Comedy Tour, appearing on the One For The Road CD and DVD. His newest CD and DVD,15º Off Cool, filmed at the Paramount Theatre in Austin, TX, features all-new material.

As a new or aspiring comedian, Bill Engvall is a comedy master to study and lean from, especially if you use the newer, harder hitting, conversational style of stand-up comedy as detailed in the Killer Stand-up Comedy System.

Buy Bill Engvall: 15° Off Cool (2007) at Amazon

About the Author/Founder of The Stand-up Comedy Professional

Steve Roye is the author of the Killer Stand-up Comedy System and author of the content made available in the Comedy Pro Membership Program available on this site.

Over the past decade, Steve has established himself as a leading, globally recognized expert in the field of stand-up comedy material development, delivery and entertainment business strategies for comedy entertainers as well as speaking professionals.

For more information about Steve, please check out the About The Author section on this site.

It could be said that Eddie Izzard is one of those rare comedians who has the ability to produce and deliver intelligent high impact stand-up comedy material without talking down to an audience.

Few comedians can compare with Izzard, who can spin comic gold out of papal history, monkeys with guns, Jesus preaching to the dinosaurs, and cafeteria food on the Death Star.

Circle (DVD) is taken from his stand-up tour in 2000 and doesn’t have the astonishingly seamless free-associative flow of Glorious or Dress to Kill, his previous specials–which is to say, he’s only intermittently brilliant, instead of supernaturally nonstop brilliant.

We’ll take what we can get, because Izzard can slip in surprisingly stinging commentary about international politics and religion, yet his impish smile suggests that he’s only pointing out the obvious.

Izzard quickly tosses out an idea and then plays with it like a cat plays with a mouse, flipping it around, teasing it out, pouncing, and then letting it go, only to sneak back up on it just when you’d forgotten it was there.

Cheeky, subversive, and very, very funny. Enjoy the best of live comedy with the master of sublime (more…)

Please note that Eddie Izzard is one of the comedians featured in the Killer Stand-up Comedy System as a stellar example of the more new, more conversational style of stand-up comedy as opposed to the old school “set-up/punchline” sort of approach.

About the Author/Founder of The Stand-up Comedy Professional

Steve Roye is the author of the Killer Stand-up Comedy System and author of the content made available in the Comedy Pro Membership Program available on this site.

Over the past decade, Steve has established himself as a leading, globally recognized expert in the field of stand-up comedy material development, delivery and entertainment business strategies for comedy entertainers as well as speaking professionals.

For more information about Steve, please check out the About The Author section on this site.