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Being a child of the 80s many classical comedians sush as, Luarel and Hardy, The Marx Brothers, Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin were a bit before my time. But I have seen some of thier work and I thought it was pretty funny, but I was a kid and a lot of things were funny to me then that are not now.
So when I saw the professor show an old marx brothers film for film class I was a little skeptical. 5 minutes into it I was laughing my ass off. I don't know what comedians are lacking these days but most of them are not a half a funny as these guys. So whats your favorite old comedian?

Some biggies missing from this list including Abbott and Costello and The Three Stooges. I voted for Other for Abbott and Costello in addition to the Marx Brothers. Also when I think of Bob Hope, I often think of Bing Crosby as well.

I went with the Marx Brothers, though Abbot & Costello would be sort of like 1A to the Marx Brothers' 1.

Who's on First still cracks me up.

My apologies I really should have remembered Abbot and Costello and the three stooges. Those guys were hilarious.

the 3 Stooges are above and beyond my very favorite comedians of ALL time. But I like all you'e listed...Harold  Llyod always being way up their. The man was amazing! He did all his own stunts...and was missing a few fingers from one of his hands,as a result of a mishap during the filming of one of his early silent stunts gone wrong!

  http://youtube.com/watch?v=JUGzr_8_CnQ

I get woozy just watching this stuf!!!

I can't decide. All of them have produced movies that were laugh-out-loud funny and movies that didn't really work for me.

As a kid, it was definitely the Little Rascals and the Three Stooges, in no particular order. They still make me laugh.

As an adult, I'd have to go with the Marx Brothers for sheer insanity, cleverness and subversiveness. For something with a bit more style, I'd go with Hope and Crosby.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfrxGk2yESo
Not their best movie, but it was the only video of "patty cake" I could find.

I would have added W.C Fields ("A woman drove me to drink, and I never even got the chance to thank her") and Mae West to the list.  Voted for the Marx Bros. and "other" (for Fields).

I picked The Little Rascals.  Chaplin's funny, but not a 'favorite.'

However I still watch The Three Stooges and Abbott and Costello when I get a chance.

I'd like to nominate Red Skelton for addition to the list.

I'm fond of Abbott and Costello (probably my favorites), Bob Hope and Bing Crosby (or Hope alone), The Marx Brothers, The Three Stooges and The Little Rascals (Our Gang).

For me, the best hands down has to be the Marx Brothers, but since I had to pick two, I chose also Bob Hope.

What about 3 stooges?  How could you forgot those guys?

NOTHING tops The Marx Brothers, but Abbott and Costello (not on list) come close. However I'll always have a soft spot for "Our Gang" aka The Little Rascals and The Three Stooges.

I'm not going to nit-pick the list as there are dozens not on the list some fairly obscure, some not, but all really funny. Like, Charlie Chase, Jimmie Adams, Billy Bevan, Keystone Cops, W.C. Fields, Jimmy Durante, Lucille Ball (when she was a blond), Cary Grant, Harold Peavy, Lige Conley (the original "Fast and Furious" in 1924 that was a comedy), Clyde Cook, Sidney Drew, Fred Karno, Danny Kaye, Lupino Lane, Red Skelton, Larry Semon, Billy West, The 3 Fatties, The Smith Family (which was many people none of named Smith) and if you can fine the Hal Roach One Reelers there are some gems there with many little or names lost to time comics that are really funny.
I would include Bob Hope only with Bing Crosby because Hope was never as funny alone as he was with Crosby in the Road movies. I only mentioned one women but there are many of those too that are comic geniuses, that got little or no credit... Margaret Dumont anyone?

Oh and 100's more.   

Danny Kaye was a fave when I was a kid, but he seems a little dated now.  Kind of like he was the Jim Carrey of his day.  And I used to laugh at the Keystone Cops.  Once they all piled ontop of a police car or a fire engine and every time they went around corners, some of them fell off   :bouncegiggle:   I'm a sucker for slapstick and anyone who gets hurt.

I am surprised to see Abbott Costello and the Three Stooges missing from this poll.

I always thought that The Marx Brothers were ahead of their time and that Laurel and Hardy were hilarious. 

I went with the Marx Brothers and Bob Hope, though I'll also add that he did much of his best work when teamed with Bing Crosby. I almost went with Martin & Lewis for their early stuff, as I feel that Lewis has become so popular to ridicule as unfunny that people overlook how insanely different and hilarious he was on the Martin & Lewis show and in the earlier (B&W) movies. I ended up going with Hope because he has a larger body of work that I find myself going back to over Martin & Lewis. Harold Lloyd was amazing, but I watch him more for the stunts than the laughs. I would have gone for Abbott & Costello over Martin & Lewis and maybe over Hope (the Road to movies are some of my favorites of all times...what can I say?). The Three Stooges are great, but not quite as sophisticated as the others on the list. Not that there's anything wrong with that; I just generally prefer quick wit over slapstick.

Glad to see Harold Lloyd get so many props here --
I had seen "The Freshman" & "Safety Last", but had always heard that his sound picture "The Crimes of Harold Diddlebock" wasn't any good -- well, I finally did see it and it's actually quite good indeed.  A Preston Sturges film!!  I was pleasantly shocked --
On old comedians, I definitely have a huge respect for Buster Keaton.  If you see things like "Steamboat Bill Jr." and "The Cameraman", you can be amazed at the sheer ubridled visual inventiveness of the man -- Like Chaplin, he wrote and directed his own films, as well as acted in them, and he was doing technical jokes that wouldn't become popular for decades later.  Way ahead of his time --
While I do love many of the others mentioned here, I will mention one I don't see:  Harry Langdon.  Langdon was dismissed as a Chaplin imitator & then later as a Stan Laurel imitator, but if you watch his work, you can see he was a real individual, carrying the character of the innocent naif to an extreme.  His films are often included in silent film compilations, and they're worth seeking out.
Yeah, I'd shout out Marie Dressler too!
For that matter, Mary Pickford could be a funny woman too --
Keaton did a lot of his earlier work as a foil for the biggest comic star in the world at the time:  Roscoe Arbuckle.  It is almost impossible to find Arbuckle's work in compilations these days, let alone on its own, due to his besmirchment over the death of Virginia Rappe.  I saw a huge Keaton retrospective in London awhile back and many of his shorts with Arbuckle were included -- the only time I've ever seen Arbuckle on the big screen.  Whether guilty or innocent, Arbuckle had real talent, sort of a Jackie Gleason-like figure.  But his work will always be relegated to obscurity because of the whispers of "murder", even though he was acquitted twice --
peter johnson/george leroy tirebiter

Here is a link to mucho Fatty films.

http://www.a-1video.com/arbuckle.htm (http://www.a-1video.com/arbuckle.htm)

 I picked up a DVD of Laurel and Hardy movies a short while back. The feature length FLYING DUECES leads it off-and there are some silent shorts of them both...some as a duo...some on their own...which are quit good. Stan was more aggresive in his earlier films without Ollie. Both of them apart are quit different then the charecters they play in their more famous films as 'the Boys.'

I really should apologize for being so forgetful. The day I made this poll I was a little absent minded. So I reset the poll and updated the choices. I hope this works better.

Re. CheeseFlixz --
I should know better in this day and age to doubt the availability of anything on the net (re. Arbuckle) --
Great site -- But now I'm tempted to p**s away lots of money on old tapes -- Oh, well, I knew the site was dangerous when I joined up --
peter johnson/denny crane

I voted for the Marx Bros. and other (for Jack Benny). The Marxes is a given. Groucho especially had a huge effect on me, but I wind up swiping lines from Chico as I get older, but even with the accent, I'm surprised how few people catch the references. Sad really.

The names mentioned seem to be mostly film comedians, Benny made some films, but only a few are worth mention. Radio and later TV were where his best work was done. Even Benny got comic mileage slamming his film career, mostly The Horn Blows at Midnight. Personally I love Buck Benny Rides Again, it's a film riffing on his radio show hiatus vacation and lots of the the jokes only really work if you are familiar with the staples of his show: the "feud" with Fred Allen, his greed and cheapness, Jack's worn out Maxwell car, Dennis Day, and it was fun to actually SEE Carmichael in action.

I've only recently heard much of Fred Allen first hand, but it's wild to see how much of what was done on his show was copied by others, and just how many gags from old Warner Bros. cartoons are "borrowed" from his show. I would recommend seeking out the Fred Allen movie It's In The Bag. So-so film programmer comedy on it's own, but Allen's fourth wall breaking voice over narration is fantastic, predating DVD commentaries and MST3K by decades.

Yeah, Fred Allen -- Lost to the ages --
Speaking of Warner's, Foghorn Leghorn was a direct "borrow" from Allen's Senator Claghorn -- voice, jokes, the whole schmeer --
A lot of what Allen did would not go over as well today, for though he was a good-hearted fellow, much of his humor depended on ethnic stereotyping -- comical stingy Jews and Irish drunks, etc. -- that has fallen out of fashion.  Still and all, a visit to his "closet" on the old radio shows holds up as surrealistic humor, ala Steve Martin.
peter johnson/denny crane

I noticed the ethnic stereotypes on a box set of tapes I've got that I've been listening to off and on. He had a murder mystery spoof that was pretty good and built all around one punchline, but Allen's Asia detective character, One Lung Pan (IIRC), and the jokes of people not being able to understand him when he spoke wouldn't last anytime at all now.

Mrs. Nussbaum, Ajax Cassidy, and the other regulars on Allen's Alley really are from another time also. Although I'm convinced the annoyingly popular morning radio program The Johnboy and Billy Big Show has recycled one of Allen's old characters as their pretentious commentator, Oliver. They rip off bits and characters from everywhere else, and do their own fair share of stereotyping as well.

I knew Foghorn Leghorn was "borrowed" from Senator Claghorn, I just hadn't heard the original much until now, he's probably my favorite since I know so many fellow Southerners who have that same ego and braggadocio, just the accent isn't quite the same, wrong part of the South and not being Southern gentry folk.