BEST LAUGHS. Entertainment Weekly recently published Penn Jillette's list of twelve comedy CDs that "You've Gotta Get." Listed:

The Smothers Brothers, Sibling Revelry: The Best of the Smothers Brothers (1998)

Albert Brooks, Comedy Minus One (1973)

The Firesign Theatre, Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers (1970)

Stan Freberg Presents the United States of America, Vol 1 and Vol. 2 (1996)

Team America: World Police Soundtrack (2004)

The Best of Phyllis Diller (2002)

Gilbert Gottfried, Dirty Jokes (2005)

Martin Mull and His Fabulous Furniture in Your Living Room (1973)

The National Lampoon Radio Hour: Best Moments (2003)

The Lenny Bruce Originals Volume 1 (1992)

George Carlin, FM & AM (1972)

Marshall Dodge and Robert Bryan, Bert and I & More Bert and I (1983)

I wouldn't dare question Penn's picks — I fear he'd kick the shit outta me if I did — but I wonder what other people's top comedy choices would be. Spike Jones? Bill Cosby? Myron Cohen? Tom Lehrer? Monty Python? Richard Pryor? Jackie Mason? Allan Sherman? Victor Borge? Judy Tenuta? Gilda Radner? Peter Schickele? Margaret Cho? Cheech and Chong? The First Family? Andrew "Dice" Clay? "Weird Al" Yankovic? So many possibilities!

Here are some picks from funnyman Frank Santopadre (right, in case you haven't guessed already). Frank is a comedy writer and former editor of Jest magazine who assures me he has plenty of other credits. And who am I to doubt him?

Out of curiosity, I checked out Frank's picks on Amazon and found that a bunch of them are cheap, so I linked those.

Woody Allen, Standup Comic. Comedy for thinking people from the artist many consider to be the greatest comic mind of his generation. No argument here. "Eggs Benedict," "The Moose," and others have become classics. A masterpiece.

George Carlin, Class Clown. Contains the infamous "Seven Words..." plus much more, including "I Used to be Catholic" and the profound "Heavy Mystery Time." This is Carlin at the peak of his transformation from TV-friendly quipster to the voice of a counterculture.

Robert Klein, Child of the 50's and Mind Over Matter. "Boomer humor" at its absolute best. Intelligent comedy from the comedian who inspired Jerry Seinfeld to attempt a career in standup, these albums have aged beautifully. Child's "Civil Defense" routine somehow manages to be relevant to this day.

Richard Pryor, That Nigger's Crazy and Bicentennial Nigger. Perhaps not as satisfying an experience as the popular filmed concerts from the late 70's and 80's, but these two records are the perfect Pryor primer.

Bob Newhart, The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart. Arguably the most popular comedy recording of all time (and one of the best-selling). A must-listen.

Bill Hicks, Rant in E-Minor or Philosophy. Provocative social satire from the late great Hicks. Philosophy is a "Best of" CD. Neither is for the squeamish or easily offended.

Steve Martin, Let's Get Small. Surrealist comedy goes mainstream in this breakthrough work from the first "rock star comedian" (the first standup to sell out large arenas). The follow-up albums, Comedy is Not Pretty and A Wild & Crazy Guy, are damn good too.

National Lampoon, That's Not Funny, That's Sick. The Magnum Opus of what Lampoon cofounder Tony Hendra often referred to as "Cut and Slash" comedy.

The Monty Python Matching Tie & Handkerchief. Probably the best Python on CD, although The Final Ripoff and Monty Python's Previous Record are wonderful as well. Hmm. On second thought, I can't choose.

Mike Nichols & Elaine May, In Retrospect. A terrific collection of skits from the legendary comedy team.

So what do you think? What are your favorite comedy discs?

Clown photo: David Marc Fischer
Frank Santopadre photo courtesy of Frank Santopadre