Jack Milroy. Just a naturally funny person who could make anything funny.

always made me laugh by simply breathing.

The expression of bewilderment of his face might have something to do with it too.

Always, always Eddie Izzard.

......and Peter Cook makes up my top 3.

Chris Morris (Brasseye made me laugh more than anything else ever)
Connolly (nuff said)

Actually, Harpo too. On a more modern tip, Larry David makes me laugh as soon as I see him. And Larry Sanders.

I'm not a fan of stand-up comedy at all, Billy Connolly in his prime early years excepted, I much prefer great comedy actors on TV or in movies. But I guess that doesn't necessarily make my choices funny people in themselves.

Steve Martin's early films such as The Jerk, All Of Me, Man With Two Brains and also the more mainstream Roxanne and wonderful Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.

Woody Allen, Play It Again Sam especially.

Laurel & Hardy, Groucho Marx (although I never got Chaplin at all).

Phil Silvers as Bilko.

Arthur Lowe as Captain Mainwaring.

Timothy Spall as Barry in Auf Weidersehen Pet or the drummer in Still Crazy.

Peter Cook, Spike Milligan & Tommy Cooper would be my favourites who just seemed to ooze comedy and would make me laugh by just standing silent for a couple of minutes.

Sean Lock is perfect in delivery and content
As a comedy actor - the scrotal sack face of Sid James

with Ernie and Eddie Braben on the BBC.

Chris Rock today.

It's all subjective of course.

The one person who makes me laugh just to look at them is... Ellen Degeneres. Harry Hill's a hoot and Tim Vine is a relentless joke machine, much like Tommy Cooper.

Otherwise I'm quite stony faced at stand up. I'm rarely in the mood.

Peter Sellers is easily the best.

The late great George Carlin

still makes me laugh every time. I could happily listen to Humphrey Lyttleton's links and intros on I'm Sorry, Harry Hill, the entire Bilko & Frasier cast and Terry Thomas (particularly his first scene in I'm Alright Jack). I once went to see a comedian called Nick Revell do stand up and he was probably the funniest person I have ever shared a room with along with a hundred others. Whatever happened to him ?

According to satellite TV station Dave these were the 10 funniest jokes at this year's Edinburgh Fringe.

1) Tim Vine: "I've just been on a once-in-a-lifetime holiday. I'll tell you what, never again."

2) David Gibson: "I'm currently dating a couple of anorexics. Two birds, one stone."

3) Emo Philips: "I picked up a hitch hiker. You've got to when you hit them."

4) Jack Whitehall: "I bought one of those anti-bullying wristbands when they first came out. I say 'bought', I actually stole it off a short, fat ginger kid."

5) Gary Delaney: "As a kid I was made to walk the plank. We couldn't afford a dog."

6) John Bishop: "Being an England supporter is like being the over-optimistic parents of the fat kid on sports day."

7) Bo Burnham: "What do you call a kid with no arms and an eyepatch? Names."

8) Gary Delaney: "Dave drowned. So at the funeral we got him a wreath in the shape of a lifebelt. Well, it's what he would have wanted."

9) Robert White: "For Vanessa Feltz, life is like a box of chocolates: Empty."

10) Gareth Richards: "Wooden spoons are great. You can either use them to prepare food. Or, if you can't be bothered with that, just write a number on one and walk into a pub

Make of them what you will.

Oh and these were, apparently, the worst:

Sara Pascoe: "Why did the chicken commit suicide? To get to the other side."

Sean Hughes: "You know city-centre beat officers... Well are they police who rap?"

John Luke Roberts: "I made a Battenberg where the two colours ran alongside each other. I called it apartheid sponge."

Emo Phillips: "I like to play chess with bald men in the park although it's hard to find 32 of them."

Bec Hill: "Some of my best friends are vegan. They were going to come today but they didn't have the energy to climb up the stairs."

Dan Antopolski: "How many Spaniards does it take to change a lightbulb? Juan."

Hylda was the complete comedian - wonderful use of language that Alan Bennett/Victoria Wood would die for, funny and mobile face, and a great physical comic - she was small but strutted around like she was 10ft tall.

Sparkes is a vastly underrated character comic who would be a household name if he'd toured more. The mainstay of Absolutely, especially with hideous Welsh DIY expert Denzil, he has a great face wonderful timing, and is good at the physical stuff. Here's his Gwyn character

Plus Milligan, Cooper, Morecambe, Michael Palin and Chic Murray

no contest,Richard Pryor.

Will Hay, Moore Marriott and Graham Moffatt - some terrific Sunday afternoon films such as Where's That Fire, Ask A Policeman, Oh Mr Porter. Also showed a healthily satirical anti-authoritarian vein for 1930s cinema.

I'be never understood the appeal of Billy Connelly so he certainly wouldn't be in my list but Peter Cook would be. He was able to be funny scripted it otherwise.
The person that makes me laugh most these days is Milton Jones closely followed by Sean Lock.
I'm surprised that nobody has do far mentioned that the answer is obviously "The Frank Chickens".

so I could write a very long list ( but don't worry, I won't ).
I just want to mention ( because noone else here will ) the very funny swedish actor Thor Modeén, who could make the worst movie funny as long as he was in the frame.
And one of the funniest performances in a movie belongs to Josephine Hull in the brilliant movie "Harvey"; so subtle, but every little detail she adds is pure genius.
The funniest scene ever in a movie is the mirror scene in "Duck Soup" ( the Marx Brothers ). The first time I saw it, completely unprepared for what was about to happen, I laughed so hard that I started to hyperventilate.
Most stand up comics have quite a short window of hilarity, I've yet to see one that keeps on being funny over time. Three or four years maybe ? And these days of YouTube I guess that window is shrinking, since they have to come up with new jokes sooner, wearing out the machinery so to speak.

Wodehouse needs a mention. Not very funny in interviews, but he could write a note for the milkman and make it funnier than the entire output of many comedians.
Amongst writers, another contender would be S.J. Perelman.

Leonard Rossiter,Tommy Cooper,Stewart Lee and Bill Hicks.

Interesting to note so far no one has mentioned the comedy "giants" Kay and Gervais

Cissie and Ada/Les Dawson and Roy Barraclough..laugh? I wet myself everytime!

Can we please add Miss Wood to the list. I remember seeing her live and 5 minutes into the second half we wanted to go off again and give us chance to recover because it hurt to laugh so much.

I sort-of understand why Milligan is up there but then I hear those 'funny' Indian and Chinese accents with the appalling make-up and feel very uneasy. Puckoon is a work of genius though.

And as far as sit-down comedians go, Dave Allen took some beating.

I'll add Victor Borge:

Have made me laugh more than anyone else

Have made me laugh more than anyone else

Al Murray is very good as is Daniel Kitson but early Billy Connelly on An Audience With or Peter Cook on Clive Anderson when he done the four different characters are the funniest things I have seen

Only got put onto this fella a couple of years ago and spent the night on my tod in the conservatory checking out his entire catalogue (is on spotify). Very very funny with the usual lifestory of drugs, drink and dying too young.
Give him a whirl, not for everybody but had me doubled up.

yes, the snooker player. Perhaps not everyone would agree, but I find him bloody hilarious.

As ever, in no particular order

Bill Hicks

Eddie izzard

Ross Noble

Billy Connolly

Frank Skinner

Jimmy Carr

Sean Lock

People who make me laugh just by breathing:
Peter Cook, Billy Connolly, Tommy Cooper, Arthur Smith, Les Dawson, Eric Morecambe

Best comedy actors:
Sid James, Leonard Rossiter and Ronnie Barker

Favourites at the moment (not the funniest to draw breath, but the best now):
Sean Lock, Rhod Gilbert, Tim Vine, Sarah Millican & Michael McIntyre (I like him, if no-one else does)

has made me laugh harder than anyone else. The "Audience With" and "Live at Hammersmith Odeon" from the 80's are the funniest things I have ever seen. It was so sad to see him back at the Odeon this year and to be so disappointed, nothing lasts for ever.
A mention in dispatches to Tommy Cooper, Eric Morecambe, Peter Kay (yes he is funny, honestly) and Les Dawson. Also Paul Whitehouse is the finest comedy actor I have seen, anyone who can make those Aviva adverts as funny and enjoyable as they are is ok by me, "Honk, Honk".

Little known on these shores, up until a few years ago, he wrote a fabulous column in the Miami Herald. Any of his collections make great bog reading, the average Barry column being designed to last exactly the duration of a good sit-down visit. But your other half will want to know why you're laughing.

The comic's comic. Class.

Arthur Lowe, John Cleese, Billy Connolly (early), Derek and Clive etc. But I use to DIE with laughter at Harry Enfield's Loadsamoney, Self Righteous Brothers etc. And, brace yourselves, "Motormouth" by Ben Elton is as funny now as it was then, even if BE himself has become a bit of a nob (on the beach?). Hardly anyone makes me laugh these days though Armstrong and Miller have their moments. Modern humour based on cruelty and vomiting leaves me cold.

Chris Morris - Blue Jam tickled some hitherto uncharted funny bones

Armando Iannucci - Only an Italian Scotsman could have so much fun with the English language. And that swearing on Thick Of It...

Larry David - To know LD is to love him

Graham Linehan - Writer of the best four sitcoms of the last 20 years and Big Train too

David Cross - Bill Hicks was a genius of a performer but Cross does the jokes.

In his final years, I think Peter Cook was under unbearable pressure to be the wittiest person in the room, when you got the feeling he would rather not be. Sometimes he would say something quite ordinary and syncophantic people would hail him as a genius. Spike Milligan and Kenny Everett were the "wacky" chat show guests who people just laughed at, no matter what they did - and I found that a little trying at times.

Other funny people can switch off - I certainly remember a fez-less Tommy Cooper in interview being rather sensible and Rowan Atkinson did a very straight BBC documentary on cars, which had very few (if any) laughs.

The funniest person to draw breath outside of people I know, would be Rik Mayall. In a straight interview situation a few years ago on daytime telly he was not there to be particularly funny and he didn't really say anything that amusing, but he really can't seem to help causing hilarity - which he somehow did.

Ladies and Gentlemen, my two nominations are Lewis Black and Will Durst. The premier satirists working in American today.
Here's Lewis again.

I saw Doug Stanhope a couple of years ago and it was the closest thing to pure comedy I had experienced since the only time I saw Bill Hicks live - in Belfast in 1992.
In fact, I think I laughed more at Stanhope. But I shouldn't admit that.

Deserves a mention. Certainly out there in a field of his own, and never fails to make me gurgle.

Tom Lehrer

Tim Minchin

Eddie Izzard

I grew up on Dudley Moore's Hollywood films when at school. Every year we'd have a revue and one year the headmaster asked a friend and I if we'd perform a sketch that he liked: The Ravens, the one about Dudley Moore being interviewed by Peter Cook about his hobby of teaching ravens to fly underwater. It brought the house down simply because the language of it is so good. I took the Moore role and performed it as I envisaged him from films like Arthur, terribly urbane but slightly unhinged.

Moore could do all kinds of comedy: he could be farcical, witty, straight, subtle, demonstrative, spontaneous, on cue. His timing was wonderful and the way he could pull a face and react to other characters was pitch-perfect. I think that was his biggest comedic talent - something which Cook never really had - a capacity to react comedically to what and how something is being said or done to him. He just had a wide repertoire of comedic devices, more than most. That's why he had the film career and Cook didn't.

Despite all his incredible talents - comedic, actorly, musical - Moore was never elitist and he had a warmth in his humour even when he was playing someone completely exasperating as many of his characters were in those Hollywood films. I think that's why he liked Hollywood, it allowed him to be accepted as he was, far more than he was able in the UK where he seemed to live in a long shadow of his 60s career and of his much-feted partner from Not Only But Also

Moore probably isn't the funniest person ever to draw breath but he'd be in my Top 10 easily.

I would say, without a shadow of a doubt, that I am the funniest person in the world.

And I agree with me

Billy Connolly is the best stand-up comedian.

Laurel & Hardy were the best comedians on film.

The funniest sitcom? A tough call, but I'd go for Frasier.

Nothing funnier than seeing Les knock out "The Entertainer" on the piano..

Izzard's "Cat drilling" skit and Hick's "Jogging" piece never fail to raise a hearty chuckle.

it's Jacques Tati. "Monsieur Hulot's Holiday" is probably my favourite film.

W.C. Fields, particularly "It's A Gift".

Woody Allen "Love And Death" - as quotable as Spinal Tap.

The Comic Strip guys for "Bad News" and "A Fistful Of Travellers Cheques".

and Hugh Paddick for Julian and Sandy from Round The Horne

The language, intonation and double-entendres are priceless.

Australian radio turned TV "stars," HG Nelson and Rampaging Roy Slaven call the gymnastics in the 2000 olympics.

Mrs S. persuaded me to buy tickets to his last tour a few years ago in Houston. I was reluctant as I always thought on chat shows, he tried too hard to be "wacky".
But it was one of the best comedy gigs I have been too...non-stop laughter...a pleasant surprise.

The strange thing about Robin Williams is that as funny as he is as a stand-up, he is a much better serious actor (Good Will Hunting, One Hour Photo, Insomnia)on film than a comedy actor....but that may have something to do with the quality of comedy films he is in.

Give this a minute to kick in. Mark Heap, as seen on Big Train and Green Wing...

then Christopher Guest and his merry band of regulars have consistently provided more laughs than any others for me. Ok 'For You Consideration' wasn't the greatest but....

Particularly godlike is Fred Willard

Stan Laurel - no contest. He was the ideas man in the L and H partnership a true master of timing, slapstick, pathos, hyperbole and almost every other comic threatical device known to man. If there was a way of measuring the amount of belly laughs exhaled at one man in the last 90 odd years by the human race I'm sure Stan would top the chart.

Have to disagree with Dave Amitri a few posts up, I saw Connolly at Hammersmith Apollo a few months ago too and it was the best I'd seen him since first watching him there in about 1990. He seemed really fired up again.
For current comedians, the one nobody's mentioned yet who I'd recommend is Louis CK, an American who seems in the comics' comic mould.
My all-time FPETDB is Steve Martin, it's such a shame there's not been a DVD release of his one rare stand-up VHS, just called Steve Martin Live. A mix of Morecambe/Cooper "just looking at him will make you laugh" with some killer stupid one-liners. Pretty much every film of his up to and including Parenthood is wonderful, and, yes, virtually everything after is depressingly poor. Though he was back on form in It's Complicated, so fingers crossed for a late purple patch in his career.

No, not the funniest person ever to draw breath but certainly worthy of mention here.

Co-founder of I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue he quietly owns each broadcast. I've always thought his timing was unbeatable and his plays on words are uniformly brilliant.

He can also be delightfully silly. Both my small daughter and I hooted at a line from his and Barry Cryer's 'You'll Have Had Your Tea'.

(Knock on front door. Door opens)

GG: 'Goodness me! Don't just stand there in the pouring rain like that! Go away...'

Garden is a very under-rated deadpan performer. And his son JJ is in Scissor Sisters.

Steve Martin and Robin Williams.

Oh "funniest", i thought it said furriest!

Coat, etc.

No-one seems to have mentioned Bill Bailey - I'd probably vote for him.

seeing Bill do tiny venue gig next week on same night as Massive London meetup. I love you all but its no contest

Can't quite decide, but wouldn't mind betting it's one of these. (in no particular order)

Stephen Wright

Eddie Izzard

John Shuttleworth

Phil Kay (yes, i do mean Phil not Peter)

Harry Hill