<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"I think we can all agree that Kevin Hart is having a moment. Well, it&amp;#x27;s much more than a moment, you see, because while stand-up comedy&amp;#x27;s golden child Louis CK is getting showered with critical praise and achieving financial success for all his career achievements, Hart has been ever not-so-quietly becoming a force of nature. From starring in 2011&amp;#x27;s Think Like a Man, which grossed nearly $100 million, to doing sold-out comedy shows around the world, to creating and starring in Real Housewives parody TV show Real Husbands of Hollywood, he is slowly taking over the entertainment biz. So it&amp;#x27;s only natural that he&amp;#x27;s releasing his latest concert film on one of the most competitive times in Hollywood: Fourth of July. And judging by his previous stand-up movie, Laugh at My Pain, which became the seventh-highest grossing stand-up film of all time&amp;amp;#8212;I think it&amp;#x27;s safe to say that Let Me Explain is going to be another blockbuster. After watching Explain, you&amp;#x27;ll probably be hankering for more comedy, so let&amp;#x27;s take a look at 12 other stand-up specials that I love and recommend you check out this holiday weekend. (WARNING: Some of these clips are NSFW. So please wear headphones if you&amp;#x27;re reading/watching this at work.) Himself, Bill Cosby I know, I know. What else is there to say about the Coz that hasn&amp;#x27;t already been said? He&amp;#x27;s a comedic genius who has left a mark on television, with The Cosby Show, and the world of ugly fashion with those ridiculous sweaters. But in all seriousness, his stand-up, along with Richard Pryor&amp;#x27;s and George Carlin&amp;#x27;s, has influenced generations of comedians who have come after him. Chris Rock, Jerry Seinfeld, Ray Romano have all cited Cosby as one of the greats who has stood the test of time. And there&amp;#x27;s no better proof of that than his 1983 film Himself. Simply sitting in a chair on a bare stage, he tells stories about universal situations such as being a parent, family, and going to the dentist. Never before has describing the dental experience been so hilarious: I&amp;#x27;ma Be Me, Wanda Sykes This special came out shortly after Barack Obama was elected President and you can tell because even though she discusses the usual topics like raising children and race, she spends a fair amount of time talking about politics. In this clip, she jokes about prepping to perform at White House Correspondents&amp;#x27; Dinner and what the media expects the &amp;quot;real&amp;quot; Michelle Obama to be like: Mr. Universe, Jim Gaffigan I&amp;#x27;d be lying if I didn&amp;#x27;t admit that Gaffigan is one of my favorite comics working today. Just like Cosby, Jim works clean and tells these five-, seven-, eight-minute long bits that are packed with tons of jokes. One of my favorite topics he talks about in Mr. Universe is McDonald&amp;#x27;s and how even if everyone doesn&amp;#x27;t eat there, everyone has a McDonald&amp;#x27;s-esque equivalent in their lives, so really, no one is better than anyone else: Killin&amp;#x27; Them Softly, Dave Chappelle Any time Dave is mentioned, inevitably one is going to think about how he abruptly walked away from the $55 million contract he signed with Comedy Central to continue his show Chappelle&amp;#x27;s Show. And that&amp;#x27;s a shame because his personal life should not overshadow how incredibly funny this man is. All we have to do is look at his first one-hour special for HBO, Killin&amp;#x27; Them Softly. In it, you can see the blueprint for Chappelle&amp;#x27;s Show: jokes about politics, police, drugs, etc. full of wit and incredible insight. Just look at this example in which he talks about being in the ghetto at 3 A.M.: Chewed Up, Louis CK It was pretty tough to choose which special of his to include on the list as each of them are great and have memorable moments. Eventually, Chewed Up won out because, in my opinion, this is the one that put him on the cultural map in a way he hadn&amp;#x27;t been previously, and shows us the CK persona we&amp;#x27;re all familiar with now: a lovably dour and sarcastic guy who is not as great as he could be: Me Doing Stand-Up, Norm MacDonald We all know MacDonald from his stint as the Weekend Update anchor on SNL and his performance in the Dave Chappelle cult classic Half Baked, but how many of us are well-versed in his stand-up career? I know I wasn&amp;#x27;t, and that&amp;#x27;s why when he released Me Doing Stand-Up, it was a pleasant surprise. I was laughing A LOT, especially when he covered darker topics like his father dying and heart attacks. He manages to find the funny in such serious material, allowing the viewer to laugh instead of feeling sad: Elephant in the Room, Patrice O&amp;#x27;Neal I&amp;#x27;m a little bummed to write this one because I met Patrice at Carolines on Broadway shortly before he passed away. For those who don&amp;#x27;t know, he was a real ball-buster, and the second he found out that I was a stand-up comic, he trashed me in that &amp;quot;big brother/little sister&amp;quot; way. It was amazing and hilarious and this was after he did an hour and a half of material. Thankfully, I not only have that encounter to cherish him, but also Elephant in the Room, the only stand-up special he recorded before his untimely death. In Elephant, O&amp;#x27;Neal is at his best: saying things to make the audience uncomfortable and to make them think. For instance, check out his opening bit about the value of white women in society: Bring the Pain, Chris Rock Have to be honest, a lot of his clips are super NSFW, but luckily, I was able to find something not quite so R-rated. Rock often discusses men and women, and this is one of my favorites about women having &amp;quot;platonic&amp;quot; male friends: Here and Now, Ellen DeGeneres Hands down, Ellen is funny. In fact, I don&amp;#x27;t think I know one person who doesn&amp;#x27;t find her amusing and that&amp;#x27;s especially rare, considering this YouTube generation tends to be jerks for the sake of it. Yet, Ellen manages to escape that &amp;quot;she&amp;#x27;s funny...for a woman&amp;quot; line and other snotty comments. That&amp;#x27;s probably because her stand-up is clean, universal, and very observant. I often find myself thinking, Oh, man, that&amp;#x27;s so true, when I watch her perform. And I&amp;#x27;m sure you do too: Delirious, Eddie Murphy To quote The Notorious B.I.G., &amp;quot;If you don&amp;#x27;t know, now you know.&amp;quot; If you&amp;#x27;ve never seen Murphy&amp;#x27;s &amp;quot;Ice Cream&amp;quot; joke, you&amp;#x27;re in for a treat. Pun intended. If you have watched it already, then you&amp;#x27;ll be reminded of his brilliance and why he was THE stand-up comedian of the 1980s: Let It Go, Bill Burr I love Bill. It&amp;#x27;s that simple. He&amp;#x27;s angry, brutally honest, and most important, hilarious. He presents his material as if he&amp;#x27;s not that smart of a guy, but that&amp;#x27;s an act. You can tell his brain is working when he comes up with his jokes and that he&amp;#x27;s not just this Boston-born guy yelling at the world. OK, maybe he is a little bit: I&amp;#x27;m Telling You for the Last Time, Jerry Seinfeld Surely, you knew I was going to add Jerry to this list, right? After all, he co-created the show about nothing and his stand-up is devoted to discussing nothing and the minutiae of life. Here&amp;#x27;s one of his classic bits about visiting the doctor: What do you think of this list? Did I leave any specials out? Finally, will you be checking out Let Me Explain this weekend? P.S. I love Pryor and Carlin too, but I just couldn&amp;#x27;t make room for them on this list, so don&amp;#x27;t hate me for not including them."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.glamour.com/entertainment/blogs/obsessed/2013/07/kevin-harts-let-me-explain-and>