4 "Clean" Standup Comedians You Can Enjoy With The Whole Family!
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Everyone knows the feeling when you sit down with your family to watch a comedy special and the awareness sets in when the dirty jokes start rolling. Squirming in your seat, trying to fake a giggle or attempting to excuse yourself from the room isn’t necessarily a fun way to spend an evening with your family.
Clean comedy can be difficult to find and can be even more difficult to try to find a clean comedian that is both entertaining and funny to watch. However, don’t give up on this genre yet -- here are the best family-friendly comedians to watch!
1. Jim Gaffigan
Jim Gaffigan is a comedian, actor, writer, and producer from Illinois. He is one of the highest-paid comedians in the world, making upwards of $15-20 million a year. He began his career in NYC on “The Late Show with David Letterman” and was asked by Letterman to develop a sitcom. He has guest-starred in many popular television shows, done countless voice-overs, and released comedy albums. He is best known for his family-friendly clean comedy and he has had many hit stand-up comedy specials on Comedy Central and Netflix.
His material usually surrounds his family-oriented life, travel, food, and diet. A lot of his earlier comedy specials had a lot to do with his weight loss journey and dieting and have consisted of a lot of “fat jokes” which are usually a big hit with younger and older audiences alike. You can find a lot of these types of jokes in his specials like “Jim Gaffigan: Obsessed” and “Jim Gaffigan: Beyond the Pale”. You can find 6 of his most popular stand-up comedy specials on Netflix.
2. Nate Bargatze
Nate Bargatze is a comedian from Nashville, Tennessee, who began his comedy career at the Boston Comedy Club in NYC and won the Boston and New York’s Comedy Festival in 2013. The Atlantic named him the nicest man in stand-up comedy. He was also on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” six times.
His work is extremely clean and inoffensive, which makes him a perfect comedian to watch for those family nights. He has a slow and calm demeanor and delivers his jokes in a way that is sure to make anyone laugh. His topics vary, but most of his work is tied to his personal experiences and family life. He has two comedy specials on Netflix: “The Tennessee Kid” and “The Greatest Average American”. He also has his show “Nate Bargatze: Hello World!” available on Prime Video. You can also watch his other specials on Comedy Central or Paramount+.
3. Tig Notaro
Tig Notaro’s comedy is truly one of a kind. She is from Jackson, Mississippi. and started her career in band management after dropping out of high school. In Los Angeles, she tried standup comedy for the first time and found great success. She was nominated for an Emmy in 2016 and 2 Grammy Awards in 2014 and 2017.
Notaro’s stand-up can be found on HBO, Netflix, and Comedy Central. Most of her material deals with personal experiences which surround her breast cancer diagnosis in 2012, her wife Stephanie, and her traveling adventures. She is known for her deadpan delivery, and she approaches scary topics like illness and death in a way that makes people find the humor in them. You can find her special “Boyish Girl Interrupted” from 2015 and “Drawn” from 2021 on Max, and you can find her special “Happy to be Here” from 2018 on Netflix.
4. Ellen DeGeneres
Ellen DeGeneres is one of the most well-known comedians. Her talk show has 19 seasons with well over 13,000 episodes. However, even with all of her success in comedy, television, and films, many aren’t too familiar her stand-up comedy. She began her career as a standup comedian in the '80s and appeared on “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson” in 1986. She toured nationally and was named Showtime’s funniest person in America in 1984. She took a break from standup for about 15 years and came back to standup with her special “Relatable” on Netflix in 2018.
Her comedy can be described exactly as her Netflix special: relatable. She always shares experiences and stories that are relatable to all of us, often shedding light on our best and worst moments as a population. She has a hilarious style of delivery and her standup is worth the watch. Her older specials can be viewed on YouTube and her newer content can be viewed on Netflix.