Free comedy downloads similar to David Cross?

July 16, 2004 7:39 AM

My commute to work is roughly 1 hour each way. Now the morning drive isn't so bad because all the radio stations have good talk shows on them. I prefer talk to music since all radio stations play the same 40 songs over and over again. So the drive home kinda sucks. I recently borrowed two standup comedy cd's of David Cross from a friend, and these are perfect for the drive home. Are there any sites that have something similar for free to download and put on my ipod? More specifically stand up routines. I don't want the stuff like Adam Sandler (too much music), but more like 1 hour long shows that got ported over to CD. Any suggestions?
posted by thebwit to Computers & Internet (18 answers total)

I like Dane Cook's comedy - try just looking up fav comedians - many of them have straight comedy on CD.
posted by agregoli at 8:28 AM on July 16, 2004

I would highly reccomend the one hour of goodness that is This American Life. Not strictly "comedy" but often very funny - but if not funny than almost always interesting. He streams all the old shows from his site http://www.thislife.org/
And if you like that - all of David Sedaris' audio books are read by him - and when those are funny - they are pee your pants funny.
posted by Wolfie at 8:37 AM on July 16, 2004

Mitch Herberg is good - "The depressing thing about tennis is that no matter how much I play, I'll never be as good as a wall. I played a wall once. They're fucking relentless."
posted by Aaorn at 8:38 AM on July 16, 2004

Oops, that's 'Hedberg'
posted by Aaorn at 8:39 AM on July 16, 2004

If you don't like the music on the radio where you live, you could use Streamripper (free for Shoutcasts) to record webcasts, then port them to yr ipod.

nb this kind of assumes a broadband connection
posted by mookieproof at 9:04 AM on July 16, 2004

I'll second This American Life. Also, Audible.com has a free weekly d/l of Harry Shearer's Le Show as well as other free (usually non-comedy, mostly c-span) content.
posted by m@ at 9:05 AM on July 16, 2004

Mookieproof's idea isn't bad, and it's free. I have a 15-20 minute commute in the morning and a 30+ minute commute in the evening in practically stopped traffic, plus I travel all day for business... (8.5 miles total, by the way ... and yeah, yeah, I know, all you who live in LA are going "What's he complaining about?", but that's a long time for Portland) and I ended up getting an XM Radio, which has a comedy channel (150) that's typically uproriously funny.
posted by SpecialK at 9:07 AM on July 16, 2004

Sirius satellite radio has 2 dedicated comedy channels, one raunchier than the other. (And lots of other music and talk channels, too.)
posted by Tubes at 9:08 AM on July 16, 2004

A third vote for This American life, which is available on Audible.com, from the iTunes Music Store, and as streaming audio (which you can capture and encode to MP3 using various utilities) from the official web site.
posted by Acetylene at 10:10 AM on July 16, 2004

Eddie Izzard is, for my money, one of the funniest people on the planet. One of his routines ("Circle") is on the iTunes Store and definitely worth a listen.
posted by papercake at 10:29 AM on July 16, 2004

Check out this thread for more recommendations.
posted by obloquy at 10:48 AM on July 16, 2004

You can check out audiobooks on cd from public libraies, i've gotten some real gems from there like the david sedaris box set.
posted by yeahyeahyeahwhoo at 12:11 PM on July 16, 2004

I like old radio plays. X Minus 1, and the sort.
posted by Jairus at 12:12 PM on July 16, 2004

Oh my God. Streamripper as a winamp plug in rocks!
posted by pissfactory at 12:14 PM on July 16, 2004

If you have a good usenet feed, alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.comedy has a wide assortment of standup coming through.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 2:33 PM on July 16, 2004

M@, I think I'm being a moron but I've always wanted to hear Le Show, and I went to audible.com and it says it's free but I can't figure out how to download it. Is it free just to people who already have an audible account? What am I missing here?
posted by CunningLinguist at 6:41 PM on July 16, 2004

My bad. You can hear Le Show on Shearer's site.
posted by CunningLinguist at 6:09 AM on July 17, 2004

Not funny at all, but there is a free MP3 hour every week at livingonearth.org. It is an environmental show. They have a great archive, so if you like it, there are hours and hours available to you.
posted by john m at 7:09 AM on July 17, 2004