For the past two years, comedian Zach Broussard has put together a joke end-of-the-year ranked list called the “Top 1000 Comedians.†The first one back in 2014 was a pretty straightforward list on Tumblr, then last year Broussard took things to the next level when he presented the list through a sadistically formatted website that forced comedians to click their way through 1000 individual pages for each name on the list. The 2016 list just went up, and this time around, Broussard’s added an extra twist: instead of releasing the list online, he rented ten billboards around Los Angeles for the month of December, and it’s up to comedians to find each one and piece the list together. Here’s some more info from Broussard:
The Top 1000 Comedians of 2016 will be presented as a series of billboards throughout Los Angeles. If people want to see who made the list, all they have to do is drive around and find the billboards. All the billboards should be posted by Monday morning. Each billboard will have 100 names. People take these end of year lists so seriously, so I’m just hoping they’ll take my list seriously enough to get into their cars and drive around Los Angeles for it. And if you’re a comedian who’s not in LA, you should take it as a subtle hint that you probably need to move.
Broussard created the billboards with Portland-based art director Sarah Williams, and part of the payment for the billboards came from all the profits from his fake comedy festival the SoCal Comedy Fest over the summer. And will Rich Vos finally crack the Top 1000 this time around? “I’m not sure if Rich Vos had enough #buzz to make the list this year,†Broussard says, “but he should drive around and find out.â€
Head over to top1000comedians.com to see where all the billboards are located. Happy hunting, LA comics!