For British Comedy, though, this thread lacks one key name that deserves to be mentioned.

Spike Milligan.

I've got almost every Goon Show available, and these still rank as some of the cleverest, most bizarre and ingenious bits of comedy ever. Things like how to climb a tower by parachute (put off the parachute, count to ten backward then push the string), the new Hot Dog missile (a preheated salami fitted with a warhead), driving a wall at speed, tying a man's hands and then cutting the knot off so he can't untie it, and even piloting the first Albert Memorial to the Moon. Descriptions like "little thrice-adolescent hybrid", "his skin was burnt a fiery red by the hot Algerian Brandy", "he was the nearest thing I'd seen to a human being without actually being one" and "champion barbed-wire hurdler until his tragic accident" (ooooh!). They knew how much to ad-lib, how to keep the audience laughing and could deliver comedy and drama at such an amazing pace it's sometimes hard to keep up even for experienced Goonologists.

My favourite, my ultimate laugh from the Goon Show is in "Foiled by President Fred" - a show about a British gas meter inspector who goes to South America to bill them for the gas they've used. The show revolves around President Fred fleeing the country with all his money. He's had Eccles pack it in a blue sack - or is it a red sack? But Eccles is colourblind, and quite thick. Everyone's looking the sacks, everyone settles things amicably (by shooting the other person), and finally Eccles and Bluebottle end up with both sacks, having by slow wits and mumbling achieved what everyone else with quick thought and action has failed to get. Then Bluebottle establishes that the red sack contains the forged banknotes then suggests that they split it 50/50 - Eccles takes the nice red sack, and Blubottle gets the rotten stinking old blue one:

Eccles: Fine, fine.
Bluebottle: Eheee! And you're quite sure the blue sack contains the real money, Eccles?
Eccles: Oh, yer!
Bluebottle: Well, goodbye, Eccles!
(FX) Door opens and shuts.
Eccles: (slowly) Goodbye, redbottle...

And the audience is swept away in a tidal wave of laughter as they realise that Eccles wasn't colourblind at all, nor as daft as he appeared.... Whatever the reason, it's pure genius.

So forget all that modern swearing stuff, and get down to some real idiocy!

Paul