It’s the comedian’s job to make fun of the world and its inherent problems, as well as their own issues. Because so many comedians pinpoint the source of their own neuroses onstage to find favor with an audience that can relate, it’s only natural that many make fun of their own mothers — not just telling jokes about the women who gave them life, but imitating them. Whether the comedian is observational or self-deprecating, filthy or family-friendly, impersonating their mother is often a recurring bit used to exorcise some complicated feelings. It makes the act feel more visceral, realistic, and relatable since lots of people have mothers who frustrate us, messed us up, and/or love us very much. Yes, we should all call them more often, but first, watch these greatest hits of comedians who memorably, effectively, and lovingly savaged their mothers.
Maria Bamford
Bamford is a gifted mimic, but standing above her nuanced and withering impressions of associates and strangers is her fully immersive portrayal of her mother. This 1999 appearance on Late Night With Conan O’Brien instantly conveys how her mother could be intimidating, fear-inducing, and wildly inappropriate as Bamford recalls learning about the horrific dangers of a childhood slumber party.
Louie Anderson
Anderson admitted that his Baskets character, the emotionally complex Christine Baskets, was based largely on his own defiantly optimistic mother. That role was born out of Anderson’s frequent imitations of his mother in his stand-up act, shown off in this compilation of talk-show appearances from the ’80s and ’90s.
Margaret Cho
By adopting her Korean mother’s perspective in her 2002 special Notorious C.H.O., Cho could describe in terrific detail the San Francisco of the ’80s and ’90s and its thriving LGBTQ community. Cho doesn’t so much imitate her mother as she does channel her, presenting her as an inquisitive but brash observer who has a lot of questions about a culture she wanted to understand better.
Lil Rel Howery
In a 2010 set on 1st Amendment Stand Up, Howery discussed two of his mother’s most defining characteristics: her constant smoking and a chillingly raspy timbre, or, as the comic calls it, a “mama with a daddy voice.” Howery takes his voice down a few octaves to pretend to be his mother when she’s on her last nerve thanks to her selfish children.
Alyssa Limperis
Limperis built a following from her many internet videos where she plays her mother, like in the above clip from 2018. To get into character, she simply puts on a bad wig, turns up the Rhode Island accent, and then unleashes a stream-of-consciousness-style list of complaints and quickly passes judgments about whatever she sees.
Fortune Feimster
In this joke from Feimster’s 2020 special Sweet & Salty, the comedian presents her mother as a classy, respectable southern woman who would never, ever step foot in Hooters, a sexually charged den of iniquity and excellent chicken wings. How dare you even suggest she’s been there hundreds of times!
Mike Myers
Myers isn’t a stand-up, but what are talk-show anecdotes but sit-down comedy? In this 2014 appearance on The Tonight Show, he discusses an accomplishment very important to him that left his buttoned-up, withholding, crisply British-accented mother aggressively unimpressed.
Yvonne Orji
It’s tough to justify, or even describe, artistic passions to a traditional parent. Orji wants her mother to not only understand her passion for comedy but to appreciate it, too. During a 2022 appearance on The Late Late Show With James Corden, Orji endearingly imitated her mother’s ridiculously overdone attempt to celebrate her daughter’s success, even when she clearly didn’t grasp the gravity of being picked to tour with Chris Rock.
Jay Leno
Leno can’t not do stand-up, even when he’s talking about his deceased mother as a guest on The Meredith Vieira Show in 2015. His mom, so conservative and obsessively worried about what other people might think or say, felt shame and guilt over the car he bought her and made sure his ego didn’t get inflated when he took over The Tonight Show.
Jimmy O. Yang
Some moms love to brag about finding bargains almost as much as the bargains themselves. Yang’s mother is that way, and he named his whole 2023 special Guess How Much? after what he calls his mother’s catchphrase and favorite game, which he thoroughly demonstrates.
Rachel Feinstein
Feinstein’s mother, a frequently recurring character in the act and focus of this 2018 Conan set, defies and embodies mom stereotypes. There doesn’t seem to be much embellishment on Feinstein’s part, just amused observation as she relates short vignettes about her aggressively woke mother befriending immigrant cab drivers and wishing for LGBTQ children, all in an obnoxious bray and from beneath a well-described Karen haircut.
Laura Kightlinger
Kightlinger didn’t alter her voice when portraying her mother, but she changed her whole being and vibe to suck the air out the room and slightly exhaust the audience. It’s precisely how the comic must have felt when dealing with her mother’s continuous litany of complaints and observations about mundane topics and minor inconveniences, demonstrated in this 2000 Later performance.
Gina Yashere
As Yashere tells it in 2018’s Live at the Apollo, her mother, a Nigerian immigrant to the U.K., was as dispassionate and inscrutable as she was ambitious and hopeful that her children would pick noble careers. Yashere relates the story of instantly riling up her mother when she had to tell her she quit her engineering job to be a comic.
Jo Koy
Does it seem like older moms are always sad? They do have a lot to be sad about. But as Koy points out in one of his many imitations of his mother, it can take over as a primary personality trait and become so unrelenting that it overwhelms even the unequivocally happy moments.
Gary Gulman
According to this bit from his 2019 album Gary Gulman Live!, Gulman lived at home until he was 26, and as much as two years later, his mother was still calling him every other day in a panic to ensure that he was eating — because otherwise, he’d somehow forget.
