Adam Friedland, Kyle Gordon, Wally Baram, Usama Siddiquee and more honorees will perform at a New York Comedy Festival showcase on Nov. 12. Since the turn of the century, Variety has scoped out the next generation of comedy stars through our annual 10 Comics to Watch franchise. The inaugural lineup in 2000 included future industry favorites Zach Galifianakis, Maria Bamford, Patton Oswalt and Louis C.K.
And 15 years later, this magazine identified Nate Bargatze and Nikki Glaser as burgeoning comedy titans — now, they are two of the top-selling stand-ups in the world. Over the years, Wanda Sykes, Fred Armisen, Dane Cook and Michael Che have been named Comics to Watch, as well as more recent breakouts Ayo Edebiri, Hannah Einbinder, Caleb Hearon and Julio Torres. The comedy industry is bigger than ever in 2026, and this year’s list represents the bold breadth of those currently making us laugh, from slacker-provocateur talk show host Adam Friedland to the musical satirist Kyle Gordon, who has been dubbed the “Millennial ‘Weird Al.’” Some stand-ups are straddling the stage and the small screen, like “Overcompensating” star Wally Baram, while others like Lucas Zelnick have built huge online followings off viral crowd-work clips.
Read on to see the full lineup of Variety’s 10 Comics to Watch for 2026, plus the more veteran comics endorsing them, from Glaser and Hasan Minhaj to Tim Robinson. You can also see the comedians perform live at a New York Comedy Festival showcase on Nov. 12, taking place at the Hard Rock Hotel in Times Square. More information, including how to buy tickets, can be found on the New York Comedy Festival website.
Wallifer Aniston, as I call her on set of “Overcompensating” at 3 a.m. on a soundstage in Toronto! I met Wally for the first time on Zoom when I was interviewing writers for “Overcompensating.” I am not being dramatic when I say it felt like fate. She entered the Zoom and I thought, “That’s Carmen.” She was exactly what I wanted for the role.
But what I didn’t know was that she would be more funny, brilliant, creative, and sparkly than anything I could have dreamed of. She was vulnerable and deeply honest for the entire hour we chatted. I wanted to tell her my life story (which we would eventually act out on the aforementioned soundstage in Toronto) and felt like I knew her forever.
EVERYONE who encounters her feels this way. At the end of the Zoom, I noticed that something moved in the background. I said, “Oh, do you have a dog?” to which she replied, with no ceremony, “No, that’s my pet boa constrictor named Jersey Mike.” I was in love.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
