There are some strange unspoken rules to crowd participation when we go to shows. At concerts it’s common to hear folks sing along, call out suggestions or even call out the occasional emphatic “I LOVE YOU!” to a person on stage they’ve never met.

However, with comedy shows there is a strange social contract almost all of us agree to when the lights go down and a comedian takes the stage. It may just be conditioning from an early age to respect the person with the microphone whom we’ve elected (and paid) to talk, or maybe it’s something rooted deeply in our DNA that tells us to hush when the lights go down and someone confidently begins to speak. Oddly enough, be it from liquid courage, bachelor/bachelorette devil-may-care annoying confidence, or simply a need to be heard at the most inopportune time we occasionally have to witness the beast that is known as The Heckler.

There have been documentaries made and articles written that debate the pros and cons of hecklers but lets face it, they are mostly just plain awful. It takes an Olympic-level jackass to think they can, in some small way, hijack a comedy show that an entire room full of people paid to see. To me, hecklers are in the same league as a person who scoffs the entire time waiting in line in a coffee shop because the line is too long and then doesn’t even have their order in mind when it’s their turn. If you know anyone who would defend heckling as their “right” because they paid for a ticket, stop being friends with them. On the bright side of this terrible thing that somehow always happens, there are comedians who are willing to put these jerk-wads in their place.

In the video above, Digg.com compiled a super-cut of comedians taking care of hecklers in their own special way. The silver lining to hecklers, if there is one at all, are the moments where the comedian utterly destroys their attempt to participate in a show that is not their own. For whatever brief comment, out of place reaction or flat out attention grab a heckler may try, they run the risk of being publicly shamed almost immediately.

Some are a little more polite than others, but the wide array of comedians in the video (Richard Pryor, Jerry Seinfeld, Louis CK, Rodney Dangerfield, Hannibal Buress, TJ Miller, Bo Burnham, George Carlin, Nick Kroll, Todd Barry, Jim Breuer, Amy Schumer, Mitch Hedberg, Chris D’Elia, Doug Stanhope, Marc Maron, Bill Murray, Patton Oswalt, Lisa Lampanelli, Jeff Ross, Steve Harvey, Sam Kinison, Ari Shaffir, Dana Carvey, Jim Gaffigan, Daniel Tosh, and Eddie Murphy) all cut to the quick in their own special way when it comes to heckling and I, and their audiences, applaud them for that.

And of course I think we all grant full immunity to Statler and Waldorf, as they can do no wrong. Oh so many hecklers destroyed! I can’t by any means pick one favorite but what are yours? Let us know in the comments below.

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HT: LaughingSquid