Media critic Virginia Heffernan wrote a column recently about rants in the New York Times, but she completely omitted the comedy rant as a category.

A funny rant is a great comedy technique. It was pioneered (I think) by Lenny Bruce and subsequently practiced by other (usually) angry (often) young (almost always) men including Sam Kinison, Bill Hicks (who actually had an album called Rant in E Minor), Chris Rock, Dennis Miller, George Carlin and Lewis Black. Roseanne did some ranting, but it's a harder form for women to pull off because, let's face it, our culture by and large still likes its women nice and easy, not rough.

The Un-Cabaret has featured some impressive comedy rants by brilliant boys like Patton Oswalt, Bob Odenkirk, Taylor Negron and others. (You can hear some great rants on the Un-Cabaret CDs.) It has also provided a forum for some great female ranters like Margaret Cho and Kathy Griffin. Here are two for your listening pleasure:

The Winner of the Other Network Comedy Contest for 2009 is...

Richard Lucas
("Jim Hill's Double-Breasted Suit" Standup Performance)*

We are awarding honorable mentions to...
Mark Staufenberg ("Black Hitler" 30 Rock Spec)
Howie Kaplan ("Prince Barry" original pilot)
Abby Cohen ("Bad Habits" pilot for "Dr. & Mr." original pilot)
Austin Hice ("Sweet Dee Blows a Dog" It's Always Sunny... spec)
Matt Moskovciak & Ben Stadler ("Hope You Have a Dump Truck" video sketches)

We wish we had time to give individual notes because some of the submitted material was not bad. There were some good premises, but for a tv script to make any impact on us, a showrunner, agent or producer, especially in the chaotic state of the industry/economy/galaxy right now, the execution also has to be really really strong.