The current king of comedy is Larry the Cable Guy, and if you don't live in a red state, you've probably never heard of him. Proving that the comedy album is not dead Larry the Cable Guy has released his second CD, The Right to Bear Arms. Larry's biggest exposure came when Jeff Foxworthy -- famous for his "you might be a redneck" jokes -- put together a group of Southern comedians to do a show modeled on the popular African-American Kings of Comedy tour. Larry's good-ol'-boy, exaggerated Southern drawl is one of the hallmarks of the wildly successful Blue Collar comedy tour, film and TV series. His redneck brand of comedy has an enormous fan base in this country, and his second CD debuted at the top of the Billboard charts. The Right to Bear Arms became the highest-charting comedy disc in almost 20 years.

Readers of The Lycos 50 daily column are familiar with Larry because we called him out as 'one to watch' back in December 2004. At that time, searches for Larry the Cable Guy were as big as another "Blue Collar" comedian, Jeff Foxworthy. Since then, Larry has had the top-grossing comedy tour, beating both Chris Rock and Foxworthy. And online, Larry's searches are now three times more popular than Foxworthy.

Jeff Foxworthy should be credited with turning the comedy album business around. Ingeniously, Foxworthy persuaded stores selling his CD to file the album under country not comedy. He justified this strategy by including on the album a song called the Redneck Stomp, which basically has a bunch of his one-liners over a country beat. (This approach was wildly successful for one of Foxworthy's predecessors: Steve Martin. Martin's album Wild and Crazy Guy included King Tut, a hilarious funk rock number. Sales of Martin's album went through the roof after he dressed up as Tut and danced around a Saturday Night Live stage.) Jeff Foxworthy's Redneck Stomp was so popular that he enlisted Weird Al Yankovic to direct the video which was all over the Nashville Network. And this my friend brings us to Weird Al.

Weird Al is the most popular comedian being searched online. Thanks to an ardent group of fans, there is a campaign underfoot to get the satirist inducted into the Rock 'N' Roll Hall of Fame. The Make the Rock Hall Weird campaign is urging fans to put the guy behind the Michael Jackson Beat It parody "Eat it" alongside music legends Elvis Presley, Aretha Franklin and U2. Unfortunately the campaign seems to be falling on deaf ears...but fans of Weird Al will never be silenced, or so they tell us.

Here are the top 15 most popular comedians being searched on Lycos for the week ending April 30, 2005:

1. Weird Al Yankovic
2. Larry the Cable Guy
3. Adam Sandler
4. Smothers Brothers
5. Mitch Hedberg

6. Jeff Foxworthy
7. Ron White
8. George Carlin
9. Bill Cosby
10. Lewis Black

11. Dane Cook
12. Blue Collar Comedy Tour
13. Rodney Carrington
14. Cledus T. Judd
15. Chris Rock

Additional reporting by Cris Sigovitch.