9. Steve Martin
For those of a certain generation, Steve Martin is a comedy god. Back prior to his transition over to cinema he was the biggest stand-up comic in the world. He easily sold out entire arenas off the back of a particularly left field and wilfully weird form of anti stand-up. Then he went and made "The Jerk" and instantly became the biggest comedic actor in the world. Indeed, in the years that followed he dropped out classics like "Dead Men Wear Plaid" and "The Man With Two Brains". Films that, to this day, hold up as pretty god damn funny. However, to those of a younger persuasion he's perhaps best known for middle of the road, family friendly crap cannon splatters such as the "Cheaper by The Dozen" movies and a woefully ill-judged turn in the Pink Panther remakes a move which, once upon a time would have seemed perfectly natural considering his parallels to Peter Sellers. The thing is though, he's still an absurdly talented b**tard; his book "Born Standing Up" is possibly the greatest piece of literature about stand-up every written... and he's released some, honest to god, incredible albums of banjo music (seriously...that's not a typo). You go back and watch any of those olds films and compare them to where he's at now and, Jesus, it's just depressing. Martin has always been very frank and honest about his battles with depression, perhaps he just decided to let the beast swallow him up and churn out movies in which he plays an impossibly fertile man who gets into all sorts of hi-jinks. Dennis Pennis had it right when back in the late 90s he cornered Steve and cruelly asked "Didn't you used to be funny?" (Although he's really good in that episode of 30 Rock).
Nostalgia Level Eating a stick of deep fried butter to counter act the sadness you feel