re: Comedians and stealing material

Those three comedians are all extremely well-respected. I don't think it is joke stealing at all, but an example of a concept called parallel thought. For example, when they were trying to build the border fence, dozens of comedians all had the same thought/joke that they would hire Mexicans to build the fence. Or after something big happens on twitter, literally thousands of people will make the same exact joke separately from each other.

Mencia, on the other hand, went to open-mics in Los Angeles and sat in the back with a notepad with the sole intention of stealing material. Other comedians would refuse to do their act if he was in the room.