Legacy
Hicks' albums Arizona Bay and Rant in E-Minor were released posthumously in 1997 on the Voices imprint of the Rykodisc label. Dangerous and Relentless were re-released simultaneously.
At the time of his death, Hicks was working with comedian Fallon Woodland on a pilot episode of a new talk show, titled Counts of the Netherworld for Channel 4. The budget and concept had been approved, and a pilot was filmed. The Counts of the Netherworld pilot was shown at the various Tenth-Anniversary Tribute Night events around the world on February 26, 2004.
In a 2005 poll to find the Comedian's Comedian, comedians and comedy insiders voted Hicks 13th on their list of "The Top 20 Greatest Comedy Acts Ever". In "Comedy Central Presents: 100 Greatest Stand-ups of All Time" (2004), Hicks was ranked 19th. In March 2007, he was voted sixth on Britain's Channel 4 list of the 100 Greatest Stand-Up Comics, and rose to number four on the 2010 list.
Devotees have incorporated Hicks's words, image, and attitude into their own creations. By means of audio sampling, fragments of his rants, diatribes, social criticisms, and philosophies have found their way into many musical works, such as the live version of Super Furry Animals' "The Man Don't Give a Fuck" and Adam Freeland's "We Want Your Soul". His influence on the band Tool is well documented, and he is sampled at the beginning of their song "Third Eye" on Ænima (1996); he "appears" on the Fila Brazillia album Maim That Tune (1995) and on SPA's eponymously titled album SPA (1997), which are both dedicated to Hicks; and the British band Radiohead's second album The Bends (1995) is also dedicated to his memory. Hicks' joke "It's always funny until someone gets hurt; then it's just hilarious" is used as the chorus of Faith No More's song "Ricochet", from their 1995 album King for a Day... Fool for a Lifetime. American indie rock band Built to Spill's song "Planting Seeds" on its 2009 album There Is No Enemy alludes to Hicks's routine on advertising and marketing, which appears on the performance film Bill Hicks: Revelations. Singer/songwriter Tom Waits listed Rant in E-Minor as one of his 20 most cherished albums of all time.
Comedians who have cited Hicks as an inspiration include Joe Rogan, Dave Attell, Lewis Black, Patton Oswalt, David Cross, Russell Brand, Ron White, Frankie Boyle, Jimmy Dore, Lee Camp and Brendon Burns. The political cartoonist "Mr. Fish" described in 2022 how he learned from Hicks.
British actor Chas Early portrayed Hicks in the one-man stage show Bill Hicks: Slight Return, which premiered in 2004. The show was co-written by Early and Richard Hurst, and imagined Hicks's view of the world 10 years after his death.
Hicks is mentioned in the 1999 British film Human Traffic. In the movie, the young and hip club-going protagonist, "Jip", praises Hicks as an alternative thinker, and explains that he needs to get a regular infusion of Hicks's insights. Before leaving his house to start on the movie's main adventure, Jip states: "... first a daily injection of the late prophet Bill Hicks ... just to remind me not to take life too seriously." He then watches a clip of one of Hicks's rants about drugs, and how they had never affected him badly.
On February 25, 2004, British MP Stephen Pound tabled an early day motion titled "Anniversary of the Death of Bill Hicks" (EDM 678 of the 2003–04 session), the text of which reads:
That this House notes with sadness the 10th anniversary of the death of Bill Hicks, on 26th February 1994, at the age of 33 [sic]; recalls his assertion that his words would be a bullet in the heart of consumerism, capitalism and the American Dream; and mourns the passing of one of the few people who may be mentioned as being worth of inclusion with Lenny Bruce in any list of unflinching and painfully honest political philosophers.
Hicks appeared in a flashback scene in writer Garth Ennis's Vertigo comic-book series Preacher, in the story "Underworld" in issue No. 31 (Nov. 1997). Bill Hicks also appears in two chapters of Gigging, a 2026 novel by Manchester-based author and DJ Mick Beatle, in which the main character meets Hicks following his 1992 performance at the Dominion Theatre in London.
Jimmy Carr, in his 2007 book The Naked Jape (co-written with Lucy Greeves), wrote that Hicks "was one of the most celebrated recent exponents of loud, impassioned political stand-up. When Hicks got it right, when he resisted the cheap shock tactics and hit his evangelical peak, it was awesome... But the truth is that even Hicks missed his mark a lot of the time, resulting in an act that was neither funny nor moving." Stewart Lee said Hicks's "first two albums have dated badly, with their adolescent potshots at inoffensive figures from popular culture, and self-conscious rock'n'roll cool."
Dara Ó Briain has criticised what he calls "the hagiography that surrounds Bill Hicks", saying in 2009 that "Hicks has become the poster boy for a rock-journalism view of comedy, one that thinks that the only decent comedy is a very angry kind. Which is absolute nonsense and has become a complete cliche in the industry."
