Most useless joke at this year's Edinburgh fringe

5)

Actually, I just picked the best one, oops.

Most useless? 8

I'm sure 8) is a variation on a very old joke but I can't think what the original was.

obviously 4

http://robbeckettcomedy.com/

i mean just take one look at this utter cuntflap

putting tim vine in here is p dense, machinegunning useless jokes is his whole thing iirc

fucking hell comedians are utterly worthless creatures

NONE of these are REMOTELY FUNNY

yeah like can you imagine ever being that desperate for attention

Yep, 4 is the clear winner.

Seems strange to have a competition like this given that the vast majority of modern comedy runs on completely different lines.

9 is the worst in terms of just not working as a joke

4 is the worst in making me think about what an awful human the comedian pobably is

these are never funny. that said it's less an indictment of all comedians, for me (not that I'm much of a fan of the genre) and more just a bizarre media op. one-liners aren't particularly funny as a rule and they aren't even a big part of any decent stand-up.

eh 9 works fine, it's meant to be shit

8 too if it wasnt for the unnecessarily awkward "how ships are kept"

Tony Cowards ‏@TonyCowards
A bloke asked me if he could put a teabag in my mouth and fill me with boiling water, he must think I'm some kind of mug.

fucking winner

Take my wife, Posh and Becks.

i thought 10 was the best... of a bad bunch.

3) might work better if it had a bit more pathos in it like "my sister was devestated" rather than annoyed. that said, jokes are rubbish and rarely work, especially out of context.

What is the joke in #1? (I do know who Posh and Becks are.)

I thought #3 was the only one that was kinda funny even when read as text. Some of the others might work live, but #4 I could never ever imagine laughing to. (Maybe because I come from a working class family, and we had a big shelf full of books.)

(x-post)

I assumed their kids have funny names? Don't know if that's actually true, though.

Oh wait they named one of their kids Seven. Whatever.

I thought Seven was Andre 3000's kid?

Star Trek Voyager has a lot to answer for.

'harper seven'. the seven is, i am informed, after beckham's shirt no.

This whole Tim Vine school of terrible one-liners is very grating. Obviously number 4 is the pits. I'm not against stand-up but firing out a stream of terrible puns like so much Twitter fodder seems really redundant today.

want someone to find out if number four went to oxbridge

http://www.pleasanceahoy.com/media/uploads/profile/0/20120630092833_preview.jpg

seems unlikely

http://www.slashfilm.com/wp/wp-content/images/slimer.jpg

About half of these are passable Reader's Digest jokes. I laughed a little at number 5. I voted for #4 for useless class dickholery.

well i assume the appeal is the speaker's nominal working-classness tbh. can't decide if that makes it worse.

I think it would make it worse, although I don't have any clue what class the guy is supposed to be from. Encouraging the whole system that oppresses you and all. Plus, lots of middle and upper class people have moved to kindles and nooks anyway, so their bookshelves are smaller. It's like making a TV dinner joke in the 1990s.

I totally want to imagebomb a thread with that pic of him though. Really hope there's a clusterfuck today.

http://robbeckettcomedy.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Rob-Becketts-Big-Mouth1.png

Yeah, that drawing is a generous reimagining of what's really going on there.

http://sgfringe.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/robbeck.jpg

he looks like this other, female, comedian:

http://media.livenation.co.uk/fido/publishing/artiste/b/h/c/Holly%20Walsh.jpg

bit big.

these are p funny

don't troll

actually it's only 1, 2, 4 that bother me

also on what planet would groupmember making joke about group be less offensive than nonmember doing the same

planet england

2 is stupid. 4 is just a british jeff foxworthy joke. i grinned at 3, 7, 8, 10. none of the rest really bugged me

being a class traitor totes worse than just hating the poor anyway (nb i am pretty sure i don't actually believe this but who knows)

> It's not rocket salad.

this joke first heard in Love Soup series 2, what, 4 years ago? (imdb says 2008, so yes)

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51YQDFG1RBL._SL500_AA300_.jpg

There's no logic to that joke either cos surely rocket salad would be really quick to prepare?

http://archives.mikeerickson.net/xhtmlfall09/images/005.jpg

nope

neat how the first ten jokes of like any Rodney Dangerfield standup is worlds better than the best of British one-liners

#8 is like a grocerybag

I kind of like #3.

Read 3, 5, 7 and 10 in a Rodney Dangerfield voice and they're funny

This is an annual thing, and these jokes are always meant to be groaners - that's kind of the point!

I genuinely chuckled at a few of these (3, 5, 7)

4 is the end of the world but 9 is the worst joke; voted 4

4 is definitely the worst. Followed by 1.

I quite like the 'rocket salad' thing as a pun, but yeah, it falls at the hurdle of 'rocket salad is actually pretty easy to make'.

I think 8 is actually my favourite.

Don't mind 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 10 as Dad jokes. I don't have a high threshold for that sort of thing. 9 is the worst but 4 is v lame.

8 caused a groan rather than a chuckle

The first three aren't half bad; the rest are mostly bad puns or just really dumb

I don't mind 7, 8 and 9. The winner is weakened considerably by being grammatically incorrect IMO. 4 is barely a joke.

#1 relies on very poor grammatical skills to make any sense at all.

no it doesn't

4

also on what planet would groupmember making joke about group be less offensive than nonmember doing the same

― max, Tuesday, August 21, 2012 7:17 AM (8 hours ago) Bookmark

i keep looking at this post and trying to figure out if i'm reading it wrong or if max said the opposite of what he meant

yeah sorry should be "more offensive"

#1 relies on very poor grammatical skills to make any sense at all.

I'd call it a "minor fudge" rather than "very poor grammatical skills". I could see many people saying "gives" instead of "give" without thinking about it.

Riveting! is a good non-sequitur punchline.

do you know what is a non sequitur

RIVETING!

I could see many people saying "gives" instead of "give" without thinking about it.

In a "Posh and Becks" as a single tabloid entity, 'Brangelina' kind of way, sure.

8 is the best in a dad joke way

I thought 10 was weakest in a "most obvious" kind of way.

Instinctively hated 4 but then patronisingly gave it a pass in an "it might appeal to good simple folk" kind of way.

4 makes such little sense to me to begin with, I read it as "working class people have big TVs? Because they like the word plasma and watch uhhhh footie on it? idgi"

I think I understand why lex hates comedy -- he's in a country where comedy is either this dumb or it's cynical, and he doesn't do cynicism

if you look at the rap lyrics lex quotes in all-caps on ilm it's pretty clearly he likes jokes and just has terrible taste in them

"poor ppl wasting their money on unnecessarily big TVs" has been an established canard of weak UK humour for a long time now. not sure if it's a 'thing' in other countries

Yes, and politicians use it as evidence these people can't really be poor because they could sell their television and other appliances.

the comedian has a big bookcase

I thought 10 was weakest in a "most obvious" kind of way.

i liked 10, mainly because i can imagine it being part of something else.

3 is probably the worst imo, he's really had to stretch for that. who would say "i was raised as an only child"?

"poor ppl wasting their money on unnecessarily big TVs" has been an established canard of weak UK humour for a long time now. not sure if it's a 'thing' in other countries

Yep it is here too. Like when the govt gave everyone some kind of surplus bonus, it became referred to in tabloids as being spent on plasmaTVs.

"poor ppl wasting their money on unnecessarily big TVs" has been an established canard of weak UK humour for a long time now. not sure if it's a 'thing' in other countries

Not familiar with it fwiw.

xpost!

I'm at the EdFestFringe right now, and have been collecting my own list of the most rubbish jokes I've been subjected to. Comedians, eh? Can't afford their tickets, can't kill 'em.

1. "I'm not saying my cleaning lady is fat, but the other day, vacuuming the attic, she asked if her bum looked big in the lounge."

2. "A manger is trough cattle eat from in a shit-stinking barn, right? So who thought it was a good idea to call a sandwich shop for office workers Pret A Manger?"

3. "How many Swedes does it take to change a lightbulb? That counts as rape over there, mate."

4. "They say that if you can remember the 1960s you weren't there. So when I got falsely accused of murder, I described my crime to the court in detail. I got 20 years, but everything's cool now: if you can remember prison you weren't there."

5. "If dogs are so faithful, how come mine cheats on me every time it notices a guest has legs?"

6. "Politicians go too far when they pose as patriots. I really pity David Cameron's kids, Spotted Dick and Toad-in-the-Hole."

7. "There's a solution to Madonna. Hydrofluoric acid."

8. "When people on tube trains are picking their nose and eating it, I go over and offer them some of mine."

9. "Who thought it was a good idea to make TV chefs ultra-competitive when humans are made of meat?"

10. "I finally worked out what the deal is with 12 year-old communist girls and ponies. They go for Trots."

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

A worthy winner.

just gonna bump this thread because I don't really feel this year's jokes deserve another poll. here they are tho, go ham

‘I heard a rumour that Cadbury is bringing out an oriental chocolate bar. Could be a Chinese Wispa’ - Rob Aulton

‘The good thing about lending someone your time machine is that you basically get it back immediately.’ – Chris Coltrane

‘I was adopted at birth and have never met my mum. That makes it very difficult to enjoy any lapdance.’ – Bobby Mair

‘The universe implodes. No matter.’ – Liam Williams

‘You know you are fat when you hug a child and it gets lost.’ – Marcus Brigstocke

‘The Pope is a lot like Doctor Who. He never dies, just keeps being replaced by white men.’ – Phil Wang

‘I can give you the cause of anaphylactic shock in a nutshell.’ – Gary Delaney

‘My friend told me he was going to a fancy dress party as an Italian island. I said to him “Don't be Sicily”.’ – Tim Vine

‘I'm in a same-sex marriage... the sex is always the same.’ – Alfie Moore

‘I used to work in a shoe-recycling shop. It was sole-destroying.’ – Alex Horne

Guilty lol at the adoption joke

Pope/Dr. Who joke is pretty good. Shoe-recycling shop one is just groan inducing.

can't really get my head around the idea of Marcus Brigstocke doing 'yo momma' jokes

xpost would you say you were feeling Wang on this one

Because of the wang

‘My friend told me he was going to a fancy dress party as an Italian island. I said to him “Don't be Sicily”.’ – Tim Vine

jesus

(xps)
co-worker: Wang in the conference room.
ILXor: Yeah, I'd like to suck on some of that!
co-worker: o_O

<ILXor goes to conference room, sees it's comedian Phil Wang, not a penis>

ILXor: Noooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!

co-worker: Doctor Who and The Pope in the conference room.
snoball: Yeah, I'd like to suck on some of that!
co-worker: o_O

<snoball goes to conference room, sees it's Peter Capaldi and Josef Ratzinger and not Beyoncé and Lucy Liu>

snoball: Noooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!

can't really get my head around the idea of Marcus Brigstocke doing 'yo momma' jokes

Then again, that's him doing that "voice" on that old "Ah doant smoake da reefahhh!" track of years ago.

xp That doesn't make sense.

(...)

can't really get my head around the idea of Marcus Brigstocke doing 'yo momma' jokes

I think his routine has bits about he himself used to be fat, so I suppose it's that.

These seem more a dull bad than the usual pungently bad fare.

+how

My friend told me he was going to a fancy dress party as an Italian island a Cornish island. I said to him “Don't be Sicily Scilly".’ – Tim Vine

Fixed.

"sicilly" - "so silly"

wasn't broken imo

adoption gag made me lol irl

"Sicily" works better

I won't quit my day job, ty guys

yeah i dont think u ppl get jokes

Comedian Rob Auton has won an award for the funniest joke of the Edinburgh Fringe.

The 30-year-old, from York, was given the prize by digital TV channel Dave, whose panel put a selection of their favourites to a public vote.

He won for the joke: "I heard a rumour that Cadbury is bringing out an oriental chocolate bar. Could be a Chinese Wispa."

See, I know I didn't call it in time, but I did think this one won the award for "most obvious and therefore dullest joke" on the list.

it's just truly awful. a work colleague whom i actually like just sent it around and said she's mates with him and linked to his twitter. had to stop myself replying that this list is like a little christmas for the occasional cynic.

now i've phrased it that way i might actually reply though. tempting.

same sex one made me laugh

Mostly awful, though I can never stay mad at Tim Vine.

how does a 30 yr old person get commended for using the term 'oriental' outside of stand up comedy

Try Facebook.

co-worker: Doctor Who and The Pope in the conference room.
snoball: Yeah, I'd like to suck on some of that!
co-worker: o_O

<snoball goes to conference room, sees it's Peter Capaldi and Josef Ratzinger and not Beyoncé and Lucy Liu>

snoball: Noooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!

― No results found for "churl sweatshirt" (Nilmar Honorato da Silva), Monday, 19 August 2013 13:59 (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

tick.jpg

That Wispa one is so easily the worst of that lot. Actually a few of them are alright, if you imagine a good, apt delivery. And Tim Vine is Tim Vine, he kind of gets away with it.

co-worker: Oriental in the conference room.
snoball: Yeah, I'd like to suck on some of that!
co-worker: o_O

<snoball goes to conference room, sees it's a person of east Asian descent and not shrimp lo mein>

snoball: Noooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!

ilx: snoball, check your privilege.

Researchers compiled 180 popular online jokes and asked 6,000 adults to vote for the top 50 funniest.

Benny Hill, Bill Bailey and Tim Vine also feature, along with Michael McIntyre and Sarah Millican.

A spokesman for paid for survey site 2Brewarded.co.uk, which commissioned the study, said: 'Britain clearly has a great sense of humour. Many of the jokes in top 50 are from true, British comic legends.

'Gags from comedy geniuses such as Michael McIntyre, Peter Kay and Tommy Cooper are all ranked highly.

'All of the jokes that made the final list are all genuinely funny and good natured which proves crude gags don’t really cut it.'

The array of topics reflects the modern era as well with gags about Google Plus, Facebook and Twitter all making the list.

Funny tales about marriage, famous icons and religion also cropped up in the poll while gags about families, money and food also appear in the list of our favourites.

The most popular joke about marriage turned out to be: 'Why do men get married? So they don’t have to hold-in their stomachs anymore.'

The favourite celebrity-based jokes revolved around Taylor Swift and her much-publicised boy troubles.

A spokesman for 2Brewarded.co.uk added: 'It’s hard to read through these jokes without a smile on your face.'

The top 50 jokes that are sure to split your sides

1. I met a Dutch girl with inflatable shoes last week, phoned her up to arrange a date but unfortunately she’d popped her clogs - Peter Kay

2. Police arrested two kids yesterday, one was drinking battery acid, the other was eating fireworks. They charged one and let the other one off - Tommy Cooper

3. Apparently, one in five people in the world are Chinese. And there are five people in my family, so it must be one of them. It’s either my mum or my dad. Or my older brother, Colin. Or my younger brother, Ho-Chan-Chu. But I think it’s Colin - Tommy Cooper

4. I went to a restaurant that serves 'breakfast at any time'. So I ordered French Toast during the Renaissance - Peter Kay

5. 'Being an England supporter is like being the over-optimistic parents of the fat kid on sports day' - John Bishop

6. We are in the stickiest situation since sticky the stick insect got stuck on a sticky bun - Rowan Atkinson

7. I can hear music coming out of my printer. I think the paper’s jammin’ again - Unknown Origin

8. I believe in equality. Equality for everybody. No matter how stupid they are or how superior I am to them - Steve Martin

9. I have come up with a plan so cunning you could stick a tail on it and call it a weasel - Rowan Atkinson

10. You know, somebody actually complimented me on my driving today. They left a little note on the windscreen. It said: ‘Parking Fine.’ So that was nice - Tim Vine

11. 20 years ago we had Johnny Cash, Bob Hope and Steve Jobs. Now we have no Cash, no Hope and no Jobs. Please don’t let Kevin Bacon die - Bill Murray

12. Why do men get married? So they don’t have to hold-in their stomachs any more - Unknown Origin

13. Where there’s a will, there’s a relative - Ricky Gervais

14. Just because nobody complains doesn’t mean all parachutes are perfect - Benny Hill

15. Two aerials meet on a roof - fall in love - get married. The ceremony was rubbish, but the reception was brilliant - Tommy Cooper

16. I had a ploughman’s lunch the other day. He wasn’t very happy - Tommy Cooper

17. To the man on crutches, dressed in camouflage, who stole my wallet ... you can hide but you can’t run - Milton Jones

18. Taylor Swift waved at a boy yesterday and he didn’t wave back... So she will have a new album coming out tomorrow. - Will Ferrell

19. I hate when new parents ask who the baby looks like. It was born 15 minutes ago, it looks like a potato - Will Ferrell

20. Money doesn’t buy happiness? Well it does buy a jet ski. Have you ever seen a sad person on a jet ski? Yeah, I thought so - Unknown Origin

21. I’ve lived in Manchester since my 20’s and I’ve only been in three fights. Not a bad average - John Bishop

22. I found a Justin Bieber concert ticket nailed to a tree, so I took it. You never know when you might need a nail - Unknown Origin

23. My friend keeps telling me I’m in the closet. I just say it’s Narnia business - Will Ferrell

24. I know that to be a true fact because I read it in Heat magazine - Bill Bailey

25. Bob Geldof...no wonder he’s such an expert on famine, he has been dining out on I Don’t Like Mondays for thirty years - Russell Brand

26. What’s black and white, black and white, black and white? A penguin rolling down a hill - Unknown Origin

27. Are there any medium rappers? They’re always big or lil - Unknown Origin

28. I like to play chess with bald men in the park, although it’s hard to find 32 of them - Emo Phillips

29. I saw a fat person wearing a sweatshirt with ‘Guess’ on it. I said ‘Thyroid problem?' - Peter Kay

30. My wife and I both made a list of five people we could sleep with. She read hers out and there were no surprises...1 George Clooney...2 Brad Pitt etc...I thought ‘I’ve got the better deal here’...1 Your sister - Michael McIntyre

31. I’m a post-modern vegetarian: I eat meat - ironically - Bill Bailey

32. So I said to a Scotsman ‘did you have terrible spots as a kid?’ He said ‘ac ne’ - Unknown Origin

33. I went to buy some camouflage trousers the other day but I couldn’t find any - Tommy Cooper

34. Last night, me and my girlfriend watched three DVDs back to back. Luckily, I was the one facing the telly - Tim Vine

35. My mother told me, you don’t have to put anything in your mouth you don’t want to. Then she made me eat broccoli, which felt like double standards - Sarah Millican

36. I picked up a hitchhiker. You gotta when you hit them - Emo Phillips

37. I hate when I’m on the treadmill and my hand accidentally hits the stop button and I have to get off and eat a bacon grilled cheese sandwich - Unknown Origin

38. I went into a French restaurant and asked the waiter, ‘Have you got frog’s legs?’ He said, ‘Yes,’ so I said, ‘Well hop into the kitchen and get me a cheese sandwich' - Tommy Cooper

39. What do you call a sleepwalking nun? A roamin’ Catholic - Unknown Origin

40. I bought one of those anti-bullying wristbands when they first came out. I say ‘bought’ - I actually stole it off a short, fat ginger kid - Jack Whitehall

41. Vegetarians, if you love animals so much then why do you keep eating all their food? - Unknown Origin

42. How do you know when you’re too drunk to drive? When you swerve to miss a tree then realize it was your air freshener - Kevin Hart

43. If your body is 90 per cent water why have you got to drink water all the time? Why can’t you just have some crisps? - Russell Brand

44. You know who really gives kids a bad name? Posh and Becks - Stewart Francis

45. A market researcher said ‘can I ask you 10 questions’, I said ‘go on’, she said ‘question number one, have you ever had a blackout?’ I said ‘no’, she went...and finally, question number 10' - Lee Mack

46. You know, I have Google+, Facebook, Twitter, Skype accounts. Man: and do you have life? OMG, No! Could you send me a link? - Unknown Origin

47. Last week my mother-in-law fell into a wishing well, can’t believe it actually worked - Unknown Origin

48. Dyslexic man walks into a bra - Unknown Origin

49. The pollen count, now that’s a difficult job. Especially if you’ve got hay fever - Milton Jones

50. I was raised as an only child, which really annoyed my sister - Will Marsh

- Bill Murray

:\

I do like that a market research website managed to find space for a joke about market research in their top 50

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh

eeek! a lot of these are basically rubbish but that first blackadder line seems especially unfunny

The jokes credited to Bill Murray and Will Ferrell are not their jokes, as far as I can tell - they're culled from those bizarre 'tribute' Twitter feeds that recycle this type of heinous one-liner and rack up half a million followers by tricking people into thinking the feed is run by Zach Galifianakis or whoever. It's very odd. When I see a friend RT one of these gags I feel depressed.

xp practically all the comedy of it is in Rowan Atkinson's inflections, and even then it's fairly forgettable as Blackadder lines go

All of nothing is nothing

I couldnt get past the first 6 or 7 but the first john bishop one is just i mean thats not funny by any definition of funny ever.

if you rewrote it to include some casual chauvinism it would make a convincing Wenger quote

so happy that the "ten years ago we had..." format has been reinvented for a new era.

Blackadder lines are never meant to be read.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Blackadder-The-Whole-Damn-Dynasty/dp/0140280359/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1377898028&sr=8-1&keywords=blackadder+scripts

4 is funny, but it's Steven Wright

3. Apparently, one in five people in the world are Chinese. And there are five people in my family, so it must be one of them. It’s either my mum or my dad. Or my older brother, Colin. Or my younger brother, Ho-Chan-Chu. But I think it’s Colin - Tommy Cooper

This one is pretty brilliant!

Is Ho-Chan-Chu an actual name that an actual Chinese person might realistically have, or is it just something that sounds vaguely 'Chinese' to people wh don't know anything about Chinese names that he's made up?

dunno tbph but it should be disqualified on the grounds of having two punchlines

https://www.facebook.com/hochan.chu.5

https://www.facebook.com/hochan.chu.3

(looks like a stock photo for a profile pic)

Whenever there's a character with a 'foreign' name in a piece of fiction that I'm reading/watching I'm always distracted by trying to work out how likely it is that the writer has done some research to get the name right or if they've just half-assed it. Also, if a character with a 'foreign' name shares they're name with a famous politician/artist/actor or something, have they just given them that name because it's one of the three Russian (or whatever) names the writer knows, or is it actually a common name?

shares they're their name

I'm pretty sure that 90% of Asian Muslim characters are just "first name of one Pakistan test cricketer + surname of another Pakistan test cricketer".

Most of the time when I'm wondering about this it's when I'm reading superhero comics from the 1960s/70s, I generally come down on the side of 'half-assed' with these for the most part.

It should be spelled Ho Chanchu if it's a chinese name, right?

harry potters girlfriends name was cho chang

This is why i dont write

xpost Cho Chang is def half-assed, it's a combination of Korean and Chinese (Cantonese?) surnames. JK Rowling was generally pretty lazy and terrible at this - oh Bulgarian guy is called Viktor Krum and the French girl was named Fleur Delacour. I mean...

you don't understand, they're meant to be magically whimsical

Tegan Jovanka is a fictional character played by Janet Fielding in the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who.
According to producer John Nathan-Turner, when he was thinking of a name for the character, it was either going to be Tegan, after a friend's niece in Australia, or Jovanka, after Jovanka Broz, the widow of Yugoslavian President Josip Broz Tito, so he wrote both down on a piece of paper. Script editor Christopher H. Bidmead mistakenly believed that Jovanka was the character's last name rather than an alternative, and so christened her Tegan Jovanka.

1. “I've decided to sell my Hoover ... well, it was just collecting dust” - Tim Vine.

2. “I've written a joke about a fat badger, but I couldn't fit it into my set” - Masai Graham.

3. “Always leave them wanting more, my uncle used to say to me. Which is why he lost his job in disaster relief” - Mark Watson.

4. “I was given some Sudoku toilet paper. It didn't work. You could only fill it in with number 1s and number 2s” - Bec Hill.

5. “I wanted to do a show about feminism. But my husband wouldn't let me” - Ria Lina.

6. “Money can't buy you happiness? Well, check this out, I bought myself a Happy Meal” - Paul F Taylor.

7. “Scotland had oil, but it's running out thanks to all that deep frying” - Scott Capurro.

=8. “I forgot my inflatable Michael Gove, which is a shame 'cause halfway through he disappears up his own a***hole” - Kevin Day.

=8. “I've been married for 10 years, I haven't made a decision for seven” - Jason Cook.

10. “This show is about perception and perspective. But it depends how you look at it” - Felicity Ward

those are all pretty rough but christ: “Money can't buy you happiness? Well, check this out, I bought myself a Happy Meal” - Paul F Taylor.

that's not even a joke.

grocery lists are funnier, jesus christ

here's the worst jokes list, I honestly can't discern what distinguishes these from the 'best' ones:

1. “My mate sat on my pumpkin. He butternut squash it.” - Leo Kearse

2. “I had a friend call Iain. Two 'i's... to go with the face.” - John Kearns

3. “I'm lazy - my childhood ambition was to be an injured footballer.” - Mike Shephard

4. “This vodka is drunk by the rapper Sean Combs. P Diddy? Only when he drank a whole bottle.” - Ben McFarland and Tom Sandham

5. “I tried to Google endangered species. They were hard to find.” - Suns of Fred

6. “I'd like to start with the chimney jokes - I've got a stack of them. The first one is on the house.” - Tim Vine

"I had a friend call Iain. Two 'i's... to go with the face."

ok this is so terrible it actually made me giggle

I laughed at 3. ( not three of them, the third one. On the bad list)

On the 'best' list, yeah I guess the winner was the best of a very poor bunch.

One I saw recently..

"Dragons Den refused to fund my invention of a talking measuring jug. That speaks volumes."

.. Think that one was better.

the phrase 'fat badger' is just funny in and of itself, imo, I think joke #2 would be better if it just focused on the phrase 'fat badger' and the image of the fat badger not being able to fit into a sett, and got rid of the wordplay, which is just dragging the whole thing down.

http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k217/squidfish_2006/Blog%20photos/Badger--2011-8.jpg

it sounds kind of like a portmanteau of 'fat bastard' and 'fat fucker', I don't know if this is why it's funny

That one suffers from having 'my set', as opposed to 'the set'. But it's not obvious enough written down so needs to be 'delivered' properly.

ban comedians

We can only flag them

xp but 'my set' suggests him actually trying to physically force the badger into a sett entrance that it is too large to fit through, with just its abdomen and back paws showing, though.
'Mr Fatbadger' I like as a faux-Dickensian character name, but it already has 4 google hits

How is this one not on the best list?

6. “I'd like to start with the chimney jokes - I've got a stack of them. The first one is on the house.” - Tim Vine

These one-line twitter pun comedians that seem to be everywhere these days are the worst thing in the world

And I am not against awful puns obv! I've made jokes like those before I'm sure, but the idea of someone having to sit and come up with hundreds of them for a job is so depressing

idk, although not funny there's something perversely admirable about Tim Vine's dedication to his work. One Tim Vine seems plenty, though.

Like well fucking done you thought of a common phrase and worked backwards, now tell me a joke

Saw one of these fucks called Gary Delaney, he was MUCH worse than Vine

Gary Delaney
Film writer
Gary Delaney is an English writer and stand-up comedian. Delaney was born in Solihull. BBC Online described Delaney as "the man Jimmy Carr tries to be". He writes for Birmingham-based FM radio station Kerrang! -Wikipedia
Born: April 16, 1973 (age 41), Solihull
Spouse: Sarah Millican (m. 2013)
Movies: Trash House

As I'm sure I've said upthread somewhere, I don't find Tim Vine funny, but he does kind of get away with it because this is so much his schtick, it's not just bad jokes, it's bad jokes as a raison d'etre.

1. “My mate sat on my pumpkin. He butternut squash it.” - Leo Kearse

This is definitely the worst. The tenses don't even really work. In the past an activity took place, but you are punning on a future imperative? Like, it's actually easy to make it better just by resolving this conflict: "My mate asked if he could sit on my pumpkin. I said yes, but you'd butternut squash it".

see i assumed that was a joke about butts and nuts

anyway, stand-up is 96 percent bullshit and within that context Tim Vine seems quite likeable and easily as funny as most of his peers

Tim Vine kind of wears you down with sheer volume of bad jokes until you start laughing despite yourself (well I do, anyway), I think his jokes suffer from being taken out of context like this, which maybe seems counterintuitive?

Yeah, with Tim Vine its definitely a case of quantity over quality, but sometimes gorging on laboured puns is enough,.

Sometimes it is, not enough.

That post only works because of poor grammar.

the problem with lex' denunciation of comedy is, to adopt zizek, that is isn't violent enough

maybe it's short for gangban comedians

Saw one of these fucks called Gary Delaney, he was MUCH worse than Vine
― Hogan's Bluff (wins)

Gary Delaney is a GREAT joke writer - a real old-school craftsman. He's got a Steven Wright vibe to his best work. His interview on Stuart Goldsmith's podcast is fascinating for anyone interested in the mechanics of joke writing.

Huh when I saw him it was basically tim vine with added xkcd/ONLY INTELLECTUALS WILL GET THESE CRAP PUNS audience-flattering lameness

Like I'm coming across as a grump but I'm not much troubled by discernment irl I basically like everything but I'm struggling with the idea that there is any overlap between ~smart comedy~ and "the punch line is trigonomnomnometry"

Have to admit I've got a real soft spot for Tim Vine.

"My wife hadn't heard of 'mansplaining', so I told her what it was"

1-5 on the good list are all par or above

XP ysee if mansplaining is just being a man explaining something to a woman then that doesn't work, but obv on ilx it has a chance

Yeah, it's 'only' a ... actually, no it's a true story it happened yesterday.

It needs an insert along the lines of ' I told her slowly and carefully' to be a joke, but it's not.

the problem with lex' denunciation of comedy is, to adopt zizek, that is isn't violent enough

IT CAN BE VIOLENT

Nah, the mansplaining thing needs to be more like "My wife was telling me about 'mansplaining' yesterday, so I had to tell her what it was" (this is not funny but truer to the purpose of the neologism).

What my wife was telling me about was a situation where it seemed clear that it was a colleague had an issue, but was explaining it to her as if it was her problem or issue. When I had said what mansplaining was, she said "yes, that's exactly how it was".

Timing!

ya to both

it is a bad joke, anyway, I think were all agreed

my gf went to a lecture where she learnt about mansplaining, when she told me i said "oh yeah mansplaining let me tell you all about that". we both lolled, trufact.

Close. To the ledge.

Jamaica I hardly Antigua

the tim vine joke really sucks

sorry, no, his joke was great, but the subject matter really sucked

The problem with it is that the common phrase isn't "collecting dust", it's "gathering dust". I would never describe an unused object (my exercise bike, for example) as collecting dust.

I think people say 'collecting duct'.

'dust'

course they do. joke passed.

"collecting dust" About 842,000 results (0.40 seconds)

"gathering dust" About 623,000 results (0.34 seconds)

^^^ mansplaining fyi

"collecting duct" (464,000)

The Gary Delaney jokes I like take about a half second to land, e.g. "Why is it every time I go to the gym, Princess Diana dies?"

But yeah, his last show had a big chunk about memes and Wikipedia (like him having edited the "Alf" page to claim that it stood for. "Alien I'd like to fuck") - I could see that stuff being more annoying.

But he's a very funny dude I think

Wait - Tim Vine is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Vine 's brother?

Yes.

I bet Tim is grim and realistic at family dinners and Jeremy is vv funny.

saw someone say they were brothers y'day and thought they were joking

J Vine's trembling 'emotion' voice while speaking to people about grave issues on air is one of my least favourite sounds in the world

Jeremy vine is profoundly worthless

I'm willing to entertain the possibility that I've got this Delaney character all wrong, but after 20 mins I was like just gimme a genial idiot talking about how his dad is a bit weird or whatever

"My wife was telling me about 'mansplaining' yesterday, so I had to tell her what it was" (this is not funny but truer to the purpose of the neologism).

if this whole sentence was the joke then i would approve 100%

The mansplaining joke more or less reworks this Jimmy Carr bit:

"Someone came up to me after a show and said he thought I was paytronizing. I said well I think you'll find that's pronounced 'patronizing'." (Aside to front row): "It means when you talk down to someone."

http://i.imgur.com/NXeiY0b.jpg