Funniest joke at this year's Edinburgh fringe - 2023 edition

second one is pretty good. the rest not so much

Nuke the fucking country

Nuke the fucking country

2nd and 9th are the only ones here that don't clamour for immediate nuclear strikes

9

As per usual the first thing I think of when reading these is, "If these are the best..."

The competition did not run in 2020 or 2021 because of the Covid pandemic.

See, there were some upsides to COVID.

Seems like every year some decades old jokes get credited to these performers wtf

if I were in charge of the fringe I'd be pulling every favour I could to get this award permanently binned

"Gluten Tag" is so stupid and gratuitous it made me laugh, being so basic and so specific at the same time. First one is kinda like that too.
British apology is fine, just cliché.
I am not sure I understand 8. And I have no idea what this event is.

Putting your hands up when you surrender was a standing thing for years. Probably still is cos it indicates that one's hands are empty.
Or is clamping your hands to the back of your head more prevalent. So it's a silly pun om an old trope.

Edinburgh Festival is a major Arts Festival in the capital of Scotalnd which is well known as a place that has a load of comedy shows on as well as plays and other things. It has been 3 decades plus since I was last at it, possibly more was last around the town when it was on . Don't think I had much cash to attend a load of stuff while there.

Fringe festival is one that runs in proximity to and at the same time as a major Festival. It works on teh principle that a large festival jmeans that a lot more people are around and normally stands as a bit of an alternative to the main one.That normally means it tends to have a bit more of an alternative political slant too so more leftist/anarchist than the mainstream and tending to be more slanted to alternative lifestyle/romantic choices etc so more accepting of coloured, feminist and gay/trans people though hopefully that isn't quite as needed as it nce was

So means that while the mainstream festival can have expensive shows that sell out these performances would tend to be a bit cheaper and by lesser known artists who are trying to break through. I think a lot of comedians get discovered there which leads to ,later fame.
Not sure to what extent what I just said is still true about prices and availability of tickets though it once was a focus to some extent. But now fringe has followers itself so may be more competitive. It has been around for several decades.

My vote goes to the Depeche Mode one from the 'artist-specific music jokes' thread as it made me laugh and none of these did

Not sure about the political stance tbh, these days most of it is just desperate shitty comedians on the make afaict

(xp)

speaking of politics, trump's gold-dome flight-risk joke-sequence tweet is (by a very great distance) way better than any of these duds

"gluten tag" is a funny thing to start saying in everyday diet-adjacent conservation tho

God that is a sad lot of contenders. 1 & 9 we’re the only ones I even cracked a smile over and it was more because I could only imagine the delivery of those jokes saving them.

were these all written by Ken Dodd

judging solely from the posters you see everywhere in Edinburgh I sense a bit of a post-Covid political shift in the Fringe - fewer white men shrugging their shoulders and raising their eyebrows (presumably while they share their wry perspective on the madness of modern life), more insights into what it's like to be a ____ person in Britain. Though I did get handed a flyer for Matt Forde's show.

I haven't been to the Fringe for a while but I don't remember a lot of pun-based humour... has that changed?

I feel like Garry Shandling's intimacy one-liner (""My friends tell me I have an intimacy problem. But they don’t really know me") is the patient zero here

were these all written by Ken Dodd

They would have been funny in that case.

The state of comedy seems incredibly parlous atm. Was watching year-old Pointless episodes recently and some excuse for a human called Ed Gamble turned up as the cohost, just colossally dreary unfunny man, had to skip every episode he was in. I gather he's a rising star

'ah yes, what this successful quiz show needs is Budget Jack Whitehall'

Apparently the first joke is supposed to be "I went out with someone who works at the zoo..." which isn't funny, but at least makes some sort of sense.
Dave (who organise this stupid thing) seem to have managed to fuck it somehow.

lol, that's groanworthy but non-awful and they turned it into the worst joke ever, classic Dave

I voted for the podcast one not because it's particularly funny but because podcast men deserve to be shamed. (I like a lot of podcast men but it's still true #notallpodcastmen)

The only one I like is the inflation one. Or is that one ancient as well?

I feel like Andy Kindler’s annual “State of The Industry” speech is the antithesis of this annual poll.

All of my favorite comedians don’t really have a setup/punchline, and any good comedian will avoid puns, that kind of humor doesn’t lend itself to a poll like this so I assume these comedians are just awful bottom of the bill dwellers.

hands down and nationwide fine

1 and 4 not even shit just not even puns

rest shit puns

amazing the Titantic crash was 110 years ago and people are still making fun of it. now that's a historical fuck up

famine was 180 years ago odd and im still fenian over it

The crucifixion was 1990 years ago and it's still nailed-on laffs!

big bang was right at the start of tome and its still rollickingly bawdy

famine was 180 years ago odd and im still fenian over it

They're still singing about at Ibrox Park, when they can get away with it.

I started dating a zookeeper. You’ve seen them, the zookeepers they have now. They keep the… they work in the zoos don’t they. The zookeepers. You’ve seen em about pic.twitter.com/G5JXYo5XH0

— Matthew Fellows (@fattmellows) August 22, 2023

lol

Gluten tag joke is like the swedish Fred Flintstone joke

First one should have been,"I started dating a guy I met at the zoo..."

some of the best material i've heard yet from neil hamburger tbh

lol

also, no to all of these

OK I guess 2 is defensible

4

Apparently, the fringe is now late middle age.

OK I guess 2 is defensible

Not as a joke though.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1804999/Edinburgh-Fringe-funniest-joke-slammed-pathetic

But it seems like some people didn't think the joke was funny at all, whilst some branded it "pathetic" and the event "woke infected".

Users took to Twitter to express their discontentment with this year's winner.

Boxing legend Frank Brune tweeted: "Morning so Edinburgh fringe joke of the year from Lorna Rose Treen's - 'I started dating a zookeeper, but it turned out he was a cheetah.'

"What do you think? Will it upset anybody? For me it was a ohhhhhhhh not a belly laugh I love humour & everyday people make me laugh. I think its good to laugh.

"My problem if I am photographed without a smile or a grin people think I'm moody! Can't win!"

One Twitter user replied to Bruno's tweet with: "Pathetic. Kids tell these jokes all the time. Where's the adult in the room?", while another one added: "That so-called joke sums up how pathetic the Edinburgh festival has become tbh."

Another user said: "I didn't think it was funny tbh it would be called a dad joke," while another one claimed: "Need a binman to go and collect that attempt at a joke."

But some people absolutely loved the joke, with one person saying: "I hadn't actually heard this one before, I thought it was great."

Meanwhile another urged people to "lighten up", because it was "only a bit of fun".

why is the express trawling Frank Bruno's twitter replies for reactions to this joke, and not, say, ilx? Do you think they intentionally misspelled his name as 'Frank Brune' to get people to link to the article and point out the misspelling, or do they just not have subeditors any more?

Get this guy in The Edinburgh festival.

We lost 35,000 people to the mosquito pic.twitter.com/M6fxLxl06P

— Marie Bardi (@mariebardi) August 24, 2023

That's one hungry mosquito

Loco

I went to the Disney doctor I wanted to know what to do about my frozen shoulder.

How did I miss this, I look so forward to this poll every year

I'll probably go with 9 even though that's the quality of 'joke' I think up in the shower and have the good sense to never share with anyone. Agreed 2 & 9 are the only ones with discernible humor that transcends something that a four-year-old would whip up to amuse his friends. I saw a video (I think it may be 'trending') of an actual four(or so)-year-old laughing hysterically over having named his pet moth Motthew. Which is funnier than any of this lot.

I haven't been to the Fringe for a while but I don't remember a lot of pun-based humour... has that changed?

I mean, it's the biggest comedy festival on the planet, there's going to be a lot of different sorts here?

I think this is basically a local business directory - I've seen posters claiming that the show contains one of the 10 best jokes of the fringe, one of the 20, of the 50, of the 70...

lol @ Stewkeeper Lee

I saw a video (I think it may be 'trending') of an actual four(or so)-year-old laughing hysterically over having named his pet moth Motthew.

This is genuinely great and this four year old has a bright future.

This is worse than the New Yorker magazine caption winners

None of these are funny, if that requires provoking the slightest inclination to laughter. But the 'surrender' one is at least rather witty.

Why not ten wonders of the world?

He said I should "...Let it go... Let it go ...."

#timing

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

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

"One such building society was the Co-operative Permanent Building Society, which first opened its doors in London in 1884. Over many years, the Co-operative Permanent grew and merged with around 250 other building societies. In 1970, it changed its name to Nationwide."

Funniest heckle at this year's Edinburgh fringe