h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

When and how was the "why did the chicken cross the road?" joke *ever* funny? I've never heard anyone laugh at it, and I really don't get it.

Well I reckon it's an anti-joke. The audience is led to expect an amusing punchline, which isn't forthcoming. Some would find this exercise in disappointment amusing.

My favourite variation is

Q. Why did the twitcher cross the road?
A. To get to the other's hide.

Well at least that's a joke. You could be right about the anti-joke. Though I've heard jokes that are so not-funny that they're actually funny, if you know what I mean. Maybe the daft chicken's passed into oblivion or something - we're just too used to it.

When I was really young (around ages six to ten) there used to be one standard cartoon that repeated in all the comics from the Beano and the Dandy onwards. It was a single frame gag that went like this: a man and wife arrive home. For whatever reason they open a wardrobe door. Inside is a man in a smart suit holding a briefcase who lifts his hat and says "Good afternoon - I'm your bank manager"

That has always been a "Huh?" moment. Why should the bank manager be in the wardrobe? Why should this gag have been considered funny, in 1968 or now? What was the point of the joke? I'm still baffled, nearly forty years on.

I think a lot of what is called comedy today is just stupid...not really funny.

We laugh because it is STUPID!

I like comedy that you can relate to. Real life is funny.

The best belly laughs I get from real life!

AgProv

Yeah, I don't get those either. The "suited man in the closet" type of "comedy" just doesn't make me laugh. I guess it's supposed to be funny because it's unexpected.... but I think it's BORRRRING....

Mee too. Why's the bloke in the wardrobe?

There's unexpected, but it's still not even a little bit funny. Real life stuff like Billy Connelly is hilarious, or unexpected stuff that makes sense. Like: a man walked into a bar. "Ouch!" It was an iron bar. (silly, and the only one I could think of, but you get whaat I mean?)

you're right, it doesn't sound funny - but then again monty python's stuff makes me laugh because it's so random and absurd - like the one where a steward is selling an albatross in the theatre interval instead of choc ices.

A lot of comedy has to do with whoever is telling the joke. If you have comic timing, you can make almost anything amusing. Although I do think some comedy is certainly lost in the mists of time, other comedy is just as funny now as it was hundreds of years ago. Bawdy humour for example never seems to date. You can even find fart jokes in Shakespeare (sadly can't remember any examples) but I do know 'Much Ado about Nothing' suddnenly becomes very rude when you know what 'nothing' is Elizabethan slang for!

I have a terrible memory for jokes, but I do remember one which I read years ago in my mum's newspaper when I was little. I'm sure the newspaper was called something like the 'European' - I do know it was one of the first newspapers to print in colour. Anyway, the joke goes like this:

Q: What do you get if you cross an insomniac, an agnostic and a dyslexic?

A: Someone who stays up all night wondering if there is a dog.

Boom boom!

Heard that one before, and it's a good one.

Always liked one-liners and some of those real-life blooper things. Like these funny church bulletins and announcements:

Please place your donation in the envelope along with the deceased person you want remembered.

Bertha Belch, a missionary from Africa, will be speaking tonight at Calvary Methodist. Come hear Bertha Belch all the way from Africa.

The Fasting & Prayer Conference includes meals. The sermon this morning: “Jesus Walks on the Water.” The sermon tonight: “Searching for Jesus.”

Ladies, don’t forget the rummage sale. It’s a chance to get rid of those things not worth keeping around the house. Don’t forget your husbands.

The peacemaking meeting scheduled for today has been canceled due to a conflict.

Remember in prayer the many who are sick of our community. Smile at someone who is hard to love. Say “Hell” to someone who doesn’t care much about you.

Don’t let worry kill you off - let the Church help.

Miss Charlene Mason sang, “I will not pass this way again,” giving obvious pleasure to the congregation.

For those of you who have children and don’t know it, we have a nursery downstairs.

Next Thursday there will be tryouts for the choir. They need all the help they can get.

Barbara remains in the hospital and needs blood donors for more transfusions. She is also having trouble sleeping and requests tapes of Pastor Jack’s sermons.

The Rector will preach his farewell message after which the choir will sing: “Break Forth Into Joy.”

Irving Benson and Jessie Carter were married on October 24 in the church. So ends a friendship that began in their school days.

A bean supper will be held on Tuesday evening in the church hall. Music will follow.

That is one of the funniest things I've heard for a while.

One of my favourites was from the magazine Punch.

Again a single frame cartoon, a street with a man in a suit walking past a down and out alien who has a sign propped against hime which reads 'Hey buddy can you spare a quebzog?'

L.

Funny!

It's probably just because I'm easily amused, but my favorite anti-joke is :
Two penguins are sitting on a ice floe. One turns to the other and says, "Radar!!"

Ha ha ha, er.... People who know me well enough to expect this sort of thing from me seem to think it's funny, but I do know a lot of strange people, so I rather doubt a lot of significance can be attached to that.

Hymn at the funereal of Idris Williams the shepherd: Sheep May Safely Graze.

you've gone mad!!! And I thought the chicken joke was bad.