70 Fun Facts About Joke

The oldest known joke, toilet humour from about 1900 BC, comes from which civilisation?

The Sumerian proverb, from about 1900 BC, describes a young wife who has never farted in her husband's lap; a 2008 University of Wolverhampton study named it the oldest known joke.

In which city is the Westcar Papyrus, containing one of the oldest recorded jokes, on display?

The Westcar Papyrus is held by the Egyptian Museum in Berlin; its five tales of magic at Khufu's court include Sneferu being rowed across a lake by women in net dresses.

What does the title of the Philogelos, the oldest surviving joke book, mean in Greek?

Philogelos means "Laughter-Lover" in Greek; the collection was compiled around the fourth or fifth century AD and is attributed to Hierocles and Philagrius.

A joke in the ancient Philogelos about a newly bought slave dying is called an ancestor of which Monty Python sketch?

The Philogelos seller protests that the slave 'never did that' while he owned him, echoing the Dead Parrot sketch's pet-shop owner who claims the bird is pining for the fjords.

Roughly how many jokes does the Philogelos, the world's oldest joke book, contain?

The Philogelos holds about 264 jokes, many of them variations on a few set-ups, including a run mocking the citizens of Abdera, Cyme and Sidon as dim-witted.

Which psychoanalyst published Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious in 1905?

Sigmund Freud's 1905 book Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious argued that jokes let us slip past inhibitions, comparing joke technique to the dream-work of his 1900 Interpretation of Dreams.

In 2002, psychologist Richard Wiseman ran LaughLab, a year-long online hunt for the world's funniest joke, from a university in which country?

LaughLab ran from the University of Hertfordshire in the United Kingdom, collecting some 40,000 jokes from around the world before naming a winner in October 2002.

LaughLab's 'world's funniest joke' was later found to derive from a 1951 Goon Show sketch by which comedian?

Spike Milligan wrote the gag for a 1951 Goon Show episode; the LaughLab version, submitted by Gurpal Gosal of Manchester, had two hunters and a bungled emergency call.

Which punchline from a LaughLab computer-generated joke outscored a third of human entries?

The computer-written joke 'What kind of murderer has moral fibre? A cereal killer' was rated funnier than about a third of the human-submitted entries in LaughLab.

Knock-knock jokes swept the United States and Britain as a fad in which year?

The knock-knock craze hit in 1936; radio comedian Fred Allen closed the year with a mock interview about the man who had 'invented a negative craze'.

'Knock, knock! Who's there?' is sometimes traced to a drunken porter's speech in which Shakespeare play?

In Act 2, Scene 3 the porter imagines himself as the gatekeeper of hell, admitting one sinner after another as the knocking continues.

'Why did the chicken cross the road?' first appeared in 1847 in The Knickerbocker, a magazine from which city?

The Knickerbocker was a New York literary monthly; its 1847 item posed the chicken question as a conundrum whose flat answer, 'to get to the other side', is the whole joke.

In 'Who's on First?', which player is the pitcher?

Tomorrow is the pitcher and Today the catcher; Because plays centre field and Why is in left. Time named the routine the best comedy sketch of the 20th century in 1999.

A gold record of 'Who's on First?' was placed in the National Baseball Hall of Fame in which year?

The Hall of Fame in Cooperstown accepted a gold record of the routine in 1956; the Hall also shows the duo's film version from the 1945 comedy The Naughty Nineties.

Gilbert Gottfried brought 'The Aristocrats' joke to wider attention at a Friars Club roast of whom, 18 days after 9/11?

The Friars Club roast of Hugh Hefner took place on September 29, 2001; after a 9/11 gag drew shouts of 'too soon', Gottfried won the room back with The Aristocrats.

Which magician-comedian co-directed the 2005 documentary The Aristocrats with Paul Provenza?

Penn Jillette, the talking half of Penn & Teller, co-directed The Aristocrats with Paul Provenza; the film shows around 100 comedians telling the same filthy joke.

In which year did Merriam-Webster add 'dad joke' to its dictionary?

Merriam-Webster added the term in its September 2019 batch of new words, tracing it back to a 1987 Gettysburg Times column by Jim Kalbaugh.

In the lightbulb joke about psychiatrists, why does changing the bulb take only one?

The psychiatrist lightbulb joke's answer is that the bulb has to really want to change, a dig at talk therapy's reliance on the patient's own motivation.

Which chemical is used on the friction strip that makes a Christmas cracker bang?

Christmas cracker snaps are coated with silver fulminate, a shock-sensitive explosive that bangs when the strips are pulled apart; Tom Smith is credited with inventing crackers in 1847.

The modern rubber whoopee cushion was invented in the 1930s by the JEM Rubber Company of which city?

The JEM Rubber Company of Toronto hit on the whoopee cushion while experimenting with scrap rubber; prank-toy maker S. S. Adams first turned it down as too vulgar.

On April Fools' Day 1957, BBC's Panorama showed Swiss farmers harvesting what?

Panorama's three-minute film showed a Ticino family pulling spaghetti from trees, narrated by Richard Dimbleby; hundreds of viewers phoned the BBC asking how to grow their own.

'Take my wife... please' is the signature line of which King of the One-Liners?

Henny Youngman, billed as the King of the One-Liners, said the line began when he asked an usher to take his wife to her seat at a radio show and was taken to be joking.

'I don't get no respect!' was the catchphrase of which comedian?

Rodney Dangerfield built his act around 'I don't get no respect', opened the Manhattan club Dangerfield's in 1969 and broke into film at 58 as Caddyshack's loudmouth golfer.

The comedian who played Caddyshack's Al Czervik was born under which name?

The comedian was born Jacob Cohen on Long Island in 1921 and legally became Jack Roy before adopting his stage name; the other options are Gene Wilder, Lenny Bruce and George Burns.

How many numbered jokes did the first edition of Joe Miller's Jests (1739) contain?

The 1739 first edition of Joe Miller's Jests had 247 numbered jokes, compiled by John Mottley a year after Miller's death; only three were actually about Miller.

Bazooka Joe, the bubble-gum comic-strip hero, is instantly recognisable by what?

Bazooka Joe wears a black eyepatch; Topps dropped the comic strips from the gum wrappers in 2012, replacing them with puzzles and codes.

Which British humour magazine, founded in 1841, gave 'cartoon' its modern comic-drawing meaning?

Punch ran John Leech's 'Cartoon, No. 1' in 1843, mocking the grand preparatory 'cartoons' submitted for the new Houses of Parliament murals, and the comic sense of the word stuck.

A jester's marotte, or bauble, parodied which royal object?

The marotte, the jester's stick topped with a tiny head, parodied the king's sceptre, just as the cap and bells stood in for the crown.

Will Sommers, one of history's best-documented court jesters, cracked jokes for which English king?

Will Sommers served Henry VIII from about 1525 and stayed at court into Elizabeth I's reign; he appears beside the king in a family portrait of around 1545.

In Monty Python's 'The Funniest Joke in the World', what happens to Ernest Scribbler when he finishes writing it?

Ernest Scribbler dies laughing the moment he reads his own joke back; the British Army then weaponises it, with each translator handling a single word for safety.

Comedy Central's first roast, in August 2003, targeted which comedian?

Denis Leary was the first Comedy Central roastee, on August 10, 2003; his own production company, Apostle, made the special.

Which 2011 Comedy Central Roast drew 6.4 million viewers, a record for the channel at the time?

The Roast of Charlie Sheen aired on September 19, 2011, the same night his replacement debuted on Two and a Half Men, and drew 6.4 million viewers.

In France and Italy, someone pranked on 1 April is an April what?

The French poisson d'avril and Italian pesce d'aprile both mean 'April fish'; the traditional prank is sticking a paper fish on the victim's back.

A disputed early link between 1 April and foolishness appears in which 14th-century English work?

The Nun's Priest's Tale in The Canterbury Tales dates the fox's trick on Chauntecleer to 'thritty dayes and two' after March began, which some readers take as April 1.

The 1960s elephant-joke craze began with a 1960 set of 50 trading cards from a company in which US state?

L. M. Becker Co. of Appleton, Wisconsin, printed the 1960 card set; elephant jokes spread to Texas by mid-1962 and California in 1963, reaching Time and Seventeen that July.

Classic elephant joke: why did the elephant paint its toenails red?

The answer, 'so it could hide in a cherry tree', sets up the follow-up 'Ever seen an elephant in a cherry tree? No? Then it works'; the footprints-in-the-butter jokes came from the same fad.

Early 'How many ___ does it take to change a lightbulb?' jokes of the 1960s-70s mostly targeted which group?

The first lightbulb jokes of the 1960s and 1970s were aimed at Poles, part of the 'Polack joke' wave; the target shifts with whoever a culture is mocking at the time.

'Chuck Norris facts' began on Something Awful in 2005 as jokes about which other action star?

The Vin Diesel Facts thread on Something Awful, riffing on his 2005 film The Pacifier, came first; the forum moved the format over to Chuck Norris later in 2005.

Which comedian made the 'In Soviet Russia...' reversal joke format famous in the 1980s?

Yakov Smirnoff, who emigrated from Odessa in 1977, built his act on Russian reversals; a 1985 Miller Lite ad ('In Russia, Party always finds you') spread the format.

The earliest known 'in Soviet Russia' reversal joke appears in Leave It to Me! (1938), by which songwriter?

Cole Porter's 1938 musical Leave It to Me! has the line 'In Soviet Russia, messenger tips you'; Laugh-In later ran the gag with the character Piotr Rosmenko.

On which host's show did Norm Macdonald tell his marathon 'moth joke' in 2009?

Norm Macdonald told the moth joke on Conan O'Brien's Tonight Show in 2009, stretching a one-line kids' gag into a Kafkaesque monologue about the moth's miserable family.

A long, meandering joke that ends in a deliberate anticlimax is known as what kind of story?

The archetype has a boy entering his very shaggy dog in bigger and bigger contests until a world judge shrugs: 'He's not that shaggy.' Isaac Asimov's 'Shah Guido G.' is one, title included.

The novelty glasses with a big nose, bushy eyebrows and moustache caricature which comedian?

The glasses caricature Groucho Marx's greasepaint eyebrows, moustache and ever-present cigar; novelty makers also sell them as the 'beaglepuss'.

Prank tycoon S. S. Adams, later inventor of the joy buzzer, launched his company with which product?

Adams launched his company in 1906 with sneezing powder sold as Cachoo, based on a coal-tar dye dust that had made him sneeze at his sales job.

In which year did S. S. Adams build the prototype of the joy buzzer?

Adams built the first joy buzzer in 1928 and patented the refined version in 1932; the wind-up device sits in the palm and buzzes when the victim shakes hands.

Which sound engineer built the padlocked 'laff box' that supplied sitcoms' canned laughter?

Charles Douglass, a CBS sound engineer, built the laff box around 1953 and kept it padlocked; his first recorded laughs came from pantomime segments of The Red Skelton Show.

Which sitcom's producers won the right to drop the laugh track in operating-room scenes?

M*A*S*H's producers, led by Larry Gelbart and Gene Reynolds, got CBS to leave the laugh track off the operating-room scenes; Gelbart loathed the practice altogether.

Which UK television channel presented the Funniest Joke of the Fringe award at Edinburgh from 2008?

Dave, the UKTV comedy channel, sponsored the Funniest Joke of the Fringe award from 2008; the public voted on a critics' shortlist and the winner was usually a one-liner.

Which comedian won the Edinburgh Fringe's funniest joke award in both 2016 and 2022?

Masai Graham won in 2016 with a gag about registering as an organ donor at his dad's suggestion, 'a man after my own heart', and again in 2022 with a pasta pun.

The Onion, 'America's Finest News Source', was founded in 1988 as a weekly print paper in which city?

Tim Keck and Christopher Johnson, two college students, started The Onion in Madison in August 1988 as a free weekly that paid its way with coupons and local ads.

Which Muppet stand-up comic ends every gag with 'Wocka wocka!'?

Fozzie Bear, the Muppets' pork-pie-hatted stand-up, punctuates his gags with 'Wocka wocka!' while Statler and Waldorf heckle from the balcony; Frank Oz originated the character.

Which candy prints a short question-and-answer joke on every wrapper?

Laffy Taffy wrappers each carry a question-and-answer joke, mixing fan submissions with puns, such as 'What do you call a cow with no legs? Ground beef.'

World Laughter Day, held on the first Sunday of May, was first celebrated in 1998 in which city?

Dr Madan Kataria, founder of Laughter Yoga, organised the first World Laughter Day in Mumbai on 10 January 1998, three years after starting his first laughter club there.

In linguistics, a pun is also known by which term?

Paronomasia is the rhetorical term for a pun; Shakespeare is reckoned to have used more than 3,000, including the dying Mercutio's 'you shall find me a grave man'.

The Ig Nobel Prizes honour research that 'first makes people laugh, and then makes them' do what?

The Ig Nobels, launched by Marc Abrahams in 1991, honour work that makes people laugh and then think; Andre Geim won one in 2000 for levitating a frog and a real Nobel in 2010.

What is Milan Kundera's 1967 debut novel, about a student expelled over a 'Long live Trotsky!' postcard, titled?

The Joke (Žert) was published in 1967; after Soviet tanks crushed the Prague Spring in 1968 the novel was banned in Czechoslovakia.

'Uncle Miltie', host of Texaco Star Theatre and TV's first big star, was which comedian?

Milton Berle's Texaco Star Theatre (1948-1953) made him 'Mr. Television'; rivals nicknamed him the Thief of Bad Gags for lifting their material.

Jeff Foxworthy's signature one-liners all begin with which phrase?

Jeff Foxworthy's 'You might be a redneck if...' lines filled his 1993 album of the same name, which went multi-platinum and started a fad; 'Here's your sign' is Bill Engvall's.

The 'ba-dum-tss' drum hit that punctuates a corny punchline is known in percussion jargon as a what?

Drummers call the 'ba-dum-tss' a sting: a short roll, a rimshot and a cymbal crash, a fixture of cabaret and circus shows as well as bad puns.

Which term names a pun that hinges on the adverb after 'said', as in 'said loftily'?

A Tom Swifty mocks the Tom Swift boys' books, whose ghostwriters avoided a plain 'said'; a 1963 collection, Tom Swifties, turned the form into a national craze.

The Comedy Store opened in 1972 in the building that had housed which Hollywood nightclub?

The Comedy Store took over the old Ciro's nightclub at 8433 Sunset Boulevard in 1972; founders Sammy Shore and Rudy De Luca gave way to Mitzi Shore after the Shores' 1974 divorce.

Comic Relief was founded in 1985 by Lenny Henry and which screenwriter?

Screenwriter Richard Curtis founded Comic Relief with Lenny Henry in 1985, launching it live from a Sudanese refugee camp on Christmas Day; the first Red Nose Day in 1988 raised £15 million.

Just for Laughs, long the world's largest international comedy festival, is held where?

Just for Laughs (Juste pour rire) has been staged in Montreal since Gilbert Rozon founded it in 1983; its 2024 edition was cancelled as the company sought creditor protection.

Which Italian humanist's Facetiae, first published in 1470, was an early printed joke anthology?

Poggio Bracciolini, a papal secretary, compiled the Facetiae from stories swapped in the Vatican's 'Bugiale' or lie-factory; its bawdy Latin jokes ran through some twenty editions before 1500.

Which Roman orator made a pun on 'tertia deducta' about Caesar selling Servilia land cheaply?

Cicero's quip, recorded by Suetonius, turned 'tertia deducta' into a double meaning: a third off the price, and Servilia's daughter Tertia 'brought in' to Caesar.

Who first published the folktale classification system, later expanded by Stith Thompson, in 1910?

Finnish folklorist Antti Aarne published his Verzeichnis der Märchentypen in 1910; the index's final section, expanded by Stith Thompson, classifies anecdotes and jokes by protagonist.

Who advanced the Script-based Semantic Theory of Humour in 'Semantic Mechanisms of Humor' (1985)?

Victor Raskin's 1985 book Semantic Mechanisms of Humor set out the Script-based Semantic Theory, holding that a joke text must be compatible with two opposed scripts.

How many Knowledge Resources does the General Theory of Verbal Humour use to classify a joke?

The General Theory of Verbal Humour (1991) uses six Knowledge Resources: Script Opposition, Logical Mechanism, Situation, Target, Narrative Strategy and Language.

Which naturalist published an early detailed description of laughter in an 1872 book on emotions?

Charles Darwin's 1872 The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals devoted a chapter to laughter, covering respiration, vocalisation, facial action and gesture.

In a popular saying, a comic 'says funny things' while who 'says things funny'?

The line, usually credited to Ed Wynn, holds that a comic says funny things while a comedian says things funny, putting delivery and timing above the material.