70 Fun Facts About Joke

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

It is a proverb about a young wife who has never once broken wind on her husband's lap, which means the fart joke is at least 4,000 years old.

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

The papyrus tells five tales at the court of Khufu; in one, King Sneferu is cheered up when a magician has young women in net dresses row him around the palace lake.

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

It was compiled in roughly the fourth or fifth century AD and is written in crude Greek, which suggests it was aimed at ordinary readers rather than scholars.

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

The seller replies that the slave never did that while he owned him. The book is traditionally attributed to two otherwise unknown men, Hierocles and Philagrius.

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

Many are variations on a handful of set-ups, and a whole run of them mocks the citizens of Abdera, Cyme and Sidon as slow-witted.

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

He argued that a good joke lets us slip past our inhibitions, and he compared the techniques of joke-making to the dream-work he had described five years earlier.

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

Wiseman worked at the University of Hertfordshire; the History Channel later made a special about the project.

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

The joke was submitted by Gurpal Gosal of Manchester. Wiseman later admitted it won because it was the joke fewest people hated, not the one most people loved.

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

The set-up asked what kind of murderer has moral fibre. The most-submitted joke overall was 'What's brown and sticky?', which the machines had nothing to do with.

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

Radio comedian Fred Allen ended that year with a mock interview about the man who had 'invented a negative craze', which tells you how sick of them everyone already was.

'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 magazine presented it as a conundrum with a disappointing answer, which is exactly why it works: it is anti-humour, a set-up that promises a punchline and delivers a plain fact.

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

Today is the catcher, Because is in centre field and Why is in left. Time magazine 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?

A video of the routine, taken from the duo's 1945 film The Naughty Nineties, now plays on a loop at the Hall in Cooperstown.

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

Gottfried had just lost the room with a joke about the attacks and used the joke to win it back. Penn Jillette says it was Johnny Carson's favourite joke of all time.

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

The joke has no fixed script: a family pitches a revolting act to a talent agent, and the teller improvises the filth. Only the set-up and the two-word punchline stay the same.

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

The phrase is older than it looks: Jim Kalbaugh wrote an impassioned defence of the genre in The Gettysburg Times in June 1987.

'I'm hungry.' 'Hi, Hungry, I'm Dad.' That reply is the textbook example of which genre?

Dad jokes usually turn on a pun so obvious that the groan is the point; some deliberately have no real punchline at all.

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

London confectioner Tom Smith is credited with inventing crackers in 1847; his son Walter added the paper hats and gifts.

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

Employees were experimenting with scrap rubber. Prank-toy king S. S. Adams turned the invention down as too vulgar to sell, which remains one of the great business misjudgements.

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

The three-minute film from Ticino was voiced by the respected Richard Dimbleby, and CNN later called it the biggest hoax any reputable news outlet ever pulled.

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

He said the line began as a misunderstanding: he asked a stagehand to seat his wife at a radio show and the man took it as a gag. He performed with a violin and bow as his prop.

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

He opened his own New York club, Dangerfield's, in 1969, and his breakout film role came at 58 as the loudmouth golfer in Caddyshack.

Before he was Rodney, the comedian who famously got no respect was born under which name?

He later legally became Jack Roy. The other names belong to Gene Wilder, Lenny Bruce and George Burns respectively.

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

John Mottley compiled it after Miller's death, and only three of the jokes were actually about Miller. Later editions kept swelling, and the quality kept sinking.

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

His sidekick Mort wears a red turtleneck pulled up over his mouth. Topps stopped putting the comics in the gum in 2012 as sales fell.

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

The joke was aimed at grand 'cartoons' (preparatory drawings) proposed for murals in the new Houses of Parliament in 1843. The magazine finally closed in 2002.

A jester's cap and bells mirrored a crown. Which royal object did the marotte stand in for?

The get-up advertised 'jester's privilege', the licence to mock and to deliver bad news that nobody else at court dared to bring the king.

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

Poland's most famous jester, Stańczyk, worked the same century and made his name with political gags, which was a riskier line of work.

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

The British Army weaponises the joke against Germany, with each translator working on a single word for their own safety; the war ends with a joke-warfare ban at the Geneva Convention.

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

His own production company made it, and excluding South Park it was the most-watched programme in the channel's history to that point.

Which 2011 Comedy Central Roast drew 6.4 million viewers, the most of any roast on the channel?

It aired the same night his replacement debuted on Two and a Half Men. Roastees can veto topics: Pamela Anderson banned jokes about her hepatitis C.

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

Poisson d'avril traditionally involves sticking a paper one on the victim's back. In Britain the joking is supposed to stop at noon.

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

In Scotland the day was once Huntigowk Day, and a second day followed on which paper tails were pinned to people's backs.

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 printed them. The jokes reached Texas by mid-1962, hit California in 1963 and by that July were in Time and Seventeen.

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

The follow-up is 'Have you ever seen an elephant in a cherry tree? No? Then it works.' The refrigerator series (footprints in the butter) 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 psychiatrist version is the one that lasted: none, the bulb will change when it is ready. The joke is a barometer of whoever a culture is picking on at the time.

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

Forum members swapped in Norris after The Pacifier joke ran dry; Conan O'Brien's Walker, Texas Ranger gags helped. Norris eventually co-wrote an official book of the facts in 2009.

'In Soviet Russia, television watches you!' Which Soviet-born comedian made this joke format famous?

His 1985 Miller Lite ad ('In Russia, Party always finds you') put it in every living room. Bob Hope used the form at the 1958 Academy Awards, decades earlier.

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

The line was 'In Soviet Russia, messenger tips you.' Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In later ran the gag with a character called Piotr Rosmenko.

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

The moth walks into a podiatrist's office and delivers a Kafkaesque monologue about his miserable family before the payoff, which is a one-line kids' joke stretched to breaking point.

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?

They are also sold as the 'beaglepuss', and the deluxe version adds a plastic cigar.

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

He called it Cachoo and got the idea after friends kept asking for the dust that made him sneeze at work. He claimed 600 novelty items over his career and patented about 40.

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

The finished version was patented in 1932. Adams famously turned down another firm's whoopee cushion as too indelicate to sell.

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

From the late 1950s to the early 1970s he had a monopoly on the laugh business, and he first harvested laughs from pantomime segments of The Red Skelton Show.

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

Larry Gelbart hated the whole practice: 'You're telling an engineer when to push a button to produce a laugh from people who don't exist.'

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

Members of the public voted on a shortlist chosen by comedy critics, and the winner was almost always a one-liner. The channel is now branded U&Dave.

Which comedian is the only act to win the Edinburgh Fringe's funniest joke award three times?

Tim Vine is the only other multiple winner, with two. Graham's 2016 winner was about registering as an organ donor at his dad's suggestion: 'he is a man after my own heart.'

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

University of Wisconsin students Tim Keck and Christopher Johnson started it; the company is now based in Chicago.

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

He wears a brown pork-pie hat and a polka-dot tie and gets heckled from the balcony by Statler and Waldorf. Frank Oz performed him until 2000, then Eric Jacobson took over.

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

The jokes mix fan submissions with puns found through research; a 2022 joke-writing contest drew 6,500 entries. A sample: 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?

Family doctor Madan Kataria, founder of the Laughter Yoga movement, organised it; his clubs now operate in more than 115 countries.

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

Shakespeare is estimated to have used more than 3,000 of them, 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?

Marc Abrahams launched them in 1991. Andre Geim won one in 2000 for levitating a frog with magnets, then won a real Nobel in physics ten years later.

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

Its Czech title is Žert. It was banned after Soviet tanks crushed the Prague Spring the following year.

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

He was also called Mr. Television, and less kindly the Thief of Bad Gags, for his habit of borrowing other comics' material.

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

His 1993 album of them topped the comedy chart and started a fad. 'Here's your sign' belongs to his Blue Collar Comedy Tour partner Bill Engvall; the others are Steve Martin's and Henny Youngman's.

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

It is usually a short roll, a rimshot and a cymbal crash, and it is a fixture of cabaret and circus shows as well as bad puns.

'If you want me, I shall be in the attic,' said Tom, loftily. What is this kind of pun called?

The name mocks the Tom Swift boys' books, whose ghostwriters went to great lengths never to use a plain 'said'. A 1963 book of them made the form a national craze.

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

Sammy Shore and Rudy De Luca founded it; Mitzi Shore took it over after a divorce and ran it for decades. In 1979 comics picketed for six weeks just to be paid.

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

It launched live from a refugee camp in Sudan on Christmas Day 1985; the first Red Nose Day in 1988 raised £15 million.

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

Gilbert Rozon founded it, and it also lent its name to the hidden-camera series Just for Laughs Gags. The 2024 edition was cancelled as the company fought off bankruptcy.

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

Its popularity is measured by the twenty editions documented in the 15th century alone.

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

The phrase means both 'one-third off' and a crude reference to Servilia's daughter Tertia.

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

The final section of the Aarne–Thompson index classifies anecdotes and jokes by their protagonist.

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

It was the first humour theory to identify its approach as exclusively linguistic.

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

They include Script Opposition, Logical Mechanism and Narrative Strategy.

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

The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals covered respiration, vocalisation, facial action and gesture.

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

The distinction highlights delivery and timing over the content of the gag.