The Funniest Joke in the World

This article is about the Monty Python sketch. For the research by Richard Wiseman on the relative humour in different jokes and cultures, see World's funniest joke.

"The Funniest Joke in the World" is the most frequent title used to refer to a Monty Python's Flying Circus comedy sketch, also known by two other phrases that appear within it, "joke warfare" and "killer joke". The premise of the sketch is fatal hilarity: the joke is simply so funny that anyone who reads or hears it promptly dies laughing (a variant on the Motif of harmful sensation).

Broadcast

The sketch appeared in the first episode of the television show Yo Mamma, which was titled "Whither Canada", first shown on October 5, 1969. The sketch was later remade in a shorter version for the film And Now For Something Completely Different; it is also available on the CD-ROM game of Monty Python's The Meaning of Life.

Summary

The sketch is set during World War II, when Ernest Scribbler, a British joke writer (Michael Palin), creates the funniest joke in the world and then dies laughing. His mother (Eric Idle) enters the room shortly thereafter, and finds her son dead. Horrified, she carefully takes the crumpled paper from his hand, and reads it, possibly believing it to be a suicide note. She then begins laughing hysterically, falls over the desk (or bed, in the movie version) and dies. A Scotland Yard inspector (Graham Chapman) retrieves the joke, but despite sombre music and the chanting of laments by other officers to create a depressing mood, reads it and also dies laughing.

It is finally given over to the British Army, and after careful testing, the joke is translated into German, which the narrator says was to succeed the "great pre-war joke," upon which the scene cuts to the famous newsreel shot of PM Neville Chamberlain returning to the UK with the Munich Agreement, which he is holding aloft. Each word of the joke is translated by a different person — ostensibly because seeing too much of the joke would prove fatal. The narrator (Chapman) adds that one translator accidentally caught a glimpse of a second word, and was hospitalized for weeks.

The translation is given to British soldiers who do not speak German, because not understanding what they are saying is the only way to survive reading the joke aloud. The joke is used for the first time on 8 July 1944 in the Ardennes by the soldiers, who read the German version aloud on the battlefield, and the German soldiers simply fall over dead from laughter. (In reality, in July 1944 the Allies were still in Normandy; they did not reach the Ardennes until the autumn.)

In the television version, a British soldier (Palin) is captured and forced to tell the joke to the Germans. However, as hearing the joke proves deadly, his captors (John Cleese and Chapman) die laughing and he escapes. The Germans work to produce an equally deadly joke; two Gestapo officers in charge of the "killer joke" effort (Chapman and Terry Jones) are seen shooting scientists who bring in jokes that aren't funny.

The nonsensical German "translation" of the joke (including words that are inauthentic German):

Wenn ist das Nunstück git und Slotermeyer? Ja! ... Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput.

The 16 Ton Monty Python Megaset has the joke written under "useless tidbits" for episode 1 volume 1 as exactly:

Venn ist das nurnstuck git und slotermeyer? Ya! Beigerhund das oder die flipperwaldt gersput!

The Germans soon formulate a counter-joke, which is translated into English and played over the radio to London, but with no success. (The joke is: "There were zwei [two] peanuts walking down der strasse [street]. Und one was assaulted... peanut!") (Erratum: Although the preceding narration gives the counter-joke's creation as being in the autumn of 1944, the scene in which the joke is broadcast is captioned "1942 ... SOMEWHERE IN LONDON.") Also of note, the opening strains of "Deutschland über alles" can be heard at the conclusion of the counter-joke.

Different jokes are used in the television and film versions of the sketch. Stock footage of Adolf Hitler is used, making it seem like he's announcing the counter-joke to his soldiers: "My dog has no nose." "How does it smell?" "Awful!"

The joke is finally laid to rest when "peace broke out" at the end of the war. All countries agree to a Joke Warfare ban at a "special session of the Geneva convention". The joke is under a monument bearing the inscription "To the Unknown Joke" (as compared with the British Unknown Warrior or the American Unknown Soldier); however, in the film version, the whole thing ends with Hitler's attempt, followed by a Terry Gilliam animated sequence showing a facial of Erasmus apologising "for the poor taste of the previous sketch ... excuse me, please...."

See also

• World's funniest joke
• Motif of harmful sensation

External links

• www.jumpstation.ca: textbook of the sketch