Short Funny Jokes

Short Funny Jokes

I've got a love-hate relationship with jokes, I think that's the best way for me to describe it. I love short funny jokes because they are the reason why I became interested in comedy and ultimately became a comedian.

When I was at school kids would tell me jokes and there were some comedians on T.V. at the time who were doing the same thing. They weren't quite in the "knock, knock" realm more the anecdotal kind: "there's an Englishman, Irishman and a Scotsman..." or "this fella walks into a pub..." So far, so funny.

But there was a also a new breed of comedian on T.V. in the U.K. not just delivering the short funny jokes, but somehow doing something more. They were talking about themselves. They were observing the world around them and commenting on it in a funny way. They were doing routines and stories. This was something that I wanted to be a part of.

In the U.K. comedy scene of the 1970s and 1980s they was a split in the comedy scene. There still is to a greater or lesser degree. The "old guard" would tell jokes that were pretty interchangable amongst other comics. Whereas the new breed that had sprung up were doing comedy routines that were personal and not interchangeable with other comedians. It seemed as though what The Beatles had done when they wrote their own songs in the 1960s had finally happened in comedy.

That said I still have an amount of affection and love of the telling of a joke - or street joke as I've heard it defined. A street joke is exactly that - a joke that someone tells you on the street. There is no ownership of that joke, unless it has come from a comedian and is being re-told by a regular person. Then that's a whole other can of copyright awkwardness.

As a comedian myself I don't mind my friends telling me short funny jokes. Or slightly longer ones. They usually see me as a friend first and comedian second. Whereas if I meet someone new for the first time, either in a social situation or after a gig, they will insist on telling me a joke. Despite the fact that I don't perform jokes on stage. I do routines and stories.

When this occurs I feel uncomfortable because inevitably it's some racist or sexist joke, which again, surprises me because I am neither a racist nor a sexist comedian. So why I would a) use one of their jokes and b) why would I include that type of material in my act when I obviously don't ever perform it?

Maybe a scientist will one day research this phenonenom instead of conducting important research like... working out the scientific possibility of Santa Claus.

Strangely, people don't tell me jokes any more.

So I thought I'd search for jokes on the internet, which helps pass the time when I have to occasionally frequent crappy office jobs. The problem I found with a lot of joke websites is that they are not updated that often. So once you've read the jokes and return a couple of months later, you're still reading the same ones. Yes, I have put way too much thought into this.

Or what sometimes happens is that someone will forward you a joke via email and it will look something like this:

>A
>>man walks
>>>into a bar
>>>>and

How irritating is that? It's a pain in the buttski to forward that on because you invariably get loads more arrows. And it's just far too time-consuming to edit the arrows out before sending it on. Especially if you're supposed to be typing up the minutes from the meeting you just fell asleep in.

Sometimes you just want a short funny joke. You get it, laugh and get out with minimal casualties. And you can forward it on if you wish with a spring in your step and a glint in your eye and your line manager need never know.

So you can imagine my little comedy anorak being filled with joy when I discovered...

Thats Comedy

Short Funny Jokes