18 Jokes for the Hall of Fame, August 30, 2023
The great Mel Brooks once said, “Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die.” Not gonna lie — falling into an open sewer is objectively hilarious, but what if you cut your finger on a toe knife? That’s ironic right there. Or if you cut your finger somehow during a pie fight? Or if your finger got cut after laughing at Swiggles the Shtick-Slingin’ Switchblade. Man, Mel didn’t think it through, did he? Well, here are some jokes that are funny on an open-sewer-death level…
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Anthony Jeselnik on ‘Super Mario Bros.’
“I just read the biography of the guy who invented Super Mario Bros. Did you know that when he was a kid, people used to laugh at him when he would kill turtles with a hammer?”
Bernie Mac on Funerals
“I ain’t having a funeral. I like white folks — you die last night, you’re buried the next day. We gotta have four days for this dead motherfucker, four days! We gotta have the motherfucker’s visitation, the wake, the funeral and the burial. Black folks, we’re something else. Don’t tell me; I’ve been Black a long time.”
Kristen Schaal on Getting Her Sparkly Jacket
“I killed a genie to get this jacket. It’s only after I cut the jacket off the genie’s dead body that I realized I could’ve simply wished for it. Ugh, I should have wished for hindsight.”
Steven Wright on Menus
“I went to a place to eat that said, ‘Breakfast served any time.’ So I ordered French toast during the Renaissance.”
Jerry Seinfeld on Public Speaking
“I saw a study that said that speaking in front of a crowd is considered the number one fear of the average person. Number two was death! Death is number two? This means to the average person that if you have to be at a funeral, you would rather be in the casket than doing the eulogy.”
Dusty Slay on Trailer Parks
“I grew up in a trailer park in Alabama. We had a pretty good time, but I’m not sure why they called it a ‘park.’ There weren’t no rides in there.”
Paul F. Tompkins on His Fear of Dogs
“I never used to be afraid of dogs, and then I lived in this apartment building that made me scared of all dogs forever. It’s like weird immersion therapy — I would turn the corner on the landing, and ‘ARARARAHAHAHAH,’ a dog out of nowhere would be barking, so angry at me. What drove me crazy was the person whose dog it is wouldn’t apologize for the dog or for what just happened. It’s not like I didn’t give him an in, either. I tossed him some nice fat softballs like, ‘Wow, he certainly gave me quite a start, that dog that is your responsibility. Man, he really scared me, a fellow human being with feelings and dignity.’”
Maria Bamford’s Advice from Her Mother
“My mother told me before I went to my first girl-boy party in the eighth grade, ‘Maria, remember what we talked about: Gonorrhea, syphilis, herpes, one-two… Watch the cold sores… Date rape is a lot more common than people think… You look so gorgeous… You were conceived in Groton, Connecticut in one night at a campsite… I’m not saying you weren’t planned, I’m just saying Bamfords get pregnant like falling off logs… Oh, Jenny’s mom is here to pick you up, have a good time!’”
Richard Lewis on Therapy
“I quit therapy because my analyst was trying to help me behind my back.”
Nikki Glaser on Being a Late Bloomer
“I’m bad at sex. That’s what I’ve concluded. It’s fine; I’m okay with it because I got a late start. I’m learning. I didn’t have sex until I was 21 because I was saving myself for Jesus, which luckily was my gardener’s name. So that worked out. Yeah, I found a loophole in my dad’s rule.”
Jen Kirkman on Her Divorce
“I love being divorced. It’s been four years, but people still get upset; they still worry about me. It’s really just a legal term meaning no one’s farted in my bed in four years.”
Rodney Dangerfield on Bartenders
“I was tired one night, and I went to the bar to have a few drinks. The bartender asked me, ‘What’ll you have?’ I said, ‘Surprise me.’ He showed me a naked picture of my wife.”
Maria Bamford on Depression
“A lot of Americans are suffering from depression younger and younger — our children are seeing the sippy cup as half-empty. When I was a kid, I never really thought of myself as depressed as much as paralyzed by hope.”
Mitch Hedberg on Improving Your Circumstances
“If you find yourself lost in the woods, fuck it, build a house. ‘Well, I was lost, but now I live here. I have severely improved my predicament.’”
George Carlin on Children
“Somebody’s gotta tell you for your own good: Your children are overrated and overvalued. You’ve turned them into little cult objects; you have a child fetish, and it’s not healthy. Don’t give me that weak shit: ‘Well, I love my children.’ Fuck you! Everybody loves their children; it doesn’t make you special. John Wayne Gacy loved his children. He kept them all right in the yard near the garage.”
Patrice O’Neal on Football
“When I came up, football was gladiator; it was angry. When we hit somebody when I played, and he didn’t get up, we didn’t hold hands with the other team and pray for him to get up. We used to do a hump dance circle around him, and our crowd’s like, ‘HE’S-PA-RA-LYZED!’ We’d be looking for his mother crying and be like, ‘That’s right, lady, that’s what you get for letting him out here with killers!’”
Doug Stanhope on Necrophilia
“I sometimes wonder if necrophiliacs are really into dead people or if they just enjoy the quiet.”
Patton Oswalt on the Invention of the Circus
“‘We’re gonna put up a tent on the outskirts of town, and we’re gonna fill it with depressed animals walking slowly. Did I say walking? I meant trudging. Trudging counterclockwise in an oval. And while they do it, we’re going to play creepy calliope music over them — their spirits broken, no connection to the wild.’”
