What is your favorite joke or comedy bit?

Maybe you don't have a favorite but something that's really stuck in your head?

I've been obsessed with this moment from when Conan had the Tonight Show. You've probably seen it but I've been on a Norm binge lately and I keep coming back to this. The way ol' Norm MacDonald tell this simple joke, man, I don't think it gets better than this.

Holy shit, I literally came into the thread to post the moth joke.

The Patton Oswalt Bit about comedy magicians is one I saw live so it has always stuck with me:

Steven Wright's stuff always sticks with me. I always think of this one: "I put instant coffee in a microwave; I almost went back in time." He has tonnes, though, obviously.

One that I think is purely clever is the shortest joke in the world, which is two words, by Jimmy Carr: "Dwarf shortage."

I prefer comedy from shows or movies, though, like the credits of Police Squad episodes, or Blackadder back-and-forths:

I laugh every time Kitty shows her boobs in Arrested Development. That show has tonnes of recurring jokes done real well.

Norm MacDonald's roast of Bob Sagat for sure. Anyone could go on stage and tell old, corny jokes. Only Norm could make it genius.

@n00bs7ay3r: I believe you mean the King of Queens! Either way, good contribution!

I walked by a dry cleaner at 3 am and the sign said "sorry, we're closed."

"You don't have to be sorry, it's 3AM and you're a dry cleaner. It would be ridiculous for me to expect you to be open. I'm not gonna walk in at 10 AM and say 'hey man I walked by at 3 and you guys were closed... somebody owes me an apology!'"

-Mitch Hedberg

@flashflood_29: Came in here to say Mitch Hedberg. Glad someone else beat me to the punch.

Favorite joke (in general, not related to Mitch Hedberg)? Two muffins are baking in an oven. One looks at the other one and says, "Gosh, it's hot in here." The other one screams, "Agh! A talking muffin!"

@sparky_buzzsaw: He's got so many good ones that I reference all the time and nobody ever gets. Whenever someone makes a knocking sound somewhere: "Go aarroundd!" Whenever a bad habit is mentioned. "I used to ______... I still do but I also used to."

For the life of me, though, I can't find the "3 honks," joke. I laugh my ass of at that one every time.

So, this is a comedy group from Canada that was popular in the 80's. If you're familiar with "Boot to the Head" it's probably from that Pheonix Wright machinima from a few years back, but when I first heard this on CBC I literally had to pull my car over from laughter.

Some of their newer stuff is pretty good too.

This bit just gets me. First the joke, then imagining trying to do it.

Hannibal is a personal fave comic, but this joke always springs to mind.

The first thing that comes to mind is an old Norm Macdonald joke about the murding your family for the devil. This was maybe the early to mid-90s...

I prefer the long game on jokes. I like a stand-up act that has several threads and pulls them together. Chappel’s recent Netflix stuff was good at that. I think my favorite’s are Eddie Izzard’s Definate Article and Dress to Kill. Those are perfect stand-up.

Man I Love standup, but the only thing that still consistently makes me laugh is who's on first. The timing, the mounting frustration, Costello's entire performance. I just love it.

I don't know if it's my favorite, but this Flight of the Choncords skit/song never fails to crack me up:

@hobozero: that is legendary and I don’t mean to use it lightly. It’s timeless. I also love their skit with math. I’m sure you can YouTube it. I usually see it posted by one of my teacher friends on Facebook so I don’t have a direct link

One of my favorite bits is from Dumb and Dumber. Although I can quote that whole movie I love the banter when they’re in the hot tub and harry talks about his ex girlfriend dumping her. “She says I don’t listen to her enough. I dunno, I wasn’t paying attention” always gets me

I don't have a favorite. Sometimes I'll just go on Netflix or what have you and try to find some stand-up. The last one I enjoyed was a recent one by Ricky Gervais. I enjoyed this part.

Generally, anything that deals with something that one can relate to is always funny. I don't mind a bunch of swearing, but some can get a bit dark that I don't care for, like some jokes Bill Burr tells.

”But there must've been a Death Star canteen, yeah? There must've been a cafeteria downstairs, in between battles, where Darth Vader could just chill...”

If you’ve never seen this bit by Eddie Izzard, you should watch it. Even if you’re like me and don’t really know your Star Wars from your Star Trek.

There’s a restaurant we occasionally go to that serves penne arrabiata and I chuckle every time one of us orders it.

Let the 'Tussin get down to the bone

@fledeye: This one's wet, this one's wet, this one's wet...love eddie izzard.

The entirety of Patrice O'Neal's "Elephant in the Room". Couldn't breathe after listening to that.

@cure_optimism: great comedian, rip.

@fledeye: Holy shit, thank you, good stuff!

I really like this one:

@fledeye: Eddie is my favorite comedian, far and away. I don’t enjoy most stand-up shows, as Ithink only a few really nail it (and most of them are dead, retired, or way past their prime).

I saw Eddie twice. Once was a week before my wife gave birth, three hours away from our hospital, with my wife.

And yeah, he can make anything funny. I love his old Dr. Who stuff and I’ve never seen a moment of Dr. Who.

@nutter: Eddie and Ross Noble are my favourites. I’ve never been able to see Eddie live, but I’ve seen Ross a few times. I’ve seen Eddie’s trainset and eaten at a restaurant a few hours after he left though.

I like Eddie because he talks about things anyone can relate to. Another one of my favourite bits of his is him trying to print something and he’s totally me, turning the computer so it can see the printer!

Best stand-ups I've seen live are Bill Bailey (going again in June), Ross Noble, and Dara O'Briain.

In terms of one routine from anything, I'm going with the "what time is it" routine from The Goon Show, series 7, episode 18, "The Mysterious Punch-Up-The-Conker".

Scene, Eccles and Bluebottle are in the ground floor attic of a local clock repairers. The scene opens with dozens of clocks chiming and going off at the same moment. Then a comedy horn, then silence before the first line:

Bluebottle: "What time is it, Eccles?"

Eccles: "Uh, just a minute, I've got the time written down here on a piece of paper. (pause for applause) A nice man wrote the time down for me this morning".

BB: "Wait a minute Eccles, my good man...it's writted (sic) on this bit of paper, what is eight o'clock, is writted"

E: "I know that my good fellow. That's right, when I asked the fella to write it down, it was eight o'clock"

BB: "Well then what happens if someone asks you the time and it isn't eight o'clock?"

E: "Well then I don't show it to them!"

(Pause)

BB: "Well, how do you know when it's eight o'clock?"

E: "Because I've got it written down on a piece of paper!

This joke is so simple but so good. The way it sets up expectation and then immediately defies it is nothing short of elegant, in my opinion.

@fledeye: Maybe this is partly me being american (juggling multiple languages isn’t exactly our strong suit), but when he started performing entire sets in languages foreign to him, I couldn’t believe it.

Having enough charisma, understanding of a language, and feel for a culture to perform stand-up in foreign languages is mind-boggling to me. I get that he almost certainly makes mistakes (I can forgive this; again, american), but to pull off humor like that takes something special.

@nutter:

I think the language thing is down to his background. He was raised in the UK, but he wasn’t born here and his family are originally French Huguenot which explains the French gigs.

He’s huge on Europe and was very anti-Brexit.

@fledeye: I agree, but I have to imagine that successfully tailoring comedy, of all things, to multiple languages and cultures is a particularly difficult thing to accomplish. I want to say he’s mentioned being born in Yemem at some point.

I remember him announcing shows in French and German, but took a quick stop at wikipedia for some maybe-facts-maybe-nots. I came across this:

“Izzard speaks French well and has performed stand-up shows in the language; from 2014 he began to perform in German, Spanish, Russian and Arabic, all languages that he did not previously speak.”

So, it sounds like he maybe learned German, Spanish, Russian, and Arabic in his adult life and did stand-up in those languages. I don’t speak those languages to gauge his success, but that’s still a super cool and impressive thing to seek out.

He’s one of a very small number of celebrities I’ve thought about finding after a gig to just say “Hi, I appreciate what you do. Thanks.” When we saw him in a smaller venue, my wife was absurdly pregnant, so I thought better of it.

@sparky_buzzsaw: @flashflood_29: You can fill this entire thread with Hedberg bits. His nervous energy and awkward delivery are so infectious that his jokes land in ways most comedians just can't match. Steven Wright is one of the only other comedians that can nail that one-liner style as well if not better then Mitch did.

Dave Chapelle's bit about his white friend Chip is also a big stand out for me.

Bowser Shrugged.

I really like early 2000s African American comedy and nothing get's me going more than Chappelle's infamous racial draft.

Probably the thing that makes me laugh the hardest, the most consistently:

A couple that I really enjoy:

Does this count? (kind of cheating I know) Also, dont watch this if you havent seen The Wickerman, which I think is the next F&40's.

This is the the video that got me to watch Vampire's Kiss and a lot of other lesser known Cage films which I appreciate more than the video itself although I did think it was pretty funny if you have a high tolerance for yelling and swearing as I do. (but I think it's the music that makes it, and Cage of course)

What happened to all the videos...

Louis CK's bit about the deer never fails to make me smile, no matter how many times I hear it.

I'm a sucker for a good running gag, so I've always been partial to the various Anne-related bits in Arrested Development (her? / getting her name wrong / not noticing her).

@theoriginalatlas: The Goon Show had some marvellous stupidity in it.

At the moment, it's a riff I made up in bar retellings of an old Garry Shandling joke. I know it's not 100% his, maybe that makes it worse.

"Women love me, women love to sleep with me. They just hate to fuck me."

@liquiddragon: I guess we are not allowed to embed videos because it can slow down the browser or whatever. I didn't really think about it.

In any case, I posted a video from the sketch show called Jam by Chris Morris. Because I love Chris Morris and couldn't think of anything better at the time.

@boonsong: They're all back!

@hobozero:

Seriously hard to beat this. Who's on first is so smart.

I really like this goofball, though.