The annual Edinburgh Festival Fringe gives out awards for the funniest jokes (these are voted by attendees I believe) and they have announced the top ten winners for the current year. The winner was Darren Walsh for this one: “I just deleted all the German names off my phone. It’s Hans-free.”
I would not say this or any of the other top ten jokes totally cracked me up but as a fan of puns, I found it acceptable. But some of them I found obscure and I simply did not get #3 or #7.
I found last year’s funniest joke (“I decided to sell my Hoover. Well, it was just collecting dust.”) to be funnier.
I suspect that as I get older, fewer jokes will make sense to me since I will not get the pop culture allusions.
#3: Adam Hess: “Surely every car is a people carrier?”
In the UK (& US?) Large cars with six or more seats (often 7 or eight) are known as “people carriers”.
#7: Tom Parry: “Red sky at night. Shepherd’s delight. Blue sky at night. Day.”
Just a re-wording of the old “Red sky at night, shepherd’s delight. Red sky in the morning, shepherd’s warning”. I found it funny.
They tried to make people laugh, but no pun in ten did.
Re # 7
The traditional joke about this is:
Red sky in the morning is shepherd’s [or sailor’s] warning, red sky at night shepherd’s house is on fire.
…or at least it was when I was young.
@left0ver1under(#2):
That one got you 4 3/4 groans (out of 5) from the audience over here.
Okay Paul, maybe you can explain #8 to me then?
Numenaster,
Let me try because I think I know.
“The first time I met my wife, I knew she was a keeper. She was wearing massive gloves.”
In cricket, the wicket keeper (often just called the keeper) is the only fielder who wears gloves and they are big, like baseball fielders’ gloves. So this joke would fall flat if you don’t know cricket.
Thanks Mano! I do indeed know little of cricket, and that was one of the many bits I didn’t know. Okay, now I think it’s funny.
Re #3: The (rhyming) version I grew up with was “Red sky at night, shepherd’s barn’s alight.” Another variant is “Red meat and potatoes, shepherd’s pie.”
The couplet that I am familiar with is “Red sky at night, sailor’s delight. Red sky at morning, sailors take warning.”
But the joke still does not seem that funny to me.
Mano Singham (#6) --
The Catcher in the Wry.
The Independent website is a bad joke on my iPad.
You folks are funny, though.
Re “blue sky at night” -- that one offends my scientific eye and photographer brain. Of course the sky at night is blue, just like during the daytime. Unless it’s grey with clouds, just like during the daytime.
You’d think that stand-up comedians would have seen the night sky enough times on the lonely walk home after the last bus has gone.
“The first time I met my wife, I knew she was a keeper. She was wearing massive gloves.”
I didn’t get it at first. But then I thought he meant a bee-keeper who often wears large gloves.
The Cricket reference was too obscure for me. My error I found pretty funny though.
Re #2
Superb 🙂
AP