MetaFilter posts tagged with humor and jokes

Excellent fiddlesticks for the insolent rascal, and other ways to while the days

filthy light thief — Fri, 29 May 2009 13:32:57 -0800

As a belated tribute (of sorts) to Victoria Day, may you find interest in a variety of Victorina era literature, short and long. In the short category, there is Chit-Chat of Humor, Wit, and Anecdote (Edited by Pierce Pungent; New York: Stringer & Townsend (1857), who has written quite a bit of such work) [via mefi projects], and Conundrums New and Old (Collected by John Ray Frederick; J. Drake & Company Publishers Chicago, 1902) [via mefi projects] This publishing house also published The Art of Characturing, copyright 1941. If you prefer your antiquated humor with a twist, take a gander at bizarro version of Conundrums New and Old [via mefi projects]. In the category of longer works, behold the The Lost Novels of Victorian New Zealand [via an older mefi projects]. The lost novels is a free online archive of New Zealand and Pacific Islands texts and heritage materials, provided by the New Zealand Electronic Text Centre, which is part of the Victoria University of Wellington. The content of the online archive ranges from novels written or set in New Zealand to shorter fiction that appeared in local pamphlets and newspaper supplements, and covers a broad range of topics. The long list of archive projects are available under various licenses, and where the original text is out of copyright it is our policy to provide the digitised version under a New Zealand Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike License (CC BY-CA).

Some Jewish Humor

serazin — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 23:14:43 -0800

Sadie tells Maurice, "You’re a schmuck! You always were a schmuck and you always will be a schmuck! You look, act and dress like a schmuck! You’ll be a schmuck until the day you die! And if they ran a world-wide competition for schmucks, you would be the world’s second biggest schmuck!" "Why only second place?" Maurice asks. "Because you’re a schmuck!" Sadie screams. Some Jewish humor.

Two mathematicians walk into a bar...

cthuljew — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 08:09:25 -0800

A math professor was explaining a particularly complicated calculus concept to his class when a frustrated pre-med student interrupts him. "Why do we have to learn this stuff?" the pre-med blurts out. The professor pauses, and answers matter-of-factly: "Because math saves lives." "How?" demanded the student. "How on Earth does calculus save lives?" "Because," replied the professor, "it keeps certain people out of medical school."

Philosophy and Comedy

anotherpanacea — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 15:23:06 -0800

Henri Bergson's "On Comedy"
Helene Cixous's "The Laugh of the Medusa"
David Chalmer's Philosophical Humour
Monty Python's "Philosopher's World Cup" Inspired by this, posted previously:

Philosophy is a funny business and some philosophers are funny people. The philosopher asks you to look at the world awry, to place in question your usual habits, assumptions, prejudices and expectations. The philosopher asks you to be sceptical about all sorts of things you would ordinarily take for granted, like the reality of things in the world or whether the people around you are actually human or really robots. In this regard, the philosopher has, I think, a family resemblance with the comedian....

Simon Critchley's "Did you hear the one about the philosopher writing a book on humour?"

B3ta Bumper Book of Sick Jokes

srboisvert — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 11:56:42 -0800

B3ta Bumper Book of Sick Jokes (flash) on Scribd, a youtube for pdfs. For extra weirdness listen to the mp3 (the link is at the bottom of the pdf display).

FlapArt

Gator — Fri, 17 Mar 2006 13:54:00 -0800

Must-haves for your coffee table, lavatory reading, or just killing time on the subway: The Nutritional Benefits of Nose Picking; Perfecting the Art of Fart Projection (NEVER be blamed again!); How to Murder a Complete Stranger (and get away with it) [paging scarabic]. These and other eyebrow-raising books can be yours, assuming you already have a book that you can put these dustjackets on. FlapArt: The Alternative Book Cover.

Blonde joke

Steven C. Den Beste — Wed, 04 Jan 2006 22:14:49 -0800

How's about a good blonde joke?

Dissecting Humor

Falconetti — Sun, 11 Dec 2005 20:54:35 -0800

Nothing is funnier than an academic or scientist explaining humor .

Wikipedia's Bad Jokes And Other Deleted Nonsense

Gator — Thu, 08 Dec 2005 11:22:42 -0800

Wikipedia's Bad Jokes and Other Deleted Nonsense category is a veritable goldmine of...well. I had never heard of a Mushroom Tattoo, for example, nor did I know about the tragic exploitation of the Gnomish Nation or the truth about the American Revolution. Towards the end, Ronald Reagan's condition was even sadder than I thought. And why shouldn't we believe in Atlantis, or for that matter the bearatross or Alphonse W. Turkeyman?

And then what do you have? Bupkes!

amberglow — Sat, 05 Mar 2005 14:40:56 -0800

THE PRINCIPLES OF JEWISH BUDDHISM -- 12. To Find the Buddha, look within. Deep inside you are ten thousand flowers. Each flower blossoms ten thousand times. Each blossom has ten thousand petals. You might want to see a specialist.
And there's even a term now: Jubu

GQ's 100 Funniest Jokes of All Time.

zardoz — Tue, 15 Feb 2005 06:08:24 -0800

GQ's 100 Funniest Jokes of All Time. I know, I know, these "of all time" lists are lame. And thought I'd heard them all, but quite a few were new. And funny. Unlike this description.

Things that make you spew fluids out your nose...

soulhuntre — Tue, 21 Dec 2004 07:41:27 -0800

"Sushi pants" and other stories... Possibly not the "best of the web", but not political and damn funny. Of late I have been enjoying a number of "story" sites recounting the kind of tall tales of questionable accuracy you usually only hear from genuinely funny friends. Many, many chuckles to be had out there. Some of the stories seem superficially mean but are actually interesting looks into difficult situations you might otherwise never glimpse. "A few days later he put a tarantula in my bedsheets while I was sleeping. Thankfully I wasn't bitten, but I was freaked out and still sometimes jump out of bed in the middle of the night for no reason and attack my sheets." - from thingie.net

well, they were a big hit at Plato's Laugh Shack

amberglow — Sat, 10 Jul 2004 21:45:33 -0800

A man, just back from a trip abroad, went to an incompetent fortune-teller. He asked about his family, and the fortune-teller replied: "Everyone is fine, especially your father." When the man objected that his father had been dead for ten years, the reply came: "You have no clue who your real father is."--that's one of the jokes from The Laughter Lover (Philogelos), an ancient Greek joke book published in the 4th or 5th century AD. The New Yorker commented on it, and other old jokes here, stating about one of the possible authors: ... there is some scholarly speculation that the Hierocles in question was a fifth-century Alexandrian philosopher of that name who was once publicly flogged in Constantinople for paganism, which, as one classicist has observed, “might have given him a taste for mordant wit.”

Private Jokes Made Public

MiguelCardoso — Sun, 09 Nov 2003 18:50:17 -0800

That's What Friends Are For: Laughing, getting drunk together, telling all...and making celebratory, determinedly silly websites like this one. Generally, private jokes are painfully unfunny but, when the vicarious instinct kicks in, other people's gregarious joie de vivre is contagious, touching - and great fun.

crasspastor — Mon, 29 Oct 2001 10:52:07 -0800

Oh that whirlwind affair that October in Shanghai. It's a week old. And I hope and pray this hasn't been posted before. But if you like joke fodder about Bush, these photos may be for you.

BoatMeme — Thu, 20 Sep 2001 13:27:43 -0800

Now is probably a poor time to start making bomb jokes at the airport.

hijinx — Fri, 30 Mar 2001 12:47:20 -0800

Why did the guru refuse Novacaine when he went to his dentist? [very large page!] Every single doctor-type joke you can imagine, all in one place. (He wanted to transcend dental medication.)

tamim — Tue, 19 Sep 2000 20:50:10 -0800

Bush: 342 / Gore: 224
Bush leads Gore in the number of jokes made about him on late night talk shows.

Annabel.Gill — Thu, 09 Mar 2000 16:28:45 -0800

This really hurt me, but it's all worth it for the Panda joke (#316). In fact, you really only need to read the first two sentences for it to be funny. Well, it made me laugh, anyway.