The Funniest Joke in the World
The joke so funny that whoever reads it dies laughing.
"The Funniest Joke in the World", also known as "Joke Warfare" and "Killer Joke", is a Monty Python sketch about a joke so funny that anyone who reads or hears it dies laughing. It was part of the very first episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus, "Whither Canada", shown on 5 October 1969, and later turned up in altered forms in other Python works.
Quick Facts
- Episode
- Series 1, episode 1 (Whither Canada)
- First aired
- 5 October 1969
- Cast
- Michael Palin
- Eric Idle
- Graham Chapman
- Terry Jones
Facts from the source article.
Background
Shot like a documentary, it begins with joke-writer Ernest Scribbler (Michael Palin) putting the joke on paper and dying of laughter; his mother (Eric Idle) takes it for a suicide note, reads it and dies too, as does a Scotland Yard inspector (Graham Chapman) who retrieves it. The British Army then tests it on a rifleman (Terry Jones) and has it translated into German one word per translator. The nonsense German version is first used on 8 July 1944 in the Ardennes, where German soldiers die laughing.
More in Episodes & Films
Elsewhere in Monty Python
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