Talk:The Funniest Joke in the World

message: I don't think the references to Star Trek and Red Dwarf have anything at all to do with a joke being fatally funny - I have removed them. Cgs
oi put it back just because you think doesnt mean other people dont find it relevant now put it back many thanks - John Faraday  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.193.236.86 (talk) 20:25, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Star Trek and Red Dwarf

message: If this sketch is a significant example of this type of humor, then I think it's relevant (both here and at Motif of harmful sensation) that Al Capp published a very similar storyline in the comic strip Li'l Abner before this Monty Python episode.  I have no idea if the Pythons knew the earlier work and were influenced by it.  I've been trying to research the exact date of publication of the Li'l Abner story, but the collections of that comic strip all seem to be out of print.  Anybody know?
The plot:  a writer creates the funniest joke in the world, which causes any who hear or read it to die laughing.  A world power that competes with the U.S. gets access to the joke.  Their agents arrange for Li'l Abner Yokum to perform the joke live on American network television.  This will cause the death of most of the U.S.  (This theme of using the joke as a weapon is also repeated in the Python sketch.)  However, Abner does not get the joke, so he substitutes one he thinks is funnier (Why did the calf go around its mother?  To get to the udder side.), thus saving America.
Glenn6502 01:50, 21 Apr 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  A predecessor? 

message: During WWII, Astounding Science Fiction published a short story by Henry Kuttner, "Nothing but Gingerbread" concerning an "earworm" (a phrase that one can't get out of one's head) that was constructed by the US and broadcast to the German army (See: http://henrykuttner.bravehost.com/Kuttner,%20Henry%20-%20Nothing%20But%20Gingerbread%20Left.html) :
Left, left, left a wife and seventeen children in starving condition with nothing but gingerbread Left, ...  probably 1943 or 1944. I immediately recalled the Kuttner piece. Funny writer.
Honda Ascot (talk) 22:54, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  A Pre-predecessor? 

message: I take it this inscription is a reference to the The Unknown Warrior and/or Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.  How should the article point this out?  --Piet Delport 07:00, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "To the Unknown Joke" 

message: I think that by going this precise into the contents of the sketch, this actually becomes a copyright violation. I therefore think we should diminish the amount of description of the gag. - Andre Engels 11:11, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Try avoiding copyright paranoia. Until you provide strong reasons, this shouldn't be seen as any kind of copyright violation. —msikma <user_talk:msikma> 13:00, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Copyright 

message: I'm removing the section "Translation, stem-by-stem". The joke is nonsense which does not mean anything particular in German, and most of the proposed etymologies for the nonsense words invented are original research. Gandoman 22:49, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You also removed the movie version of the German-developed joke... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 124.168.233.190 (talk) 08:22, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, that was me. It was unneeded detail and there didn't need to be a great big table dedicated to it.--Drat (Talk) 10:14, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

text: They are not original research.  Use a dictionary, translator, and Google.  And who are you to say what's unneeded? -lysdexia 14:50, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: But the translation translated part of words differently, and then put the words together again. Do you have any sources for a dictionary containing the words "nowfitt", "sheltergreatter", "byeardog" and "pinballwealdt"? Has this translation ever been used outside Wikipedia? I would most certainly call these invented words original research. Most of the words in the German version of the joke (except closed-class words like "when", "is", etc.) are gibberish words that do not exist in German, so an attempt to translate them would yield gibberish in English too. It would be better not to translate them, and simply point out that the words in the joke are not real German words. The article already does this. Gandoman 11:00, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: What do you mean by differently?  They are verbatim.  Do you care if a dictionary doesn't list "wavefunction" but does "wave" and "function"?  (And there was no "when" in the joke.) -lysdexia 03:37, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Translation removed 

message: Should Hitler's counter joke (My dog has no nose. How does it smell? Terrible!) be mentioned? Wikiwarlock 01:02, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: What would be nifty is if someone who speaks German could tell us what Hitler and the crowd were actually saying, over that fake subtitle. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 04:20, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Hitler's joke

message: I have removed the comment "In the version of the sketch featured in And Now For Something Completely Different, " as this scene appears in both versions of the sketch, not solely in the movie.
Double posted and didn't sign off...  Theloneoutsider (talk) 03:45, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Difference Between Movie Version And TV Episode 

message: One minor point regarding the current article text - it states that the joke was written "During World War II".  However, the sketch quite clearly starts in a contemporary (early 1970's) setting, and is only transferred to the war era half-way through.  Should this be corrected? Tevildo (talk) 21:14, 27 March 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Anachronism 

message: I think that south park creators were inspired by that joke in Fishsticks (South Park) עומר תשבי (talk) 12:19, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
thread_title: South Park