The Funniest Joke in the World
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The Funniest Joke in the World is the most frequent title used to refer to a Monty Python's Flying Circus comedy sketch, also known by two other phrases that appear within it, "joke warfare" and "killer joke". The premise of the sketch is fatal hilarity: The joke is simply so funny that anyone who reads or hears it promptly dies laughing.
[edit] Broadcast
The sketch appeared in the first episode of the television show Monty Python's Flying Circus, which was titled "Whither Canada?." The sketch was later remade in a shorter version for the film And Now For Something Completely Different; it is also available on the CD-ROM game of Monty Python's The Meaning of Life.
[edit] Summary
The sketch is set during World War II, when one Ernest Scribbler, a British joke writer (played by Michael Palin), creates the funniest joke in the world and then dies laughing. His horrified mother, played by Eric Idle, enters, clutching her chest and sobbing. Carefully taking the crumpled paper from his hand, she reads it, believing it to be a suicide note, then falls over the desk (or bed, in the movie version), laughing hysterically, and dies. A policeman (Graham Chapman) tries to retrieve the joke and manages, but unluckily reads it and therefore dies laughing.
It is finally retrieved by the British Army, and after careful testing, the joke is translated into German. Each word of the joke is translated by a different person — ostensibly because seeing too much of the joke would prove deadly. The narrator (Chapman) adds that one translator accidentally caught a glimpse of a second word, and was hospitalized for weeks.
The translation is given to English soldiers who do not speak German, because not understanding what they are saying is the only way to survive reading the joke out loud. These soldiers then read the German version aloud on the battlefield, and the German soldiers simply fall over dead from laughter.
In the television version, a British soldier (Palin) is captured and forced to tell the joke to the Germans. However, as hearing the joke proves deadly, his captors (John Cleese and Chapman) die laughing and he escapes. The Germans are working to try and produce a deadly joke as well and two gestapo officers (Chapman and Terry Jones) are seen shooting a scientist (Idle) who has come up with a not at all funny joke.
The nonsensical German "translation" of the joke (including words that are inauthentic German):
- Wenn ist das Nunstück git und Slotermeyer? Ja! ... Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput. (if you translate those words that make sense you get: "When is the nowpiece 'git' and 'Slotermeyer'? Yes!... 'Beier'dog the or the 'Flipper'forest 'gersput'."
The Germans formulate a counter-joke, which is translated into English and played over the radio to London, but with no success. (The joke reads: "There were zwei [two] peanuts walking down the strasse [street]. One of them was a salted... Peanut!") Different jokes are used in the television and film versions of the sketch.
The joke is finally put to rest when "peace broke out." All countries agree to a Joke Warfare ban at a "special session of the Geneva convention". The joke is buried, and left under a monument bearing the inscription "To the Unknown Joke" (as compared with the British Unknown Warrior or the Unknown Soldier).
