Back Der tödlichste Witz der Welt German El chiste más gracioso del mundo (Monty Python) Spanish خندهدارترین جک جهان Persian Maailman hauskin vitsi Finnish La Blague la plus drôle du monde French הבדיחה המצחיקה בעולם HE La barzelletta più divertente del mondo Italian 殺人ジョーク Japanese The Funniest Joke in the World Dutch Najzabawniejszy dowcip świata Polish
"The Funniest Joke in the World" (also "Joke Warfare" and "Killer Joke") is a Monty Python comedy sketch revolving around a joke that is so funny that anyone who reads or hears it promptly dies from laughter. Ernest Scribbler (Michael Palin), a British "manufacturer of jokes", writes the joke on a piece of paper only to die laughing. His mother (Eric Idle) also immediately dies laughing after reading it, as do the first constables on the scene. Eventually the joke is contained, weaponized, and deployed against Germany during World War II.
The sketch appeared in the first episode of the television show Monty Python's Flying Circus ("Whither Canada"), first shown on 5 October 1969.[1] It appeared in altered forms in several later Python works. The German translation of the joke in the sketch is made of various meaningless, German-sounding nonce words, and so it does not have an English translation.
- ^ Chapman, Graham; Cleese, John; Gilliam, Terry; Idle, Eric; Jones, Terry; Palin, Michael (1989). Wilmut, Roger (ed.). The Complete Monty Python's Flying Circus: All the Words, Volume One. New York, New York: Pantheon Books. p. 320 (Appendix). ISBN 0-679-72647-0.