FROM THE DESK OF BOB MANKOFF
SEPTEMBER 17, 2014
The Oldest Jokes Meet the Crowdsourced Wisdom of the Internet BY ROBERT MANKOFF
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As Professor Mary Beard informed us last week, the world’s oldest joke book, the Philogelos, has been around for thousands of years. And it’s even been online for a few years. But not until last week was it possible to bring the power of Internet
crowdsourcing to evaluate those jokes. Not all of them, of course. Just the ten
best that I, by the power vested in me as the guy who writes this newsletter, selected.
Here are the results:
What immediately jumped out at me was that dark red is way funnier than gray. But then I realized that by thinking that, I was as much an idiot as the idiot in the joke, who “is lying in bed, gets hungry, and can’t believe that it isn’t noon yet and demands that a sundial be brought to him so that he can check.”
That was the worst rated of the bunch: 1.29 out of a possible 5. Even worse than the next worst, which just managed a 1.33 rating with this wheeze: “A fool broke wind in bed with a deaf person. When the latter caught the smell to complain, the fool said,
‘Come on, how could you hear it if you are supposed to be deaf?’ ”
O.K., enough of the worst. Let’s move on to the best. The top three:
1. A guy is teasing his friend: “I screwed your wife last night.” “As her husband, I have to,” says the husband. “What’s your excuse?” (Rating:
2.92)
2. Hairdresser: “How shall I cut your hair, sir?” Client: “In silence.” (2.85)
3. A drunk was told by his friend that he was so bombed he couldn’t see straight. “Look who’s talking,” slurred the drunk. “A guy with two heads.” (2.78)
Hmm. Even the best of these oldsters never crested a rating of 3, which signified only “somewhat funny.” The low ratings are not all that surprising, simply because having to rate humor rather than experience it makes it less funny. That being the case, being rated “somewhat funny” after thousands of years does count for something. I wonder how many New Yorker cartoons would stand that test of time. Now you can start wondering, too. And when you finish your wondering, send your candidates
to newyorkercartoon@https://www.doczj.com/doc/d418817972.html,. But remember the criterion: not what strikes you as funny right now but what would be at least “somewhat funny” in the next millennium. Meanwhile, please enjoy this slide show of cartoons from right before the end of the last millennium. They are so 1999: