Here are some Great Funny Jokes

Everyone likes to have a good laugh. It's even better if you're the one instigating all the humor. Everyone will love you. So, if you're looking for some funny jokes, then you've found the right place. The following article will outline some great funny jokes that you can recite anywhere you want!

Humor is subjective, and we know it when we try to pull off a crass joke at a formal dinner party or we tell a highbrow quip at a baseball game. We know it when we flop. We know it when we land a funny, kill, hit the funny bone, too, but how is it that we were funny? How did our funny jokes go over so well?

We don’t have to take the substance out of funny jokes to consider what makes funny jokes funny, really. We just have to have the thick skin and miserable childhoods and caustic, bantering mentality that compose a comic sense of humor…and give a few nods to the elements of a good joke.

The Element of Surprise

When the unexpected—the absolutely bizarre or unpredicted—suddenly appears, the shock elicits [inappropriate] laughter.

You have likely seen (in an old movie, in a melodramatic TV show) a woman slap a man for kissing her. Consider the show, Third Rock from the Sun. Dick Solomon (played by the genius of quasi-slapstick, John Lithgow) is an alien commander sent by The Big Head to study earth humans. Everything is new or daunting or perplexing to him. In the first episode, he is at a gathering with Mary (played by the brilliantly witty Jane Curtain). They end up in the restroom together and he inappropriately kisses her. She slaps him. He looks wounded. Then he slaps her back. He thinks it is part of the earthling ritual. Hysterical, that unexpected out of the norm behavior.

Exaggeration

Slippery slopes make for the funniest of simple jokes. On Tool Time, for example, Tim Allen is fretting about his oldest son Brad (and again, I paraphrase). He says to his wife that if Brad doesn’t go to college, he’ll never get a degree, and if he doesn’t get a degree, he’ll have to move back in, and if he moves back in, Tim and his wife will have to baby-sit the whole new family of Brad, Brad’s wife, their kids, etc., when they are in walkers….

Important article snippet:

"We don’t have to take the substance out of funny jokes to consider what makes funny jokes funny, really. We just have to have the thick skin and miserable childhoods and caustic, bantering mentality that compose a comic sense of humor…and give a few nods to the elements of a good joke."

The Truth

Funny jokes are based in truth—somebody’s truth. This is unfortunately how racist jokes have survived, too, as they are based in a common understanding of what is a truth (which is in fact an ignorant mythological, collective truth). But since we can get away with humor about an ethnicity if we are of that ethnicity (and known for our people’s sense of humor, ahem), let’s pull off a mild one here:

What’s a Jewish dilemma?
Free ham.

Self- and Other-Effacing Funny Jokes

Telling the truth about oneself is safe. And the more ridiculous the better. David Sedaris is superb at pointing out his own inanities and idiosyncrasies: he writes of having the booze-drinking, cigarette-smoking, aproned housewife mother who has a coffee clatch neighbor over for a visit one morning, and how he, with OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder), is still compelled to carry out his necessary rituals, no matter how bizarre, no matter that an outsider will witness them. So he walks to the doorway of the kitchen where his mother and their neighbor are chatting, and he steps to the wall near the door, to the light switch. He begins his imperative licking of the light switch. The neighbor is stunned and staring. The mother just rolls her eyes and says something casual, like, “David, stop licking the light switch and come say hello to Suzie Q.” [note: paraphrased from memory]

The Funny Jokes without the Fanfare

Some of the funniest stuff is that which is not prefaced by any warning that it will be funny. The funniest people to me are those who are deadpan—as if they are SERIOUS—and we are the nervous gigglers who can’t quite wrap our brains around whether they are for real or not.

Cary Grant pulled this off in the best of ways, tossing off flip remarks every other line or so of dialogue.

Jake Johansen (sic) tells a wide-eyed, innocent tale that is so funny you pee a little.

No laugh, giggle, grin, or even smirk that indicates it is a joke.

Then again, there are hysterical jokesters who are so funny they can’t contain their usually straight-faced selves, and they laugh, too. This is funny, also. Louie Anderson, Jerry Seinfeld, and Ellen Degeneres come to mind. You can catch them breaking, and that makes their humor all the funnier.

And Timing Matters

This is the trickiest part of telling funny jokes, waiting for the beat, knowing the pause. But if you know your audience, know your joke (are comfortable with it) and don’t TRY too hard, it’ll come for you. Or it won’t, and they’ll kick you out of their homes, and you’ll be so ashamed you’ll move to a secluded hick town where no one laughs, an you’ll sink deeper and deeper into forgetting and depression and drinking Jack Daniels, about which, Robin Williams says, if alcohol is a crutch, then Jack Daniels is a wheelchair!

Well, I hope you found that amusing and funny! You should now have some ammo to help you get some good laughs along the road.

Croquet is a Great Sport

Ever tried playing croquet? Well, if you haven't, you should consider giving it a try. Below is a great article that describes the sport, and teaches the basics of how to play it. I hope you enjoy reading this fun and entertaining article!

Croquet is a competitive sport that involves hitting colored balls through a series of hoops called ‘wickets’ using a mallet. It is normally played on a lawn. It has been played for some years, and has recently been growing in popularity in some parts of the world, including America.

The game croquet was invented in Ireland as a variation of the older Italian lawn game ‘Pall Mall’, sometime around the year 1830. By 1850 it was hugely popular amongst the aristocracy of England, and eventually migrated to France, America, and Australia, all countries where the game is still popular today. In 1900 and 1904, during the games peak in popularity, it was played in the Olympics. Since then it waned in popularity somewhat, but has always retained a significant fan base.

Recreationally, the game is commonly played in the backyard, using the ‘backyard croquet’ rules. In backyard croquet, the game is treated as a kind of race and there is no scoring involved. Players have to knock their designated ball through the wickets in a certain order, and then hit a final peg as a finish line. Usually when someone makes it to the peg, the game is over. Players can knock their opponents’ balls out of the way using their own balls to buy time.

"Croquet is a fun, inexpensive and pleasant way to spend an afternoon with company, and can be played virtually anywhere with a lawn."

In tournaments and more competitive play, a variety of different scoring versions of croquet are played, the most popular version being ‘international-rules’ croquet, which is sometimes called ‘association’ croquet because it is played in the UK by the Croquet Association. This version allows players to make more than one stroke per turn so long as they get their ball through the appropriate wicket, and thus emphasizes shot-making ability.

Golf croquet is also a widely played version of croquet. In golf croquet the goal is to make it through the most hoops first. It is a much simpler version than international-rules croquet and is rapidly growing in popularity due to its low learning curve and competitive nature.

In the United States, ‘American-rules’ croquet is the version most commonly played. It is very similar to international-rules croquet but differs in a way to emphasize strategy over skill. For this reason it is popular amongst players who are otherwise not very dexterous or athletic, but enjoy a good mental challenge.

Croquet is a fun, inexpensive and pleasant way to spend an afternoon with company, and can be played virtually anywhere with a lawn. Croquet sets are sold online, in some department stores, or in most sporting goods stores and generally run in the $40-100 USD range, though some high quality sets can run upwards to $500.

Well, I hope you got a better understanding of how the sport of croquet works. This fun, cheap, and easily implemented game can be played by people of all ages. Now go out there and play some croquet!

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Hello, and thank you for visiting my site. If you're looking for ideas or information on a wealth of various activites that anyone can enjoy, then you've found the right place. Feel free to look around at the different articles, as there is something for everyone at the site!