Funniest joke at this year's Edinburgh fringe - 2024 edition

dear god in heaven

sorry I voted for the one I hated the most, reflexively (Grease)

the tables one is prob the most amusing to me

big congrats on finding one of them funny

lol I wouldn't go quite that far

The Gaslight one reminds me of this Bluesky post from this weekend:

"<chuckling> I'm pretty sure I'd remember a band called the Gaslight Anthem, dear"

I like the House joke

I like Eleanor Morton, who just does very funny character stuff, so voted for her unfunny one liner.

That might be the worst of the lot. These people get paid for this shite.

Barely.

This seems a new low even for the Fringe.

I like the Shakira one but it’s not really a joke

the tables joke is too Jerry Seinfeld.

Is this stuff comedy for crossword puzzle obsessives?

It's comedy for BBC Radio 4 commissioning editors and Channel 4 panel show producers.

I don't think this is the official Fringe poll, that comes a bit later in August. This is just a list of gags that the Guardian has thrown together.

you mean... there's more? *gulps*

the spirit level one isn't funny but I don't find it aggravating like most of the others, it's just a Christmas cracker type joke

The Gaslight one reminds me of this Bluesky post from this weekend:

"<chuckling> I'm pretty sure I'd remember a band called the Gaslight Anthem, dear"

― Instead of create and send out, it pull back and consume (unperson), Monday, 12 August 2024 21:21 (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

here's another version of the Gaslight joke that's better than the one in the poll

https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:zijqvcafgixq55vpmu7atl2g/bafkreiemaurop7nci3c3pyhaoo56rb2mw3x7u67yznz37mgtzslpi25wde@jpeg

I like the House joke

― laughter is the best weapon (DJP), Monday, August 12, 2024 3:34 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

yeah it would've been good a decade ago

The gaslight one might have been funny if it hadn't already been made by literally everyone else who has ever heard of the concept. The comedian responsible would have to work very hard to convince me they didn't just lift it directly off twitter.

And of course they're all vastly inferior to this Simpsons joke:

MARGE: Come on, Homer. Japan will be fun. You liked Rashomon.
HOMER: That's not how I remember it.

I like the jerry Seinfeld joke

The surrounding context of all that has-been is really putting in some legwork for it tho

dont we vote for worst and not best?

i cant in any conscience pick a best because even the ok ones are just nicked from the internet

the faff about one is there a joke there? thats the worst.

It’s literal gaslighting to have us believe that gaslighting joke is original.

Tbh if someone told me the “a whim away” joke irl I would probably snort, or say “heh.”

o

House one is the worst one

Spirit level one is a literal Christmas cracker joke and I’m baffled that anyone was able to recall it for long enough to put it into an article

yep all wretched

no 'how you tell em' saves any of these ffs

As usual, if you imagine them being performed by Ken Dodd some are actually funny.

Or maybe just the ancient grease one.

Are you guys ignoring the table "joke" on purpose?

The cabinet part is holding most of the weight in that couplet

Table joke is bargain bin Mitch Hedberg

yes but not even

"Buses: Are they even a vehicle and not a waiting room on wheels?"

What's the deal with houses? They're just the wilderness with walls and floors.

Yesssss, I live for these polls. So excruciatingly bad! I did a silent chuckle over the gaslight gag. But yeah. You could probably extract as many causally farted-out ILX posts from any given day that are funnier than anything on offer here.

I mean...are they specifically instructed to make jokes that your dad would have second thoughts about?

is comedy at the fringe genuinely this bad or is this more of a reflection of the guardian's terrible sense of humor

What is RE? Religious Education? Do you guys have that in school?

(xp) Both.

jesus god the House joke is cringe at even higher levels that usual, since it's not like a failed pun, it's just a terrible attempt at misdirection humor based on an outdated reference

agree with the gaslight insults above, like ILX made better gaslighting jokes five or six years ago when the term exploded in the general public

What is RE? Religious Education? Do you guys have that in school?

Mostly involved defacing the textbooks by drawing bums and willies on the illustrations of Jesus in the wilderness iirc, while the teacher droned on about God

xxp yeah, RE is Religious Education

It would be easy to blame all this on the abysmal standard of UK comedy but half the comedians at the Fringe are Australian or Irish.

these jokes all remind me of the time on ComicView where JB Smoove went on for 5 minutes about how he heard Jodici was coming to his town and he was so excited to see them but it turned out to be a guy named Joe from D.C.

sorry JODECI (i always fuck that up)

Not sure how universal RE is but I had it in my first year of secondary school and never again.

voted Chris Turner as it's still a groaner but one that I might giggle at while flipping the bird if I was drunk enough

Not sure how universal RE is but I had it in my first year of secondary school and never again.

Same. I remember on tbe end of year exam i wrote tbat religious symbols were mainly played in church bands, which i tbought was hilarious at the time, but then i was eleven years old.

*taps the sign, the sign says "comedy hasn't been rattling off one-liners for a long time, this is like complaining about the quality of Mojo's 'best guitar solos at Homelands'"*

Demi is great so:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeL4c_cXSyQ

As a lover of puns and jokes that provoke groans, there's a few solid ones in this poll.

The comedian responsible would have to work very hard to convince me they didn't just lift it directly off twitter.

ZCM has evidently not seen the film herself either, as the full bit repeatedly refers to it being directed by Hitchcock.

Maybe she's trying to convince you it was.

Oh this joke has levels now oooo

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

I'm voting "Cabinets: what are they hiding?" Just that half of the joke.

Fucking cabinets

am actually boycotting my own poll, it's that bad

If you search the "whim away" joke, it's been done a million times

War, sister it’s just a whim away

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Delete ilx

delete Edinburgh more like

Here are the actual top 10 funniest jokes at the Fringe...

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/article/2024/aug/19/mark-simmons-ship-joke-named-funniest-of-edinburgh-fringe

... can we bear another poll though?

Definitely:

Official funniest joke of the Edinburgh Fringe 2024 (accept no imitations)

I'm voting "Cabinets: what are they hiding?" Just that half of the joke.

― jmm, Sunday, 18 August 2024 16:38 (yesterday

whats the joke?

Going to see Demi do a backflip on sat. Very excited.

He was great. Obv I knew he'd be funny but somehow I didn't expect it to also be moving. He said a lot of ppl from streaming services where there and it was being filmed so hopefully it will get picked up by someone.