The deadliest joke in the world

The deadliest joke in the world ( English The Funniest Joke in the World , also Joke Warfare or Killer Joke ) is a sketch by the British comedian group Monty Python .

The sketch first aired on the BBC television series Monty Python's Flying Circus . A shortened version was shot for the film And Now for Something Completely Different (German Monty Python's wonderful world of gravity ). The sketch can also be found in the computer game Monty Python's The Meaning of Life .

content

The sketch takes place during World War II . The British joke maker Ernest Scribbler ( Michael Palin ) invents the funniest joke in the world and literally laughs himself to death at it . Others who try to investigate also die reading the joke.

After the British Army accepts the joke and carefully tests it, the joke is translated into German to serve as a weapon of war. Because of the lethal nature of the joke, a different translator is used for each individual word. A translator who accidentally sees two words spends several weeks in the hospital. The translated joke is described as "more than 60,000 times stronger than Britain's great pre-war joke". In addition, pre-war Prime Minister Arthur N. Chamberlain is shown how he delivers his speech “Peace for Our Time” after the Munich Agreement has been concluded.

The German vocalization results in the nonsense text “When is that piece gitt and Schlottermeyer? - Yes: Bayer dog. That, or the Flipper-Wald Gespütt! ", Which is used successfully on the battlefield. The Germans, too, feverishly develop a deadly joke (referred to in the sketch as a "V-Joke" in reference to German weapons of retaliation ), but remain unsuccessful. The German answer to the British joke is: “Zere vere two peanuts valking down the street, and von vas a salted [pause]… peanut. [The Deutschlandlied is played] “The speaker of the joke reads it with a mock German accent . The “joke” lies in the pun between “ one was a salted… peanut ” (German: “one was a salted… peanut”) and “ one was assaulted ” (German: “one was attacked”). In one scene, the joke is received on the radio by a British couple who look confused after the joke is over instead of dying of laughter.

The entire sketch ends with the statement “ In 1945, peace broke out. ”(German:“ In 1945 peace broke out ”) and the speaker of the sketch stands in the manner of a documentary in front of a tombstone on which the inscription“ To the unknown joke ”can be read, alluding to the tomb of the unknown soldier . The spokesman remarks that the Geneva Convention has now banned "joke warfare" and that the last surviving version of the deadly joke was buried there (meaning the grave at his feet) so that it would never be told again. At the end of the sketch, Rule, Britannia! until it is interrupted by a whistle.

Differences between series and film version

In the film And Now For Something Completely Different… a very shortened version of the sketch is used, which is about half as long (≈ 5 minutes) as the series version (≈ 10 minutes). Accordingly, some scenes have been omitted, in detail these were:

• A television reporter ( Terry Jones ) reports live as a police officer ( Graham Chapman ) enters Scribbler's house to ensure the joke. This fails but fatally because of the joke.
• The joke is brought to the War Department, whose employees also laugh at each other.
• A captured British soldier (Palin) is interrogated by an SS officer ( John Cleese ) and his assistant Otto (Chapman) to reveal the joke. After all sorts of puns rejected with “Zat's not funny!”, The soldier finally confesses the joke under torture with a pen, which then costs the Germans their lives.
• For their part, the Germans are researching the “V-Joke” in Peenemünde . A German joke inventor ( Eric Idle ) finally reads out a suggestion ("She's a Kinnerhunder and two Mackel over and that's the Wunderhaus, please. They speak 'No', the gentlemen speak, 'Is resurrected with zveitingen'."), But will shot with the comment “We'll let you know” (German: “You hear from us!”).
• The scenes with the “V-joke” and the report after the end of the war are also omitted.

In return, as part of the course of the film, the film version has a different introduction and a different ending. The beginning is a reconciliation of the previous sketch Seduced Milkmen ( seduced milkmen ) in which a provocatively dressed woman with unique gestures a milkman , only to have it then to lock attracted to her house in a room, in which are already countless other milkmen. In the film, this is a joke that Scribbler came up with just before the "deadliest joke of all time", but immediately discards it.

The end of the sketch has been changed in the film version as follows: A scene from a hospital in which wounded people in plastered and bandaged cast hunched over with laughter is shown as a comment that the Germans had suffered terrible losses because of the joke . Then Chamberlain's “pre-war joke” is presented and Hitler's answer: “My dog's got no nose! - And how does it smell? - Awful! "(German:" My dog ​​has no nose! - And how does it smell then? - Terrible! ") At this point in the film there is a transition to an animated film, whereas in the series the order of the hospital scene and the prewar joke was reversed , and the interrogation of the British soldier was shown after the hospital scene.

Others

In the computer game Codename Panzers , the English original title of the sketch (written without spaces, i.e. thefunniestjokeintheworld ) is a cheat that kills all of the opponent's units on the screen and shows lines of text from the joke on the screen.

With Google Translate , there is a Easter Egg : If you "If the Nunstück git and Slotermeyer Yes Beiherhund the Or gersput the Flipperwaldt?!" wants to translate into English, the only translation displayed is [Fatal Error].

The band Killing Joke (" Killing Joke ") named themselves after the sketch.

The footage of Hitler used comes from the Riefenstahl - propaganda film Triumph of the Will . The man who was cut in between saluting Hitler is Reich Labor Leader Konstantin Hierl .

In the TV movie Two Santa Clauses there is also the idea of ​​a joke in which someone dies of laughter every time it is told.

literature

• Monty Python's Flying Circus . Volume 1. Zurich 1993, ISBN 3-251-00222-8 (German translation).