@@tvdinner325 the Germans would continue to rely on outsourced humor until the Russians mistook the _punchline_ as an excuse for physical violence... they have since rescinded their comedy policy and have had to rely on shipments of fart jokes from the United States
When manager of Celtic, Gordon Strachan was approached by a TV interviewer at a game and was asked "Gordon, can we have a quick word?" He replied "Velocity," and walked off.. Brilliant.
Pundit in the 80s n John Salakos protest at playing a game of football on sunday cos he was religious ,pundit said god wont mind he invented the damn game
A German couple goes on holiday to France. The French border guard asks, “Nationality?” They reply, “German.” The guard asks, “Occupation?” The German man says, “No, no. Just visiting.”
As a German, I have to get involved. For us Germans, humor is a very serious matter. At school, we receive intensive training on how to understand humor correctly, and we are obliged to successfully complete a high-level humor course while we are still at school. The success of this program speaks for its correctness. We are very proud of what we have achieved. Scientific source: Institute H. Kloettenschreck (Berlin)
Commedian Emo Phillips had a joke about his German brother in law complaining that you just can't find a good bagel in Berlin. Emo reply's "And who's fault is that?"
I have a feeling not a lot of people got the joke here. (Only 7 of us, so far, as in 12 years later). Supposedly the Jewish people in Poland created the bagel, and yes, there is no better bagel than a Jewish bagel. Considering what the Germans did to the Jewish people, no wonder that you can't find a good bagel in Berlin. Dark joke.
Reminds me of Robin Williams' bit when an audience member asked him why there wasn't so much comedy in Germany, and he replied, “Did you ever think you might have killed off all the funny people?” 😂
Oh, that's really biting - and Williams tipping his hat to the very Great tradition of humour in Jewish culture, miles ahead of anyone else as far as I can see. And I have been avidly reading, watching, and listening to humour for 50+ years.
German joke: Why did Stasi agents always work in groups of three? One to do the reading. One to do the writing. And one to keep an eye on the two intellectuals.
I heard that joke in Communist Czechoslovakia in the 1970s about the Czech security services. It’s not a German joke per we, it is a joke that existed in every country under Communism in Central and Eastern Europe.
We also tell that joke in Portugal, but with the KGB instead… Definitely from the Cold War days. ;) Or maybe it was my aunt, who lived in Warsaw during that time, who personally recounted the joke to my family, because I don’t ever recall listening to it outside of that setting and everyone I know of who I tell it to seems to not know it, so there’s that.
@@tvgcmma9215 Ah, good old Bob. He always wanted to die peacefully in his sleep, like his father did. Not screaming in terror like his father's passengers.
@@zacmumblethunder7466 And Chubby Brown's rip-off of it - I always remember my dad's last words ; "Fuck me a bus" James Corden will by now have used all of these obviously.
A German joke: If you speak three languages, you're trilingual. If you speak two languages, you're bilingual. If you speak one language, you're English.
As a Dutch friend commented to me when I said we were lazy when it came to languages, 'You don't need to learn another language. But if we want to get on in the world, we have to learn English at least.'
@@janeweedon6335 Yes, I've noticed that the people who tend to be best at learning other languages are the ones who have most need of it because their first language is little spoken outside their own country. The Dutch are one example, Scandinavians another.
I'm 72 and the Pythons were the best form of comedy for my generation. All the others including Saturday Night Live owe the Pythons big time for breaking through the stodgy, boring humor that preceded them. They were the Beatles of the comedy world.
Interesting observation, that sounds abt right from my exposure to older comedy. (Higher than average person, lower than a person of the relevant age.)
I think the phrase " We have no sense of humor, but we understand you do", is genious. honestly the funniest part of this monologue is a quote of this german Guy.
I was in Brussels, taking a photo of a mural inside the main station before jumping on the train. This guy came up to me, and asked me if I wanted him to take a pic with me in front of the mural, I said no thanks. He said, ah you from the UK ? I said yeah, he said he was from Germany. We had quick chat about football. then he said, oh he loves British shows, comedy shows. He loves things like Fawlty towers (with the goose-stepping) and Allo Allo - he just cracks up watching it, he said. He said many Germans don't like it, but he loves it all. We chatted and laughed a bit more about a few things before we said our goodbyes. Couldn't have met a nicer bloke!
It makes sense that Eric would recount this story because I think that he and Graham had the most subversive sense of humour of all of the Pythons. Great stuff!
Graham Chapman was absolutely brilliant ... (from one of the books about the Pythons) John Cleese had written a sketch about not being able to return an obviously faulty toaster to a department store (based on a real experience) and read it to Graham who thought for a moment and said "that's boring, make it a parrot instead." That's the genesis of one of the greatest comedy sketches - the dead parrot sketch. John Cleese did all the work and Graham made it hilarious with just a single thought.
@@Ericwvb2 The 'Graham part' of creative works is typically underappreciated, because it makes the 'grunt world' feel insecure. Few understand the sacrifice of honing excellence for years in order to scarcely deliver it poignantly. Remember the Star Wars editing anecdote. So much work went into making a film and it was shit and then wife re-edited the material and it became great.
Wow. I was in West Germany on March break back in 1978 and our bus driver had to ask three times where the Dachau concentration camp was and the same thing happened, no one supposedly knew where it was and we were a few kilometers away. I wonder if the people of the town still do that. Of course in hindsight, in 1978 there were plenty of people there who lived through the war.
That was true in 1965. We were stationed in Wiesbaden and my USAF dad decided we needed to go to Dachau. Hard time finding it. No signs and the locals didn't know where it had been.
As awesome as Chapman's quip was it's probably only the second greatest spur-of-the-moment Python quip. The greatest one (imho) belongs to Idle: at the premiere of The Holy Grail a reporter asked the Pythons what their next film would be and Idle quipped that it would be "Jesus Christ: Lust for Glory" ... a comment that ended up being the inspiration for Python's finest hour and a half :)
Palin always had the best one-liners. Towards the end of the Meaning of Life, when they die of the Salmon mousse, as they walk out, Palin just ad libs; "Wait, I haven't even eaten any of the Salmon Mousse". classic
@@knuffelknuffi That someone had the balls to say "Tell them we're Jewish" and it actually worked is what I personally find fucking hilarious. The joke was guilt tripping them with a lie about what was a taboo subject at the time.
Let me explain what a "one-liner" is. It is a self contained joke. Meaning that it doesn't require an entire story to give it context which contributes to the humor.
The irony, A critique from somebody who is in the rare club that share their surname with a famous dictator responsible for murdering even more individuals than Hitler ever did.. Oh, Sorry Mac- Thought you were "Yeah Mao"
That great man who saw Monty Python in Britain and brought them to Bavaria to do a special for German TV was Alfred Biolek who just recently passed away. 😔
That was such a lovely program and great memorial to a dearly missed brother in comedy. Still funny. One if the smartest groups of people ever - have to be smart to be a good comedian.
But one German stand-up comic at the Just For Laughs festival (I don't remember his name; this was televised many years ago) said they indeed do have a sense of humor, and then proceeded to prove it. "Joke number one. Take my wife, I command you."
+Don Brogan You destroyed Europe in a few years....AGAIN!!! (the 4th Reich is based on economy though...) You Germans are certainly good on having fan with Non-Germans, I can agree on that!!!
+Είμιστι όλ' τσ' Αριστιράς τσ' Προυόδ' κι τσ' 'Ιπρας When they occupied Serbia, they killed 100 civillians for every German soldier killed, now they take 100 euros for every euro "invested". From master race to master card - pure comedy gold (without gold standard). I hope Serbia never joins the EU, and the reason I say that is because it's shit. Love Greece though, my favourite country.
Fair to say they are only funny to the intelligent and well read. One has to have a fairly good knowledge of British and European history and British ways of life to truly appreciate their humor. Sorry for your luck that you fell short, it is really quite brilliant.
woodkern Why thank you! Thank you very much indeed! To all the struggling twits out there, please, let this be an inspiration to you. It is really for all of you that I do what I do.
Hilarious !!! I love this man and his amazing , wonderfully talented group of friends !! Love it ! Thank you knold20 ! :) I could listen for hours to the stories they have to tell.....can you imagine the hilarious situations they would have found themselves in , over all the years.......lifetimes of tales....
Europeans: Heaven is where . . . • The cars are German • The guards are British • The cooks are Italian • The lovers are French • and everything is organized by the Swiss Hell is where . . . • The cars are French • The guards are German • The cooks are British • The lovers are Swiss • and everything is organized by the Italians [Just BTW, I have an ancestral foot each in two of those lands.] Update, 2016 Nov 5: The Italians and the French are swapped in the first half . . . should go: . . . • The cooks are French • The lovers are Italian . . . I think I was recalling my Italian grandmother's cooking when I first posted ;-) Hat-tip to Douglas Butcher %
In a similar vein i was on a visit to the middle east and on the trip were 2 Irish guys who were best mates from way back. The guide was pointing out various items of interest including a mosque, at which point one of the Irish guys shouted out "is that a Presbyterian mosque" at which point the minibus passengers just fell about laughing.
Chapmans line , although "very witty, very, very, witty" and certainly would have made even Oscar Wilde wish he'd been the one to have said it, alas is not a one liner., but a simple, albeit razor sharp, hilariously sarcastic "quip"`.
There was no single person who was "the brains behind Python". The Brits were all previously students at Oxford or Cambridge, which is where they all met, and all participated in writing the show and movies. Gilliam, the American animator, went to Occidental College in LA. Decisions on which material to use were democratic. As for the movies, Jones & Gilliam directed _Holy Grail_ and Jones directed _Life of Brain_ and _Meaning of Life._ Now, if you look at the success of all the Pythons after their last movie, you'd have to say Terry Gilliam has been the most successful having directed _Time Bandits, Brazil, The Fisher King, 12 Monkeys,_ et al.
+Ledge Buoy Still, this is not what a one-liner is. A one-liner is a complete joke delivered in one line, which this isn't. It's more of a punch-line tho - a funny line at the end of a story.
The Ungodly When they were not allowed entrance and his friend thought that saying "Tell them we're jewish." might change their mind this single line contained a historic reference, since jews used to be the one group of people that ended up there, it was painfully ironic because it showed that they actually were jews trying to enter a concentration camp of all places and pretty macabre and dark since it joked about genocide. In essence to everyone present when it was delivered that one line was an entire joke containing all the information needed in that specific situation. A typical oneliner would be something along the lines of "A baby seal walks into a club." (yes I took the first example wikipedia delivered. sue me xD) and this oneliner basically came down to "A group of jews walk into a concentration camp." but it was delivered in a manner that was appropriate since everyone involved knew where they were and only the information that they were jews was missing. Also the whole thing about this being "a funny line at the end of a story" completely misses the point. John Idle is not delivering the onliner in this story, he's telling people about the time he witnessed someone else deliver it and why it was so funny at that given time.
For years, I have been obliged to sit in a room with people laughing at his shows. I thought I was the only person who didn't find anything he did even slightly amusing. Thank you for letting me know I am not alone.
@@harryfaber You are deffinately not alone. This McIntyre guy must have been in the right place at the right time. TV producer 'we need a commedian' McIntyre 'me' TV producer - 'you must be joking'.
I remember seeing this when it aired originally. I laughed my tail off the whole way through and I still talk about this joke all the time. I also talk about how the pretended to kick over Graham’s “ashes” then use a hand vacuum to clean him up.
Reminds me of a story someone told of a group of German businessmen visiting New York City. They went out to a comedy club and enjoyed the show so much, they asked to go backstage to see the comic. The lead German was very enthusiastic, praising the performer. "You are so wonderful! Why don't we have anyone like you in our country?" The comic looked at them, stone-faced. "Because you killed them all."
This is one very dark piece of humor which most lateral thinking people who seek to observe both comedy and tragedy on the stage of life without becoming a victim of it, really should watch. Absolute food for thought.
Why so many people don't seem to understand that the one-liner is not the whole clip, but what Graham Chapman said? I mean, if there's a video titled "the craziest motorcycle stunt ever", and the first 90% of the clip would be about the motorcyclist preparing for the stunt, would you say "this is not a motorcycle stunt", even if the rest 10% would include the stunt itself? I admit I'm not too good with examples but I think this sums up my point pretty well.
I think the point is that it's simply can't be a one-liner joke if it needs a whole story in addition. That's why the name says *one*-liner. These people were right, this is simply not this type of joke, it's a funny anecdote instead.
If I understood him correctly, no one knew WHERE it was. I think this isn't too far off, because like no one in Germany knows the irrelevant village of Dachau. Of course we have heard there was a camp, but I always though Dachau was in eastern Germany or even in Poland, until I had a look at the map right now..
Graham Chapman's comment was the one liner. Not the whole anecdote. Just Graham's part. Somehow the German's in the comments got it and no-one else did.
Robin Williams was on a German talk show. The host asked him why did he suppose that the German people seemed to have no sense of humor. Robins responded "well, maybe it's because you killed all the funny people!".
Judging by many of the comments I don't think everyone got the joke, it's dark, it's bold (in today's world), and it's funny... The title is a little misleading
This was mmediately after an Air Traffic Controllers’ strike in Malaga had ended. A Britannia Airline captain asked a Hapag Lloyd charter 737 aircraft ahead of him who was just about to take off: “How did you beat us to the runway?” “Ve got up very early zis morning und put our towels on ze runway” replied the Hapag Lloyd.
Missed my stop on the underground and ended up at the end of the line which was Dachau. Late at night and noticed the eerie silence there before i saw the sign Dachau. shit you not.
