The original inspiration for the Small Joys series was the simple occurrence of hearing a moment of genuine mirth recorded in a pop song. Laughs are critical to my survival.
The comedy world, from the 1950s forward, has expanded the number of comedians who tell stories about their personal lives and perspectives, and I love storytelling, so a comedian who can tell a great story while inserting laughs throughout is a treasure to me.
But…
I love the immediacy of a straightforward one-liner. There are the classics, “dad jokes” which got the name because these are the ones people can tell their kids or at a family dinner. These often have no official author, simply joining the public domain as oral tradition. These go back at least to vaudeville in performance, and thousands of years in oral traditions, but there are few great comedians today working in this form.
I thought today I’d simply share a couple lines that, no matter how many times I hear them, still make me chuckle. Only two of these are from active comedians (and one of those released a book last year Harold that basically fit new one liners into a prose story), since so many of the modern practitioners of the one-liner tend to be roast writers, and those require a knowledge of the person being roasted. I was looking for jokes that stand on their own or only require very broad knowledge–Jesus and Buddha are pretty big names.
There are many other great writers out there, but some jokes don’t translate as well to the written version. For example, Nikki Glaser’s new special, Someday You’ll Die, has some fantastic jokes, including one-liners, but my favorites use tone and tempo to work well. She is still one of the best at writing short jokes.
“My wife and I were happy for twenty years. Then we met.” —Rodney Dangerfield
“I don’t have a girlfriend, but I do know a woman who would be mad at me for saying that.” —Mitch Hedberg
“Who do you think was better, Jesus or Buddha? I mean, just in terms of not getting crucified?” —Anthony Jeselnik
“I was walking down the street wearing glasses and the prescription ran out.” —Steven Wright