For our June/July issue, we assembled 22 of the smartest comic minds right now at comedy clubs and asked them to tell the greatest joke they know (including above, from left: Mike Birbiglia, Jessi Klein, Wyatt Cenac, Phoeboe Robinson, Hari Kondabolu, Janeane Garofalo, John Hodgman). For more including videos and profiles of the comedians, click here.
*Esquire cannot guarantee that these jokes will be great or funny to everyone.
It's from Mitch Hedberg:I wrote a letter to my dad. I wrote, "I really enjoyed being here," but I accidentally wrote rarely instead of really. But I still wanted to use it, so I crossed it out and wrote, "I rarely drive steamboats, Dad. There's a lot of shit you don't know about me. Quit trying to act like I'm a steamboat operator." This letter took a really harsh turn right away. —Mike Birbiglia
From Mario Joyner: By now, there should be a machine that you just back up for like a second— zap. That should be it. There should be no embarrassing bending over at the doctor's office in this day and age. We're in the age of laser eye surgery. Laser eye surgery! They perform surgery on your eye with a laser. Prostate exam? Finger in the ass. —Wyatt Cenac
Wanda Sykes talked about Barack Obama in her I'ma Be Me special. She said: First black president. I'm so happy, 'cause now I can relax a little bit. You know, I can loosen up. Don't have to be so black all the time. Don't have to be so dignified . . . I can buy whole watermelons now. I no longer have to grow them in my closet under my weed lamp. —Phoebe Robinson
A joke written by my friend and writing partner, Ahamefule Oluo: What do you call Neil deGrasse Tyson pouring champagne all over his naked chest? An astro-fizzy-tits. —Hari Kondabolu
Louis C. K.'s joke about how you could tell how bad of a person you were by how long it took you after 9/11 to masturbate—for him it was between the first building going down and the second tower going down. —Jessi Klein
There's an old Jewish man walking on the beach—Al Frankentold me this around 1994—and he comes across a magic lantern. He rubs it and a genie comes out. The genie says to the old Jewish man, "I will grant you anything you want." The old Jewish man pulls out a map of the Middle East and shows it to the genie and says, "I would like peace in the Middle East between Israelis and the Palestinians." The genie looks at the map and says, "I cannot do that. Anything else?" And so the Jewish man says, "I would like my wife to blow me one more time." The genie says, "Let me see that map again." —Janeane Garofalo
Peter Cook taught me to shut up. It was his famous sketch with Dudley Moore, where Moore is a one- legged man, hopping manically, auditioning to be Tarzan. Cook regarded him with his sepulchral deadpan before quietly pointing out that Moore's problem was in the leg division: "You are deficient in it"—pause— "to the tune of one." —John Hodgman
The Three Amigos raised me because my parents didn't have time. There's this scene where Martin Short, Steve Martin, and Chevy Chase are all on horses in the desert and they are all superthirsty and they all have canteens. Steve Martin turns his over and it's empty. Martin Short turns his over and it's all sand. And then Chevy Chase turns his over and it's full of water and it's going all over him, and then he throws it out. And then he gets a thing of lip balm and just starts putting it on his lips, and to the other guys he's like, "Lip balm?" —Whitney Cummings
This is from underrepresented, underappreciated genius Brent Weinbach: I believe in the vagina like other people believe in God. I've never seen one before, but I have faith. —Moshe Kasher
From an Eddie Murphy bit in Delirious: Ever have a heavy-set aunt fall down the steps? Make a whole lot of fuckin' noise. It's scary, too, 'cause they be calling Jesus on the way down. —Chris D'Elia
The peekaboo. It's endless. It regenerates upon itself. —Maria Bamford
Lavell Crawford. Very, very fat man. Very funny. He had a joke: The other day I got out of the car and this little boy was walking by. He just stopped and he stared at me and he was like, "Whoa." Then I was like, "Boy, whatchu lookin' at?" Little boy was like, "I can't even fit all of you in my eyes." —Damon Wayans Jr.
The funniest joke I think I ever heard is part of Jerry Seinfeld's airplane material from his late-nineties special. There's one line where he's describing the way flight attendants look at you when they're closing the curtain to first class: "Well, maybe if you worked a little harder, I wouldn't have to do this." —Gabe Liedman
It's from Anthony Jeselnik: When I finished high school, I wanted to take my graduation money and buy myself a motorcycle, but my mom said no. See, she had a brother who died in a horrible motorcycle accident when he was eighteen. And I could just have his motorcycle. —Riki Lindhome
A couple of guys, very much Of Mice and Men, get a job working at a ranch. On the ranch, there's a beautiful girl, the daughter of the man who owns the ranch. She comes out every day, gets on her horse, takes the horse for a ride, comes back, goes in the house. The big guy says to the little guy, "I want to talk to her. How do I talk to her?" Little guy says, "Tell you what you do—it's easy: Paint one of her horse's legs green, she'll talk to you." The big guy paints one of the horse's legs green. She comes out, she looks beautiful in her riding outfit, goes out for her ride, comes back, goes into the house, doesn't say a word. Big guy says, "You lie to me, she not say anything!" Little guy says, "All right, paint all of the horse's legs green, she'll talk to you." Big guys says, "All right. I do that, you better be right." So he paints all four of the horse's legs green, and she comes out in an even more beautiful riding outfit, she looks amazing, she goes for a ride, comes back, goes in the house, doesn't say a word. Big guy says, "I'm going to hurt you, you lie to me, make a fool of me." And the little guy goes, "Okay, you paint the whole horse green and you can beat the crap out of me if she doesn't talk to you." Big guy stays up all night. Two coats on the horse—the horse is completely green. She comes out in her riding outfit looking gorgeous, she looks at the horse, and she says, "Why is my horse painted green?" The big guy responds: "You wanna fuck?" —Jeff Garlin
There was a street joke my dad always told growing up. I've heard a million times, so it's no longer funny to me, but: Two cannibals are eating a clown, and one looks at the other and says, Does this taste funny to you? —Joe Mande
A man and a woman go on a game show, like a Password kind of game, and the guy has to draw a note card. On the note card is a word, and the woman has to ask questions to guess what the word is, and the guy can only answer yes or no. So the announcer's like, "Your time begins now!" And the guy picks up the note card and he's looking at the word on the note card, and he can't believe it because the word is horsecock. The guy's sweating and he's thinking, How is she going to guess this? How is this ever going to happen? The woman starts asking questions: "Um...I don't know where to begin. Is it something I could put in my mouth?" The guy's standing there unsure, and he's like thinking and he's like, "Yeah, technically, yes, it is something you could put in your mouth, yep." And the woman goes, "Um, okay...is it horsecock?" —Iliza Shlesinger
Good Will Hunting, Matt Damon to Robin Williams: A plane takes off, and once it's leveled out at its cruising altitude, the pilot finishes addressing the passengers. Thinking his microphone is off, the pilot then mumbles to himself, "I'd love a blowjob and a cup of coffee." Of course the passengers hear this, so one of the female flight attendants rushes toward the cockpit to let the captain know his mic is still on. As she runs up the aisle, one of the male passengers yells out, "Don't forget the coffee." —Sebastian Maniscalco
By Mitch Hedberg: I'm sick of following my dreams—I'm just going to ask them where they are going and hook up with them later. —Natasha Leggero
A guy walks into a convenience store, and he grabs a single-serving meal, a single-serving drink, a single-serving toothpaste, a single-serving dessert, single-serving everything, and he goes up to the counter with it and the woman at the counter says, "Let me guess, you're single?" And he says, "Yeah, how could you tell?" And she says, "Because you're really fucking ugly." —Rory Scovel
A string and his friends walk into a bar, and the string goes up to get a drink and the bartender says, "We don't serve strings here." So the string ties himself in a loop and does up the top of his head and then goes up to the bar, and the bartender goes, "Uh . . . are you a string?" And the string goes, "No, I'm a frayed knot." —Kumail Nanjiani
A guy's driving down an old country road and he sees a farmer in his orchard feeding his pigs, but what he's doing is he's taking one pig at a time, holding him up, letting him eat an apple out of the tree, and then setting him down before picking up another pig and letting him eat an apple. So the guy pulls over and walks up to the farmer and he says, "Wouldn't it save time to just knock all the apples on the ground and let the pigs eat them all at once?" And the farmer, confused, looks at him and says, "What's time to a pig?" —Doug Stanhope
Published in the June/July 2015 issue.
