Thirty plus years ago I was standing in the infield during our high school baseball practice while batting practice was going on. Some players were milling about but pretty much everyone on the field was paying attention to the batter. Some kid not on the baseball team (and a giant a-hole) wandered into the outfield to talk to the center fielder.
The batter ripped a pitch to the outfield, someone yelled heads up, and the a-hole kid started running as fast as he can, head down, to get out of harm’s way. He ran about 40 feet before the ball hit him directly in the head. He actually ran to the very point the ball was landing!
On that day, I saw the funniest thing I’ve ever seen.
The hardest I’ve ever laughed in my life was at the “campfire scene” in Blazing Saddles. (Okay, I’m low.)
The second hardest was when a friend showed my the box, in a supermarket, of a Bundt Cake mix, called “Tunnel of Fudge.” (Okay, I’m really, really low.)
Less hilarious, but still remarkably funny, was when two clerks at a Xerox shop did an unconscious back-to-back comedy routine. The first guy was patting at his pockets, trying to find his pen. The other guy, behind him and facing the other way, was opening up a Xerox machine, and pulling a bent, ruined pen out of its inner workings.
Not sure if it’s the funniest, but it’s in the running:
Singburi province in central Thailand, 1988. I’m sitting at an outdoor table at a restaurant. Down the street comes a Thai couple. She is furiously screaming at the man with a blood lust while chasing him waving a butcher knife. He is running ahead of her with his penis hanging out, but far from being scared, he keeps stopping when he gets a little ahead of her, turns around, laughs maniacally and waves his penis at her. This enrages her all the more, and she speeds up and yells louder each time. This cycle keeps repeating until they’ve passed from view.
I was a kid and on a car vacation with my parents. We came to some road construction and had to stop. As we sat there waiting for the follow-me truck, we could see a young man trying to drive a steel spike into the roadway with a sledge hammer without any help. He would set the spike upright, and tap-tap-tap to make it stay, then try to grab the handle of the hammer and hit it. But he would miss every time and spike would just fall over. Now this doesn’t sound all that funny, but my mother started giggling, then I started hee-hawing, and within a few minutes all three of us had tears running down our faces. Every time he tried again, we would collapse in helpless laughter. Just one of those things, I guess.
Had to be a video of a sinkhole opening up under an asphalt street and swallowing a parked, white pickup truck, that ever-so-slowly listed to the side, then dropped down. Way down.
I was walking along a paved trail near Rochester, N.Y., when I saw a man approach on a bicycle. Nothing unusual about that except that he was a real tough looking character. About my size, six feet tall, 200 pounds, bald head, arms covered with tattoos. Nobody I’d want to tussle with. He was striving mightily to stay astride a little girl’s neon-pink bicycle as he pedaled along. The thing that really killed me was the purple handlebar streamers. And the worst part was I couldn’t laugh at him until after he passed because I knew he could beat the shit out of me. The only thing I can figure is that he had car trouble and had to borrow his daughter’s bike.
I saw this video where a monkey flipped over a rock to find a snake underneath it, he threw up his arms, stumbled backwards and fainted. When he woke up he walked over and peeked under the rock again with the same result. I roar everytime I see this.
Waiting in line at the boat ramp, I watched a husband/wife duo attempt to launch a fishing boat they had on a trailer. The tow vehicle was an old POS compact car with a jury-rigged hitch. No way they should have been towing anything. Everyone at the ramp knew this was a disaster just waiting to happen. As she guided him back (screaming back and forth the entire time) I saw that their drain plug wasn’t in place, and the boat was filling with water.
By the time she realized what was going on, the car could no longer manage its load. Tires spinning, the car was slowly pulled into the water. When the driver got out he was waist deep and slipping/falling on the algae slick concrete.
We managed to get our boat launched off to the side, while the couple arranged a winch.
I was at a funeral with my Mom once for one of her uncles. Across the aisle from us and a pew ahead were sitting three little old men talking and having a good time waving their arms and canes around - until the end of their pew just popped off. The pew slanted to the aisle and those little men slid *BUMP! BUMP! BUMP! *right on top of each other into the aisle. The funeral director and pastor rushed over and helped them up, both getting thwacked with canes a few times since the little old men wouldn’t let go of their canes. They were unhurt so the pew was put back together and those three little old men sat down on it again. A short time later everyone stood for prayer, then sat down again. Mom and I were both looking that direction and sure enough BUMP! BUMP! BUMP! down they went as the end of the pew came off again.
At this point we were both crying with laughter, stuffing our fists in our mouths and shoving kleenex in our faces to hide the fact. The people around us feeling sympathetic for us taking the death so hard when in fact we were laughing our butts off at those little old men.
The funniest thing I ever saw was a HUGE pig hauler on a city street with a bright pink pig butt sticking out of each probably 100 holes in the sides. My friend and I just goggled at the site until one of us just said “pig butts” and that was it, instant roaring laughter- at the comment and at the absurdity of seeing 100 bright pink pig butts mooning us on the road. When we pulled up next to it I thought I was going to wet my pants.
Growing up, there was a handball game at school called Suicide. Somewhat like handball, but if you missed the ball/wall, or if the ball hit you and fell away, you had to run and touch the wall before another player got to the ball and hit the wall with it. If this happened 5 times you had to assume the position on the wall and the other players got to whack you in the ass with the ball as hard as they could. Also called Butts Up.
Yeah, we were 10.
My brother and Tim were playing this game in our driveway, only on rollerskates (Skaticide). Tim fumbled the ball, it dropped on the lawn, and he made a break for the garage door. I dove for the ball and rolled onto my back to throw it, and my brother, doing the same thing, landed atop me.
I threw the ball the best I could, and bounced it off the back of Tim’s head. Tim dropped like he’d been shot.
Closest I’ve ever come to pissing my pants from laughing.
When I live in NYC many years ago, I was enjoying a bright sunny day on my lunch hour. I was walking down 42nd Street, where Bryant Park was hidden by a hedge. All of a sudden I, and a few others, felt rain drops. We looked up at the blue sky, wondering where the rain was coming from, and why it was only raining where we were. On a hunch, I went around the bushes into the park, where I saw a homeless man fast asleep on a bench, his fly open, dick out, just having shot a stream of urine right over the hedge. I was simultaneously laughing and gagging.
Back when I was married my ex wife and I were walking down the street with the boys. We saw one of those wonderful neighborhood signs that warn that children are in the area. Yes, the “slow children” sign. We started giggling just a little about it when the youngest turned to us and asked what was so funny right as he walking into the sign without pausing. We had to end the walk as both my ex and I almost peed our pants laughing “with” him.
Along these lines, at gym class a kid who was…not too good at sports was stationed way out in the outfield. Way too far out for anyone to hit the ball out to him…but then of course someone did. He looked lost, he wandered to the left, he wandered to the right. Everyone feared for the worst, he was going to get clonked in the head and knocked out.
And then as the ball descended, he casually put his glove out at waist height–and caught the damn ball! It just dropped right into his glove like someone had placed it there. The batter actually saw what happened and fell to the ground laughing, as did a bunch of the rest of us. I still think it was the most miraculous catch of all time. A blindfolded kid would have had a better chance of catching it!
Apologies to those who remember that I’ve posted this tale before, but it still hasn’t been topped:
It happened when my brother and I were little, maybe six and seven. We were snuggled into our bunk beds, preparing to go to sleep, or at least turn out the lights, when we saw a gigantic palmetto bug clinging to the curtains. We both hollered for Mom, and she came marching in with a can of Raid, a picture of determination in a low cut slinky nightgown. She took aim and doused that bug with the poison.
Now, whether the bug took aim or not will never be known, but when the poison hit him he leaped straight backwards and fell down Mom’s cleavage. Mom screamed in terror, threw the can of bug spray, and took off running through the house, tearing at her clothes and shrieking like a banshee. My brother and I laughed so hard we both wet our beds.
The time when I have been utterly insensible and close to incontinence was a couple of years ago, visiting some friends in Belgium. We had a lovely meal and a few Duval beers and before we knew it we were diggin out his old copies of “viz” and going through the “Top Tips”
All four of us were trying to outdo each other and were all so racked with laughter that we could barely utter the words…that just made it all worse. This went on for about 20 minutes until sanity reigned once more.
Were they that funny?, Who knows but here’s an example.
My husband’s cat used to like to sharpen her claws on his jeans-clad legs - one day her claws were a bit long, and got stuck in the back of his jeans leg at thigh level. He started walking slowly around the living room, the cat was stuck to his leg by one front paw, so she was walking along slowly behind him on her hind legs. I got to watch the whole show from the couch, and I was laughing so hard I couldn’t breathe.
