Yahoo Finance Scott Aukerman: ‘Fart is the funniest word – and sound, and smell’
The funniest standup I’ve ever seen …
I’ve seen a LOT of standup. But I still think one of my favourite sets I’ve seen is one I wasn’t there for personally: John Mulaney’s Kid Gorgeous at Radio City special. Everything is there – unique ideas, phrasing, performance.
The funniest sketch I’ve ever seen …
One night in 1995, I saw David Cross and Bob Odenkirk in a tiny club in Santa Monica. I was crying laughing. The one that really stuck with me was “Asshole at a Party”, where David ended the sketch by eating broken glass and turning Bob’s priest character into his personal slave.
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The funniest TV show I’ve ever seen …
Nothing in recent memory made me laugh like Tim Robinson and Sam Richardson’s Detroiters. The day it didn’t get picked up for a third season, a part of me died! (The part that liked Detroiters.)
The funniest film I’ve ever seen …
The Naked Gun, by myself, in 1988. When Leslie Nielsen broke the penis off of the statue and rushed a screaming woman with it, I was wiping tears off of my face.
The funniest person I know …
Paul F Tompkins: he does standup, sketch, characters, improvisation – and is the funniest at everything he does.
The funniest heckle I’ve ever had …
After being heckled, I dared the heckler to come onstage and be funnier than me. He came up and started reading poetry from his journal. “I wrote this on 9/11,” he opened, taking a pause, “...2006.”
The funniest dream I’ve ever had …
For some reason, a lot of my dreams involve me sitting on the toilet and people accidentally barging in to find me. This should be funny, but it is not! It adds a lot of stress to my nights. I hope the other people in my dreams are not dreaming this themselves. That would be mortifying!
The funniest book I’ve ever read ...
I recently read John Hodgman’s Vacationland, and, after the first chapter, had to text John to tell him I thought it was not only the funniest chapter I had ever read, but might be the funniest THING I had ever read. The rest of the book doesn’t disappoint.
The funniest meal I’ve ever eaten ...
The first date I went on with my wife was at a place called “Sushi ‘n’ Tap.” The waiters would deliver you California rolls, then do 15-minute tap dance routines at your table. If any server quit, the auditions involved in covering their shifts would cripple the restaurant. Which might explain why, when we tried to return for a second date, the place was no longer there.
The funniest dream I’ve ever had ...
For some reason, a lot of my dreams involve me sitting on the toilet and people accidentally barging in to find me. This should be funny, but it is not! It adds a lot of stress to my nights. I hope the other people in my dreams are not dreaming this themselves. That would be mortifying!
The funniest thing that shouldn’t be funny ...
People get snooty about America’s Funniest Home Videos. But there have been many times when Zach Galifianakis and I have relieved stress by putting on a compilation tape and laughing our silly heads off. They still got it!
The funniest number ...
They say comedy should be done in threes, but I’ve always felt it should be done in seventeens.
The funniest word ...
“Fart” is still not only a funny word, but also a funny sound. And they smell funny, too. The trifecta! How many words are all three?
The funniest joke I’ve ever heard ...
I really like jokes that take 10 minutes to tell, with a lot of details, none of which end up being pertinent to the punchline. There’s a joke my friend told me when I was 18 called “tickle your ass with a feather” that, in my retelling, gets more and more elaborate every time I tell it. The disappointment on the listener’s face when they realise they’ve wasted so much time for a disappointing punchline is priceless. And that style has served me well my entire career.
Scott Aukerman is a writer and director who won an Emmy for Between Two Ferns With Zach Galifianakis
