THE FUNNIEST JOKE IN THE WORLD™

As I have travelled about, in my own limited way, in this great big world of ours, I’ve started to notice certain things that bind all of the humans I’ve seen together and which gives me hope, in some small way, that people aren’t all that different after all, despite the many ways in which we try to convince ourselves of our uniqueness and individuality.

Somehow, in many ways, people really are alike all over…

Or rather, we tend to fall into two camps. The ones who find “The Funniest Joke in the World™” hilarious every single time and react as if they genuinely are the first person who has ever thought of it, and those who roll their eyes in disbelief, but probably, if you asked them to be truly honest about it, have a sneaking regard for those that still do.

So what exactly is “The Funniest Joke in the World™…?”, you might be asking... (Well, apart from those of you who already know that it is a reference to something that was once a “Monty Python” thing and is being used in its most ironic sense hereabouts...).

Well, to judge on my own rather limited experience “The Funniest Joke in the World™” is the one where you stand someone in front of a famous landmark and take their photograph, but of course, that’s not really the funny bit. Oh no! The funny bit is that you position them in such a way so that the position they are in and the perspective makes it look as if they are leaning against the landmark, or holding it up in some way, or sitting on top of it.

From what I’ve seen this is the funniest thing ever, such are the spasms of laughter that come from the people involved in the whole picture-taking process and, whilst we’ve all seen it a thousand times, it really does seem as if nobody ever tires of it.

So many people genuinely seem to think that taking a picture where you’re appearing to be holding up a landmark is “The Funniest Joke in the World™” that I really do believe that it must be true. After all, if you happen to be near to one of the world’s great landmarks, the tourists seem to queue up to take the exactly the same shot, almost as if it's compulsory, and it never becomes any less hilarious to each and every one of them even if you’ve watched a dozen or more people go through exactly the same process (with individual variations, naturally – the “perching on the finger” effect seems to be a new sub-genre…) in front of you.

I have these visions of a billion mantelpieces in a billion homes all sporting a picture of a holidaymaker standing next to the Taj Mahal or the Sphinx or the Leaning Tower of Pisa or the Eiffel Tower and interacting with it in some sort of amusing or witty way, and people coming to their houses on a visit, spotting the photograph, and rolling about on the floor in helpless mirth at what is quite obviously “The Funniest Joke in the World™”.

The Leaning Tower of Pisa does, in many regards seem to be the worst offender in that regard. I mean, it’s such a gift for the average comedian, isn’t it? It’s leaning but refusing to topple and, if you position yourself at just the right spot you can appear to be holding it up, sometimes with just one tiny finger, (“Look at me, everyone! I’m holding it up! Whoa! If I let go, will it topple…?” “How strong you must be!”) or, from another angle, pushing it over. After all, the comedy potential of it has no real limits, does it?

I’m starting to think that in certain regimes it’s almost compulsory to have such a photograph in your collection, and failure to display it might lead to an arrest by the Humour Police for crimes against public displays of comedy. After all, if you’re not “with us” in seeing the joke, then you must be “against us” and that sort of thing simply cannot be tolerated, especially in matters where the general consensus is that this is, absolutely and irrefutably, “The Funniest Joke in the World™”

Or maybe it’s a more “postmodern” thing…? Everybody realises that it’s not funny at all (such heresy – is that an axe I hear breaking down my door?) but goes along with it out of a sense of duty to the great tradition of photographic comedy. Maybe everyone knows that when they did it they were being ironic and they didn’t actually think that it was funny at all but that it’s just the kind of thing that’s kind of “expected” when you go and visit these places.

Whichever, I will continue nevertheless to suggest that this is indeed “The Funniest Joke in the World™” and until I hear of another contender, that this is going to have to be the proverbial “it” for me, even though I now realise that I’m such an old sourpuss that I don’t think that I’ve ever actually taken one myself...

Odd that...