My favorite artwork Restoration attempt story: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-19349921
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Two bits of Imdb Time Bandits Trivia: While filming the sequence in Sherwood Forest, in which the Time Bandits inadvertently crash into Vincent and Pansy's carriage, Terry Gilliam had scaffolding built for the actors to jump off. When directing the scene, Gilliam instructed them to jump in such a way as to land around Michael Palin and Shelley Duvall without actually falling on them. To better illustrate what he meant, Gilliam climbed to the top of the scaffolding and jumped off, landing directly on top of Duvall. and Executive producer Denis O'Brien was against the ending of Kevin's parents blowing up, and director Terry Gilliam had to fight to keep it in the movie. O'Brien was only convinced that the violent ending could stay, after an advance screening of the movie was held for an audience full of children. The first child who was asked what his favorite moment of the movie was, excitedly proclaimed, "The parents being blown up!"
It is worth playing the legendary computer game Skyrim just for the suicidal horse. It never misses an opportunity to charge headlong at powerful foes no matter how far away it was “parked”. The number of times I ended up just running after the horse which was running recklessly at foes that could easily kill it…. Once while creeping unarmed up to a Manor house on a stealth mission a Dragon landed unexpectedly right beside me. My crazy horse then of course came barreling over to attack as the Manor guards ran down the hill to join in. Within seconds I was on fire, the horse was on fire along with just about everything else, as it furiously kicked away at everything that moved.
Article on Gatwick Drone Incident: Between 19 and 21 December 2018, Gatwick Airport was closed to all flights after sightings of small drones being flown near the airport's southern perimeter. As a precaution, all aircraft movements were halted in case the drones were part of a plot to bring down an airliner. From those initial sightings the whole thing descended into farce very rapidly. Police eventually confessed that most of the drone sightings after the initial ones were probably caused by them flying their own drone around in a fruitless attempt to spot the rogue craft.
The league table near the bottom in this one. Played 34. Points.....negative seven. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-49082796 And: Plates and furniture were reportedly used as weapons after a mass brawl broke on a British cruise ship. The alleged fight took place as P&O's Britannia returned to Southampton from a week-long trip to Norway's fjords. Good Morning Britain journalist Richard Gaisford, who was on board, said he had been told the incident was sparked by a passenger taking offence at another holidaymaker dressed as a clown.
On one trip my Brothers plane got hit by lightning on the ground in Florida. He was stuck for around 2 days in the airport hotel but while he was in the various hotel Q’s another man excitedly explained to him that he had managed to book to fly to Manchester on Thomson airways and would then make his way from there to London. The man managed to do this just as he got to the front of the Hotel assignment Q so he gleefully told them he did not require a room. A few hours later my brother came down from his room to get an update and the man was still there. “Why are you still here?” asked my brother to which he replied miserably “The Thomson flight was cancelled”. Naturally he had also been put to last place on the hotel room assignment Q. The best laid plans….
There is only one Ozzy Osbourne. Years ago I read he had a make or break meeting with some record executives but that “The meeting did not go well as he ended up dancing on the table and bit the head off a Dove.” Recently, watching a documentary Ozzy commented on the incident saying he had brought the doves to release as a peace offering but ended up so drunk in the meeting he bit the head off one instead!
The first minute of this sequence contains the "And that IS NOT IT!!" clip. (clearly someone had just told him the Cougar was behind him). We have been quoting that clip for weeks! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnEHMAhqUZM And the "Perfect Texture for Running".... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqY-o3uuemo&t=1m43s
Picked up Trevor Noah’s book about his South African childhood and could not stop laughing about the flies in the outhouse and the Name of their DJ crew’s best dancer. The “authentic Balinese experience” snake in his latest Netflix special is also hilarious. The book also highlights how much talent is out there and potentially sadly lost as Trevor presents TV and comedy specials to millions now but was selling CD’s or street corners not so long ago…
We once worked in the Turks and Caicos Islands on a project and my brother stepped outside to go for a run and a Vulture shat on him. After cleaning himself he set off again and was promptly chased by a pack of wild dogs and had to jump into thorn bushes and throw rocks to ward them off. He came back to the guest house with various scrapes and cuts at which point my Dad said “Oh yes I should have said there are a lot of wild dogs up near the LightHouse.” So the moral of the story is if you go outside and a Vulture Poos on you then simply turn around and go back inside for the rest of the day….
One of our Sales team people once went down to a hotel lobby in Florida to complain that his TV remote was not fully working. It was late at night and the guy in front was complaining that someone had removed his ground floor room’s aircon unit so in theory anyone could crawl into his room from the car park. The reception people said that unfortunately the hotel was completely booked so the guest had the option of either staying in the room with the missing aircon or leaving the hotel in the dark.......the guest stayed…...and our sales guy decided the remote issue was not really worth reporting in comparison!
The always excellent Ralph Fiennes in "In Bruges" when he talks to the thug about how he got injured by his own gun is brilliant. Ralph also starred in the "English Patient" which reminds me of Noel in Father Ted (for no real reason) blurting out the great line: "I LIKED the English Patient....very long and REALLY confusing but...".
I still quote this one (although I say: “I’ll take it….but I am not happy!”) as this was a great joke as he tries to pretend its not his terrible car! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2STH60AEn4&t=3m00s (Also the scene with the Psychologist when Jim Carrey puts the Mask on and nothing happens, "you don't scare me Mr Ipkiss" is very good).
News Article about mosquitoes : “I don’t know if mosquitoes get drunk, but we see it with fruit flies,” says McAlister. “They do get drunk but they do have very high tolerance. In smaller doses they get very hyperactive – and flirty. And they get less choosy about their partners as well. Give them a larger dose and they just pass out." ........ Sounds pretty much like humans then!
History is sometimes not quite what you think....but Robery Wuhl's comedy special on why Israel Bissell was passed over for the great poem was that his name "sounded like a Jewish vacuum cleaner" was very funny. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_Bissell (that joke has even made it into the Popular Culture section of Israel's Wikipedia page).
One for people who have ever been involved in a tech project.... A superb survey was done a few years ago where something like 70% of those surveyed said they had NEVER been involved in a successful project and 25% of the same respondents said they had been involved in an IT project that failed so badly it "Imperiled the survival of the Business."
TV Interview of a scientist about the Planet of the Apes reboot some years back. They were asked were the Apes realistic? They replied “No” and explained that in the Movie they regularly knocked out their human captors so that they could escape...whereas real Apes would have horribly disemboweled the humans instead. Hollywood for once greatly toning down the violence levels...
I once saw a documentary with a renowned French Shark expert who was getting in a rock pool regularly with some dangerous species of sharks. He was interviewed on how he knew the sharks behaviors so well and they were entirely docile provided you had the years of experience that he had. I thought it all looked a bit risky myself but the documentary ended and I thought nothing much of it. Many months later on the News was a piece about a famous French shark expert who had been mauled in a rock pool incident (I may have dreamt this - but in the background I think there was a video clip of him being pulled out of the rock pool with blood everywhere). My initial gut instincts were not far off then.. …
Ricky Gervais’s latest special the where he described Social Media like someone going into the town square and seeing a notice for Guitar lessons and shouting: “GUITAR LESSONS….I DON’T WANT ANY <BLEEPING> GUITAR LESSONS!!” Also the bit about his floating testicles really made me laugh. While on the subject of Mr Gervais the episodes of “An Idiot Abroad” containing the Christian Firecracker festival, the legendary Mongolian wrestling outfit and Carl trying to use the water Jet pack in Venice are all utterly hilarious.
Watched a documentary about the Large Hadron Collider and they went over to the USA to interview various Theoretical Physicists about what some of the results might mean once it was all turned on. The best one was an older guy who said if some particle had a value of less than point five* it could mean a variety of things (that he went on to detail) but more importantly if it was over point five all his work, career and everything he had ever done with theoretical Physics would in fact be entirely wrong! Luckily it turned out to be under point five……. *or it was some other number - who needs accuracy in theoretical Physics!
One Foot in the Grave (with the grumpy pensioner Victor Meldrew) looked for all the world like a highly derivative Sitcom but due to its writer was in fact on occasion entirely brilliant. I first starting watching it while channel surfing and Victor was quivering and insensible sitting in an Emergency Room seat covered in what looked like blood on his shirt and crotch area. After a while his long suffering wife says something to the effect “such a shame all that paint fell on you when the Shed collapsed, and I was so worried that you were knocked out...But it was so nice of the Ambulance drivers to rush that mouldy carrot to the hospital packed in Ice...:” Also the episode set entirely in Victor's stationary car in a huge traffic jam, where after 20 minutes the rear passenger door suddenly opens and in climbs Mrs Warboys their Neighbour (who no mention had been made of up to that point) who says “Oh you haven’t moved far...and I have had a lovely lunch at that pub.” Fi...
As well as looking after Batman Sir Michael Caine gets one of the best jokes ever put on film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJ882QYzr-M (the Villain of the movie is the Nationality concerned). While on the subject of Sir Michael I read he was interviewed once and asked had he seen "Jaws the Revenge"? To which he brilliantly replied No he had not, but he had seen the quite lovely house that it had paid for.....
You may think we live in politically uncertain times but pity poor Eduard Shevardnadze who had to run the gauntlet of tanks and coup plotters to speak to Boris Yeltsin the Russian president (the plotters had targeted the Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev). Having met with President Yeltsin he confidently strode out onto the steps and the waiting reporters and denounced the plotters and stated that President Yeltsin would not capitulate nor give in to their demands. So eloquent was his impromptu speech to the media that the plotters rapidly lost heart and the coup attempt soon collapsed. The funny part is that some years later I saw Eduard on a documentary and he told the interviewer that when he went in to see Boris the President was rolling drunk and had pretty much just fallen on the floor. Having therefore discussed nothing he just made up the fiery rhetoric as he faced the world’s media outside. Thus is history made….
From the “Bumper Book of Boobs” an old newspaper clippings book: I read it with a friend of mine as a teenager and we both were crying with laughter as each entry just seemed funnier than the last as you go down. The book also has such classics as: The Times on Feb 23rd: Nizam of Hyderabad is Dead The Times on Feb 24th: Nizam of Hyderabad Slightly Better
Anything with Gene Wilder in it of course, such as the mighty Blazing Saddles with major parts written by Richard Pryor, hence jokes such as "The Sheriff is a...." This is perhaps one of the greatest scenes in all of Cinema due to the superb way Wilder confidently states his plan at around the 30 second mark: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sO3qJGKs9gw Look out for Gene Hackman as the hermit in another hilarious scene in that movie. Talking of them both the scene were they decide that the Police will be looking for a Blind and Deaf guy in "Hear No Evil See no Evil" so they decide the deaf Wilder will stomp his way loudly down the road and the blind Richard Pryor will walk after him. As Wilder stomps exaggeratedly down the sidewalk the films villains pull up and grab Pryor, looking quizzically at Wilder the main villain says "What is your friend doing?"
While we were living overseas someone highlighted a newspaper letters page containing correspondence from someone complaining vehemently about people relieving themselves on Indian public beaches, which contained the immortal lines: "Dear Sir, I must protest about the excessive number of Morning Shitters that I encounter on the beach each morning."
I remember a newspaper article once about the elderly Maurice (or something similar) who had a "funny turn" while on his electric mobility scooter and jammed the throttle to the max. His Wife was quoted saying how she desperately tried to keep up with him...but as she was also very elderly she could not. He was picked up by the Police motoring down a dual carriageway (which is a small freeway).
There is often something funny about a strident online comment that is obviously borne out of someone’s personal comedic frustration. In the comments about an early version of Farcry (or something similar) someone posted saying “…whichever Developer thought it was a good idea for the AI to chase an injured player RELENTLESSLY across the map!” Just gave me a vision of a deeply frustrated player limping for miles across the game map while a group of dim-witted AI enemies follow slightly behind taking pot shots at him! Talking of player frustration, reminds me once I was playing the online game Battlefield and was lurking in the bushes near an enemy base with explosives hidden next to the road. Along came an Anti-Aircraft vehicle whom I promptly blew up and then set up again. About 5 minutes later the same player (now Respawned) in the same vehicle came back, and was clearly looking intensely around and especially carefully at the road and the fern under which I had hidden m...
This is one that went round our office some years ago. I want you to study this picture very carefully. Only when you are ready to do the challenge press the "Read More" button on this post, and look at the second picture for any differences. This test has been designed by psychologists and if you can spot more than 5 differences you have a high IQ.
From the League of Gentlemen (also on Prime currently): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wB0OkcCps8 …...and that clip is in the same episode as the immortal lines: “Who….Who is it?”......Its Mike” Series 2 of course starts with the “Papa Lazarou” episode ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papa_Lazarou ) which is still jaw droppingly strange and as brilliant as ever.
Was watching a RiffTrax audio commentary film and they were joking over the 1950’s Magic Sword (or similar name) and in one sequence some knights get half melted by some unrealistic swirly magic thing and the shot cuts to them staggering about dying on the top of a cliff and they are shouting down to the hero “Don’t Come Up here...Don’t Come Up!!”. To which the Rifftrax guy commented: Reminds me of the time I saw Adam Sandler's “Pixels”. Another one was over the old horror movie “Ruby” where the mid-forties woman of the house was drunkenly doing a slow dance in a elaborate red dress in front of a blind old man in a wheelchair (might have been her husband can’t remember). To which the Rifftrax guys commented: “Thursday nights at Bob Dole's House”.
My Brothers friend Chris had a couple of classic tales. He once misplaced his car in a car park and was concerned it had been stolen until he found the correct parking spot. Some weeks later, during a night out, this incident was still being joked about and someone quipped “that’s your car Chris!” as a similar vehicle went past. After looking Chris yelled “THAT IS MY CAR!!” and began to sprint madly after it. Luckily, he realized just before reaching the car that one digit on the number plate was in fact different…...Even better, another time he left his Girlfriend in their white car and went to pay for the fuel after filling it up. While inside he bought a large Burger King hamburger and then went back outside and climbed into the car and proceeded to open his mouth wide to take a large bite. At this point he glanced over and realized there was a total stranger staring at him from the driving seat. Turns out his Girlfriend had moved the car around the corner and an identic...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSC11hLbM1w Why this is such a brilliant joke is that it was years in the making. For years and years Homer had been shown ungratefully going to Church on Sundays and then this joke suddenly highlighted that despite all those years he had not once bothered to properly listen to a certain very important name! They made "I don't believe in Jebus!" T-Shirts it was that good.
Can’t find the video yet but was a classic on “You’ve Been Framed” in the UK where a waiter on a blurry VHS video was exuberantly holding and showing off the wedding cake to the parents and the bride and groom and then skipped confidently right into the middle of the dance floor. …at which point he tripped and went flat on his face in the cake in front of the entire wedding reception. I still remember that clip to this day.
The original “Heroic Failures” book and its sequels were an often hilarious read not least for the infamous K-19 series of submarines, one of which got stuck on the bottom of the sea for a time with the Prince of Wales on-board, and the “Least successful experiment involving a bat” where the Experimenter tried to get bitten while his manservant “Rupert” was “nightly ravaged” by the Vampire bat, until too weak to perform his duties…
The Legendary Exploding Whale Video. I heard it had been dismissed as an urban legend for years until the original TV footage surfaced. I first saw this working at Microsoft Support in my University placement year. I knew Windows 3.11 so well I could Phone support it while playing the recently released game "Doom" with the Engineer next to me! (with the sound off of course..) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFwxH3PPWiU
The Mighty Boosh are now on Amazon Prime and I cannot recommend them enough, especially season 2. The first time I ever saw an episode was on a Virgin Atlantic flight and normally it’s the usual portly businessman laughing away to something like Mr Bean, but the Board of Shaman sequence with “Tony…….Tony?…...Harrison” is just superb and I was the one laughing uncontrollably. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4c9wUIY9IQ
Like the Parental story below I can also vouch for the sales tactics of some of the street vendors in Asia some years back, as I once had to pretend to use a shop and then run out of the back because I would not buy a second painting. My father was also rather plagued by sales people on the beach on a holiday, until it all came to a head after a day trip on a boat. My Parents (who were in their early Sixties at the time) had a great time but then the weather started to close in on the return journey in a small boat and my Mother had unfortunately caught some sort of stomach bug so did not feel at all well. After an hour or two of being soaked by the choppy waters and with crippling bottom pains due to the boat crashing up and down they finally arrived. At which point Dad staggered off the boat bent double and covered in salty water while my Mother desperately dug a hole in the sand to use as a toilet in the background. As he staggered up the beach a merchant approache...
BlackAdder, Red Dwarf and Father Ted cannot really be beaten for classic sit-com entertainment. Although maybe it’s an English (and Irish) thing. Witness the Red Dwarf episode where they think their entire lives have been a simulation (Topical!) and they only scored 4%, and another one of my favorites, the Light switch joke: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwdxIUeMrSM
My Mother and Brother once got stuck behind an old gentleman and his wife at an airport car park ticket machine and after considerable difficulty paying the old couple pressed the help button to speak to an operator, who started telling the old man to “Press Exceed” to which he eventually started shouting back at them through the half defective microphone “There is no Exceed!!”...while desperately trying to find such a button. Very Funny, and still when something goes wrong with a machine I still tend to say “Press Exceed!”
A few years back was staying in a London hotel and picked up a Private Eye Magazine. In an “Amusing stories” section was one about the South Korean company "CJ Sausages" who could not work out for years why their sales suddenly shot up during the Winter. It turns out that a CJ Sausage had just the right capacitive properties to match that of a human finger. Instead of taking off their gloves in the freezing cold everyone was instead holding CJ Sausages to use their Touch-screen phones!
Someone once posted this on a game forum that this was what it felt like to press the “Boost” button on one of the vehicles in the game: https://giphy.com/gifs/pranks-praaaank-yTlKLsulo146A Footnote: Not the nicest trick to play but undeniable hilarious reaction as she wakes up and can’t understand what is going on! Someone also posted that this is what it was like to fire a particularly inaccurate weapon in that same game, which was also very funny: https://www.google.com/search?q=gif+rockets+Gentlemen+Broncos&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=sLHkqgCxSpYfPM%253A%252Ci3yrvO-LnXJTOM%252C_&usg=AI4_-kSNXVBlWh0SjGH5e3dQxK209U-xHQ&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi9-tPHmo7eAhWIvlMKHX-oAgoQ9QEwA3oECAUQCA#imgrc=sLHkqgCxSpYfPM :
The dreaded laxative Gummy Bears! (scroll down to the reviews). My brothers Mother in Law bought some in a shop and felt a bit funny so gave the rest of the bag to my brother with little warning…. https://www.amazon.com/Haribo-SUGAR-Classic-Gummi-Bears/dp/B006J1FBLM/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8
Imdb is a surprising source of hilarity in many user reviews. Such as a film called Wolfman (or something similar) where the reviewer wrote “Eschewing lesser directors such as Spielberg our director opts to show the monster the monster in the first 2 minutes with a masterful shaky handy-cam technique”. Or the modern War of the Worlds movie where someone noted the aliens “have been destroying the Earth with UNBELIEVABLE FEROCITY and then suddenly they send down a Wormy Proboscis into the basement in which the heroes are hiding which goes “Ooohh Look a mirror!” A little harsh perhaps but very funny. Prometheus user reviews are worth plenty of study, but one of the best ones was “why are the Progenitor aliens messing about with bio-weapons that clearly they cannot control?” (In the movie the large Progenitor Aliens are often shown on old video reels running in terror from something they have been developing). Or the "Battleship" reviewer who said "As ...
DO NOT WATCH WITH KIDS – it’s from an unhappy Football fan so some swear words are in the subtitles! This is the first “Hitler” video I saw when it went around the office years ago and have not seen many more since. At the time we naively thought this was the only one - watch the video link then after read my comments below. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNDRt-Ze-yU What had us in hysterics were the lines about the appeal being thrown out and best of all the line about “UNSWORTH WHO SCORES”. I had no idea who he was but was clearly a player who Sheffield United fans were unanimous in hating, and who had just knocked them out of the league. Classic Stuff.
My Nieces Favorite Story next. My sister in law gave me a call from town to say her cat had escaped from a box it was going to the vets in and could I help urgently. I had a long history with Rupers the cat as it had been for many years the general family cat. I went down with another temporary cardboard box (which turned out to be a big mistake) and quickly grabbed the cat from the other car and set off the half mile back home. At which point the cats head burst through the cardboard and sat looking at me. Seconds later the entire cat exploded upwards about a foot in the air - and I just managed to grab him by the cat carrying spot on the back of his neck. At this point I noticed the cat was copiously weeing inside my shiny new sports car which I owned way back then. I then looked up in a state of shock and had to use all my reflexes to avoid running into the car in front. I came within a hairs breadth of having to get out of my car in the middle of town holding a weeing...
Skip this clip if watching with less than Teenagers (although little ones will just not understand why it is funny): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqb-j1cNPhQ My parents actually Met Roy Walker on a Cruise and he is a really nice fellow they said and he told them that everyone always asks him about this classic clip. My favorite part along with the brilliant timing of the reveals is the man who ends up hooting with uncontrollable laugher in the audience if you listen carefully - and the fact the woman contestant never really works out why everyone else is laughing.
Another family story where my brother on his year out to travel the World met a guy in a bar who retold this story but could not stop laughing because it was clearly just about the funniest thing he had ever seen. He was chatting with his friend while walking into town when suddenly (and for no apparent reason) his companion started to run at full speed down the road closely following a passing car. He simply could not understand why his friend was running so insanely hard. After some further distance his friends coat went over his head (while he still desperately ran) and then pulled off of him down his arms. A queuing car had snagged one of his friend’s coat buckles……and then set off. Footnote: The friend was not harmed but did lose a coat.
Even at the time we knew it must be fake but me and Grandpa could not stop laughing about the lines around a ball with a bell in it. https://www.suffolkgazette.com/news/morris-dancers-blind-footballers-brawl/ Talking of Local Newspapers, I recall someone interviewed on TV about their life in local news and they said they knew it was the only job for them when on holiday and they saw the headline “Women in Owl Attack dies of Diarrhea ”…..local paper writers are certainly a special breed...
This is additionally funny if you have any connection to North Yorkshire - as men from the North are known for being Stoic and no-nonsense (Like in Game of Thrones), exactly as they are for the first few seconds of this clip….the entire country voted for it in the first season of the national UK video blooper show. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7-jUxadAFQ
Years ago, the brilliant author Terry Pratchet did a UK TV show on the Orangutans - as his University Librarian (Ook!) is of course one of them. The team had the idea of finding a male Orangutan in the deep forest and holding up a white sheet behind it to get some publicity photos. So off they went for quite an arduous trek. Finally, late in the day they heard some rustling in the bushes and waited expectantly. Out of the forest came a massive wall of lumbering muscle (Male Orangutans are much bigger than the female ones you often see on TV) with huge powerful arms and hands. As this massive specimen was filmed for the show everyone kept deathly quiet and on the commentary Sir Terry said something similar to “we were all in awe of this magnificent creature and there was a very clear understanding between us and him that NOBODY would be messing about with a White Sheet”. Footnote: Some years before his untimely death Terry Pratchet was asked live on BBC News 24 would he t...
Douglas Adams book “Last Chance to See” about sleeping in Banjo Lopo. It wasn’t actually called Banjo Lopo but it is now to me - as I use that name for the town when I retell the passage to my Nieces (as I am asked to do many times). Such lines as Douglas learning that 2 cats fighting is louder than 20 dogs barking...but unfortunately learning this at 2am...
Women’s Institute Meeting – a classic example of unfortunate miscommunication! https://www.google.com/search?q=somali+pirates+women%27s+institute&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS720US720&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=40SAuDIfEc9BLM%253A%252CwFP3tKAcfeDrGM%252C_&usg=__Nd_wzlTJ-ctGh7tsfCZPabrxJXM%3D&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiEwLuKzb7ZAhWCnFkKHaDsBoYQ9QEIYTAK#imgrc=3hFU3xxQv6EoPM :