Title: Whither Canada?
Original Airdate: 5/10/1969
Guest starring: Carol Cleveland
It's: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart hosting a show on famous deaths, a class on learning to speak Italian, a commercial for Whizzo Butter, interviews with Sir Edward Ross and Arthur "Two Sheds" Jackson, Pablo Picasso painting while riding a bicycle, and the funniest joke in the world ("The Funniest Joke in the World").
"The Funniest Joke in the World" was one of the sketches recreated for the 1971 Python film And Now for Something Completely Different.
Tropes:
- Adolf Hitlarious: All the ridiculous Nazis in "The Funniest Joke in the World".
- Ambiguously Gay: The interviewer of Sir Edward Ross is a little overly friendly with him, and that's before he introduces the pet names.
- As Long as It Sounds Foreign: In "The Killer Joke" sketch, a joke so funny anyone who hears it dies laughing is rendered in mock German as "Wenn ist das Nunstück git und Slotermeyer? Ja, ober der beierhund und flipperwald gersput", which is nonsense, but several of the words are actually German. Translated, the joke is: "If is the nun piece git and slotermeyer? Yes, sputted over the meadow-dog and flipper-forest". It loses something in the translation.
- Berserk Button:
- Don't call Sir Edward Ross "Eddie-baby", "sweetie", or any other embarrassing nicknames.
- Also, don't ask Arthur "Two Sheds" Jackson about anything other than his music. Especially if it's something about his garden shed, or whether he's planning to buy another, to match his nickname.
- Brown Note: The "Funniest Joke Ever Written", so funny that anyone who heard it would die laughing, used to parody documentaries on World War 2 (more specifically, those about the atomic bomb). We could tell you more about it, but instead, why don't you see for yourself?
(At your own peril.)- The premise is that a British humorist writes a joke so unimaginably funny that anyone who reads or hears it quickly dies from fatal hilarity. The British army then translate the joke word-by-word to German using different translators (some of them fall into a coma after translating more than two words) and use it as a weapon against the Germans in WWII.
- And that joke is: "Wenn ist das Nunstruck git und Slotermeyer? Ja! Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput!" This cannot really be coherently translated given that it involves many nonexistent words, but whatever they're talking about apparently involves both dogs and pinball, and one can only imagine the possibilities of what humor could be made of that.
- Chicken Joke: "I can only give you name, rank, and 'why did the chicken cross the road'."
- Comedy as a Weapon: The "World's Funniest Joke" sketch revolves around a joke so funny that everyone who hears it or even reads it will fall down and Die Laughing, even with precautions such as somber music and funeral chants. The military has it translated into German to use as a weapon against the Nazis in World War II. Even then, people translating portions of the joke have been hospitalized for accidentally reading too much at a time.
- Completely Unnecessary Translator: A sketch in which an adult-education teacher is teaching an Italian class...to native Italians.
- Die Laughing: This is the fate of whoever reads or hears the Funniest Joke In The World, so lethal that it was translated into German and used as a weapon in World War II.
- Early-Bird Cameo: He has no role, but the knight who hits people over the head with a chicken can be seen during one of Palin's in-betweens for the "It's the Arts" series of sketches.
- Everything Is an Instrument: Rodin's "The Kiss" statue is depicted as a musical instrument.
- Gag Sub: In the "Killer Joke" sketch, the footage of Adolf Hitler is taken from Leni Riefenstahl's film Triumph of the Will. The section (about 34 minutes into the film) where Konstantin Hierl presents the Reichsarbeitsdienst to Hitler is the source of the speech used for the joke.Hitler: My dog's got no nose!Schirach: How does he smell?Hitler: Awful!
- Hats Off to the Dead: The policemen chanting laments for the inspector who recovers the Funniest Joke in the World from the Scribbler apartment doff their helmets when the inspector dies laughing.
- Improbable Weapon User: The funniest joke in the world, which became used in warfare.
- Laughing at Your Own Jokes: in the sketch "The Funniest Joke in the World", the original writer of the joke in question reads it after writing it down and dies laughing.
- Mathematician's Answer: The punchline for one of the German counterjokes to "The Funniest Joke in the World." 'My dog's got no nose!' 'How does he smell?' 'Awful!'
- Mythology Gag: The scribbler of the funniest joke in the world is said to have lived on Dibley Road, in reference to one of the original titles of the sketch series, Gwen Dibley's Flying Circus.
- Our Product Sucks: Shows up for the Whizzo Butter advertisement, in which housewives can't tell between Whizzo and a dead crab.
- Overly Long Gag: The very first Monty Python gag the world encountered was of the overly long variety, namely the "It's..." man crawling out of the ocean to introduce the show.
- Punny Name: The name Ernest Scribbler, the author of the Funniest Joke in the World, is a pun on "earnest."
- Running Gag: Every time a pig squealing is heard offscreen, someone crosses off a drawing of a pig.
- Schmuck Bait: Attempting to translate the German version of the Funniest Joke in the World sounds like it would be this trope, but it's subverted in true Python fashion since the joke consists of mostly made-up words that merely SOUND German.
- Small Reference Pools: One joke requires the viewer not only to have heard of the painter Toulouse-Lautrec, but to be familiar enough with his disability to be able to identify a caricature of him by sight.
- Take That!: The "Killer Joke" sketch refers to it as being 'over 60,000 times as powerful as Britain's great pre-war joke', which is narrated over footage of Neville Chamberlain holding up the Munich Agreement.
- Tickle Torture: The Nazis do this to the British officer to get him to tell them the killer joke.
- The Unreveal: We never learn what exactly the Funniest Joke in the World is. Though considering how many people it killed, that’s probably for the best.
- Weapons-Grade Vocabulary: People died by a JOKE.
- Weird Historical War: The "Funniest Joke In The World" sketch follows the creation of the joke, followed by its use as a battlefield weapon during World War II, a brief showcase of Germany's Epic Fail attempts at entering the "weaponized joke" field, and then it ends with a mention that killer jokes were banned by the Geneva Convention after the war.
- Word Salad Title: None of the sketches in the episode have anything to do with Canada.
