Most useless joke at this year's Edinburgh fringe - 2017 edition

full text of each:

Robert Garnham: Insomnia is awful. But on the plus side – only three more sleeps till Christmas.

Dan Antopolski: Centaurs shop at Topman. And Bottomhorse.

Paul Savage: Oregon leads America in both marital infidelity and clinical depression. What a sad state of affairs.

Caroline Mabey: I’m very conflicted by eye tests. I want to get the answers right but I really want to win the glasses.

Athena Kugblenu: Relationships are like mobile phones. You’ll look at your iPhone 5 and think, it used to be a lot quicker to turn this thing on.

Evelyn Mok: My vagina is kind of like Wales. People only visit ironically.

Phil Wang: In the bedroom, my girlfriend really likes it when I wear a suit, because she’s got this kinky fantasy where I have a proper job.

Gráinne Maguire: The Edinburgh fringe is such a bubble. I asked a comedian what they thought about the North Korea nuclear missile crisis and they asked what venue it was on in.

John-Luke Roberts: How did the Village People meet? They obviously led such different lives.

Olaf Falafel: If you’re being chased by a pack of taxidermists, do not play dead.

A couple of these are almost jokes! Jokes that someone whose actual job is to make up jokes should die of humiliation over having written, sure, but still. Jokes!

that Village People one is just about tolerable, the rest...

also who visits Wales "ironically"? What does that even mean?

yeah, if you really *must* make a joke that goes "my vagina is kind of like X, people only visit ironically" then it seems like there's a million places that would work better than Wales

first three are okay maybe?

'lol wales is dull' is this year's 'lol vegans are weak' lazy stereotyping option

yeah the first three made me smile and think this would be better than usual, the rest swiftly restored matters

I'm disappointed that these aren't nearly as indefensible as in years past. I actually like the Village People joke, god help me. And the Oregon joke is exactly the sort of thing I whip up to make the people in my life sigh heavily.

2016 edition?

(bizarro is having it fixed.)

Anyway, yeah these are mostly OK

their choices of jokes by female comedians are execrable, almost like they want to perpetuate the myth

The edfringe joke is kinda useless, like it could have been from anytime the past forty years..

These are just the Guardian's pick of the best jokes they've heard so far, not the official "best joke of the Fringe" award.

man i really shit the bed here huh

Something something shit the bed something something relaxative. (wins 'best joke of the Fringe' award)

'Three more sleeps'? Who says that? The eye test one is an old joke, I'm sure.

On any given day, I probably read 5-10 funnier things on ILX that someone pulled out of their ass while compiling a spreadsheet than I have among all of the past and present 'best joke of the Fringe' nominees combined.

'X more sleeps' is something you say to your kids when they want to know how long they're going to have to wait for something.

Between glasses, vagina and village ppl I think

glasses doesn't even start to work as a joke.

Vagina is a non effort.

Village ppl is an unfunny question.

Glasses is the worst.

Agreed that the general standard is better

The glasses one. There are a couple here that are okay

Fringe bubble/North Korea one is worst.

It will probably surprise no-one that the glasses, vagina and village people jokes are the only ones I'd consider passable.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

We're going to EdFrinj on Sunday, Alice's school drama group are doing a weeks stretch of performances and so Dawn* and I are booked in a hotel, never been up before but always fancied it.

(* = first mention on ILX btw, not bad for 22 yrs of Marriage)

What's the show called? "The Emperors Fool", thanks for asking ta.....

North Korea one is worst. One of those in jokes that isn't even an in joke.

It could be the name of a wacky comedy routine/troupe, quite clear imo

quite clearly AWFUL!!!

The first three and the Village People joke are passable. The worst joke is the guy who named himself "Olaf Falafel"

There will certainly be "0 laffs" at that show!

All these jokes have the same pentameter.

Ba-dum ba-dum-ba something quotidian. Ba-dum ba-dum-ba mild turnaround.

The North Korea one is like, you just shat out the hackiest "you hum it, I'll play it" joke in the nakedly cynical hope that cunts will be like "haw haw, the fringe - that's where I am, right now!"

That too, yes.

I never can tell with this thread, we're voting for the worst?

Best not to vote at all, it only encourages them.

"Most useless"

I don't know which I've got most contempt for. These appalling hacks that make it their life's work to turn humour into a form of article 3 prohibited torture. Or the simpering fuckwits that pay to watch this kind of material, and supply the undeserved laughter in numbers.

The 'North Korea/what venue?' one was worst, imo. It flat-lined in terms of humor and showcases the worst aspects of pandering to your audience and overstrained topicality. I thought the Wales/vagina was in a dead heat with the suit/sex fantasy one for second worst. The suit one was just dismal while the Wales was borderline incoherent.

But the overall quality was slightly up from the past ones polled here.

calz otm

Voted Vagina/Wales.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Correct

it's that time of the year again - brace yourselves people:

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2018/aug/13/edinburgh-festival-2018-the-10-best-jokes

These are *a bit* better, but half of them obviously have a element of delivery which cannot come across when written down, so surely not suitable for the article? Maybe this is why we had all the lame dad jokes before, they at least made sense.

first one is good but it's all downhill from there imo

Constructing a joke around a punchline is a good way to construct a shitty joke.

Winner:

Adam Rowe won the 11th annual award for Dave's Funniest Joke Of The Fringe with the line: "Working at the Jobcentre has to be a tense job - knowing that if you get fired, you still have to come in the next day."