Hello the internet. The Information Super Highway. The World Wide Web. You really are the best. Yes, I know you are also the worst but I am old enough to remember when you weren’t around, and if you think the internet is a horrible place well I dare you to go live in a time where if you were bored your options were to watch A Country Practice (even though you missed Monday night’s episode so Wednesday night’s episode makes absolutely no sense) or read a book. Yuck. Who wants to read anymore? I know I am asking this of someone reading this article but are you really reading it, or are you just clicking on the videos?
Here are 10 videos that I have spent the better part of three years honing and perfecting. Why do I like them? Because they are funny. That’s it. They won’t make you smarter, they won’t make you a better person. In fact you may come out the other side dumber and meaner, but that is the internet for you. Enjoy.
1. 20th Century Flute
OK, let’s start with something dumb. I love it and it is reason enough that the internet is a great place. The fact someone decided to learn the flute just enough that they could do a terrible version of the 20th Century Fox theme just to make this video surely has to give you hope that humanity is still OK.
2. Modelling video
From 2009 to 2013 I hosted a radio show on 3RRR in Melbourne called Lime Champions. We would quite often play clips from the people at Found Footage festival. This video has everything: great 80s graphics, a young Denise Richards cameo, and a man with a wig so amazing you wonder if it is actually his real hair.
3. Nu Thang
Christian television, white-boy rapping and realising you are out of breath a minute in but need to go for a further two minutes? The best. I just hope the kids at his school weren’t too brutal on Monday.
4. Roundball Rock
I Think You Should Leave was the best TV show I saw last year, which made me super happy because Tim Robinson is in my favourite Saturday Night Live sketch ever.
As a basketball fan I cannot listen to the NBC original NBA theme without singing “ba-ba-ba-ba-basketball, gimme gimme gimme the ball cos I’m gonna dunk it!”
5. Memphis Kansas Breeze
I was really struggling about which Comedy Bang Bang clip to include: this one, which is brilliant, or The Monster Fuck from their Halloween specials. I chose this one because of the line from their song Human Skin Truck Baby: “My wife is a truck and when she cries she honks ‘honk honk’.”
Memphis Kansas Breeze are country band consisting of Drew Tarver and Carl Tart with the songs written by Brad Evans and Nick Ciarelli. All their songs are about trucks and they are all very funny.
6. Chris Gethard’s One Man’s Trash
Sometimes the simplest ideas are the best. This whole show is just Chris Gethard getting two very funny guests (Jason Mantzoukas and Paul Scheer) and making them guess what is in the dumpster. That is funny enough on its own but the fact the thing in the dumpster is so great is even better.
7. Joe Pera on the Buffalo Bills
Joe Pera is an American standup and a man who will talk you to sleep. This standup bit about why his NFL team, the Buffalo Bills, is the best is perfect in both content and pacing. I have no interest in American football, but even with no knowledge the last joke about the New York Jets is still very funny.
8. Channel Nine journalists making a stand
This is from Emily White, who works at Channel Nine, the Monday after Victorians were told we were extending lockdown.
This is so funny to think he would have rehearsed this, asked someone to film him, watched it back and then said “Yeah, post it, looks good, make sure you tag me.” The spin, the throw down, the cheeky look to camera to make sure they got it. It is perfection.
I wish they kept the recording going so we see him pick up the paper, put it in the recycle bin, then pick off the rest of the paper stuck to the board, then ask, “What should I do with the Blu-tack? Just leave it on the board?”
9. Woman pushing cop over
This woman is still in jail. [Editor’s note: she is not.]
10. This tweet by Rob Delaney
Rob Delaney has been my favourite person on Twitter for years, and seems to have evolved with the site (started off just writing jokes, then became more actively political). But every now and then he still manages to post things that make me laugh so hard my kids come running into the room asking me what I just watched and I have to say “something on the news” so they think it is boring and won’t ask to see it.