AND THEY DON'T EVEN TELL THE BEST ONE:

Choosing America's Funniest Joke: In a noisy, cramped back room at Factor's Deli in Los Angeles, eight comedy legends put down their pastrami sandwiches long enough to help Reader's Digest choose America's 10 funniest jokes. (Andy Simmons, Reader's Digest)

Meet Our Judges
Sid Caesar: His 1950s TV hit, Your Show of Shows, introduced America to Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, Neil Simon, and Woody Allen.

Monty Hall: Television producer and host of Let’s Make a Deal.

Arthur Hiller: Directed comedies like The In-Laws and Silver Streak.

Rocky Kalish: Wrote for All in the Family, Maude, and Good Times.

Hal Kanter: Bob Hope’s chief gag writer. Wrote Road to Bali for Hope and Bing Crosby.

Gary Owens: The voice of Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In.

John Rappaport: Writer and producer for M*A*S*H.

Matty Simmons: Founder of National Lampoon; producer of Animal House and Vacation.

It's mayhem. Amid the clamor of pickle trays and pastrami-bearing waiters, eight old friends have gathered for their biweekly lunch. They're all talking over one another, and no one's listening. But somehow they can hear Arthur Hiller regaling Sid Caesar with a story about Billy Wilder. Gary Owens, Rocky Kalish, and Matty Simmons croon ear-wrenching, plate-shattering harmony on the old Benny Goodman standard "Undecided." Hal Kanter and Monty Hall trade stories about working with Jimmy Stewart, both favorable and not ("Jimmy was a brigadier general during World War II, and he never let you forget it," says Kanter). Any silence is filled by a Gatling gun salvo of one-liners from John Rappaport: "Hear the one about the Israeli newspaper reporter who yelled to his editor, 'Hold the back page!' ?"

These eight comedy legends, ranging in age from their 60s to their 90s—and with about 422 years of comedy under their collective belt—meet every other week to kibitz, eat, and reminisce. But mostly, they're there to exercise their comedy chops by cracking wise at every opportunity. It's this group whom Reader's Digest has asked to choose America's all-time best jokes. The magazine's editors have winnowed down the thousands of submissions our readers sent in. Our judges' job is to pick ten from that collection. That is, if I can get them to concentrate on the jokes. [...]

Joke #8
A man is walking in a graveyard when he hears the Third Symphony played backward. When it’s over, the Second Symphony starts playing, also backward, and then the First. “What’s going on?” he asks a cemetery worker.

“It’s Beethoven,” says the worker. “He’s decomposing.”
--Submitted by Jeremy Hone

A man walks into a drugstore and asks the guy behind the counter: Do you do urinalysis here?

Of course.

Well, wash your hands and make me a ham sandwich.

Posted by Orrin Judd at October 16, 2009 5:35 AM