Of the many functions of The Old Yorker, it is our curatorial duties that make us proudest. They are, in a sense, our conscience: the work that keeps us humble and honest.
Previously, using statistical mathematics, we have determined the Top Ten Humorists and Comedians. This time, we turn our attention not to individual people but rather to particular instances of humor, in this case physical comedy.
A note on our methodology: while other lists may include so-called “taste factors” which incorporate the opinions of alleged experts, our list is purely empirical, the result of a double-blind controlled study. Our criteria are laugh-meter measurements supplemented by pulse, blood pressure, and galvanic skin response readings from test subjects being shown 112 separate examples of physical comedy. The control group was shown 112 neutral images such as a motorboat pulling a water skier and a goat eating from a dog bowl.
Here, then, are the Ten Most Hilarious Examples of Physical Comedy:
A boy falls asleep at his desk while the teacher is talking.
A fat man laughs disdainfully at another man who bumps his head, but then the fat man begins to choke.
A man clings to the outside of a fast-moving freight train and must avoid numerous obstacles that almost knock him off.
A man sticks forks in two dinner rolls so that they look like legs and feet. He makes them do a little dance.
A man clings to a giant clock high above a city. He nearly falls a number of times.
A man is chased down a steep street by a number of giant barrels that miss him by inches.
A man beeps a horn that he pulls out of his coat and then uses giant scissors to sever the tails of another man’s tailcoat.
A man pours whiskey into a crying infant’s bottle. He resumes a nap in a hammock.
A number of policemen knock each other over with a giant ladder. Their paddy wagon divides in half to avoid an obstacle.
One man tries to poke another in the eyes with his fingers. He is thwarted when the intended victim places his hand vertically along his nose and forehead, creating a “bridge” to protect his eyes from the fingers.
