The 2023 Comedy Pet Photography Award Winners Are Better Than Half of This Year’s Netflix Specials

I used to think that human beings were the only species capable of masterful comedy, but the 2023 Comedy Pet Photography Awards are giving me paws.

Each year, wildlife photographer Paul Joynson-Hicks and his team host a series of comedy competitions with a slightly different approach from Last Comic Standing-style stand-up tournaments that are typical in most major comedy scenes — the contestants in Joynson-Hicks’ contests are exclusively feathered, furred or scaled. Humans need not apply.

Joynson-Hicks first launched the Annual Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards in 2015, and, after the success of the National-Lampoon-Meets-National-Geographic event, he and his collaborators branched out into more domestic works typical of the 2000s LOLcat era type photography.

The Comedy Pet Photography Awards mission statement reads, “Through the Comedy Pets, we want to promote positive awareness of animal welfare issues and celebrate the incredible and valuable contribution that pets can and do have on our lives.” Today, that paws-itive awareness comes from the champions who excelled in each category as determined by both the judges and the public. Next year, the reward should be a streaming special.