18 Jokes for the Hall of Fame, October 10, 2023

18 Wendy Liebman on Cat Behavior

“I found out why cats drink out of the toilet. My mother told me it’s because the water is cold in there. And I’m like: How did my mother know that?”

17 Mike Birbiglia on Weed

“I don’t smoke a lot of pot anymore. No one wants to hang around a guy who ends every sentence with, ‘Do you guys hate me?’”

16 Mark Ellis on College

“A 96-year-old woman graduated from college. Somebody turned 92 and was like, “Ah, I gotta get my life together.’”

15 Katt Williams on Atheism

“Atheists have got out of hand. Now they want to tell us what the fuck we believe. ‘Oh, you believe in God, so that mean you don’t believe in science.’ What the fuck is you talking about? Motherfucker, I prayed to God before every science test!”

14 Maria Bamford on Being Fired

“I’ve been fired a lot. I prefer to call it just another stop on my Burning Bridges Tour.”

13 Paul F. Tompkins on Cryptocurrency

“Does everyone who’s into crypto not know that we already have a fake money scheme called ‘money’?”

12 Tom Segura on Hotels

“Hotels are great. Everybody loves hotels. Especially when you check in with your significant other. Why? Because you know in a hotel, you’re gonna have sex, and you’re gonna have an elevated form of sex. You’re gonna have hotel room sex, which is, ‘Let’s have sex, but let’s also disrespect this room.’”

11 Norm Macdonald on Homelessness

“I feel bad for the homeless guy, but I feel really bad for the homeless guy’s dog because he must be thinking, ‘Man, this is the longest walk ever.’”

10 Bo Burnham’s Haiku

“My aunt used to say, 

‘Slow and steady wins the race.’ 

She died in a fire.”

9 George Wallace on NFL Touchdown Celebrations

“Why do football players only dance when good shit happens? Just once, I wanna see a QB throw an interception and do a sad, interpretive dance.”

8 Maria Bamford on God

“I don’t know if I believe in God because I don’t like the idea of some Touched by an Angel angels sitting up there making decisions like, ‘I’m gonna put you in a paralyzing diving accident so you can inspire people with watercolors you paint with your feet. I’m gonna kill your mother so that you’re more friendly at work. I’m going to put you through a really crappy childhood so then when you’re 42, and you’ve been through drug and alcohol rehab, you can give strength and hope to someone else who’s been through a really crappy childhood that I put them in because I am the Lord!’”

7 George Carlin on Egotism

“One nice thing about egotists: They don’t talk about other people.”

6 Chloé Hilliard on Plants

“My mom wants me to have kids really bad. She’s really pushing for it. She’s very passive, so she buys me houseplants. Because if I can keep a plant alive, I can keep a child alive. It’s the same thing, right? It’s not. I call it Plant Parenthood. They all don’t make it. It’s very stressful. It’s hard to keep a plant alive — you gotta talk to it, you gotta put it in the sun, you gotta rotate the pot, you gotta put it in a bigger pot so it can go to college. It’s a lot of work! So now I gotta get in my car and go to a Home Depot. I gotta buy a 10-pound bag of dirt because they don’t sell a 1-pound bag of dirt. Now I look like a suspicious killer ’cause you know that’s how every crime show starts — with you buying shit that don’t match up in Home Depot. Like, ‘Why do you have bubble gum and a zip tie?’ ‘I like to pop and kill, okay!’”

5 Ron White on His Work Ethic

“People are saying that I’m an alcoholic, and that’s not true because I only drink when I work, and I’m a workaholic.”

4 Patton Oswalt on Faith

“‘You’ve gotta respect everyone’s beliefs.’ No, you don’t. That’s what gets us in trouble. You have to acknowledge everyone’s beliefs, and then you have to reserve the right to go: ‘That is fucking stupid. Are you kidding me?’ I acknowledge that you believe that — that’s great, but I’m not going to respect it. I have an uncle that believes he saw Sasquatch. We do not believe him, nor do we respect him!”

3 Taylor Tomlinson on Bangs

“It’s been a rough couple of years. I got bangs at one point. Shit got dark. I didn’t even want bangs. I just needed people to check on me. And it works, by the way. You post a selfie in bangs, everybody’s like, ‘Fire emoji. You go, girl!’ Then they text you, like, ‘You okay?’”

2 Hasan Minhaj on Slapping Kids

“Do you know when brown kids get slapped at birthday parties? Every brown birthday party! And usually, it’s the kid whose birthday it is. We stand there, we point at him, and we laugh, ‘Ah! Biju got slapped on his birthday!’ That’s what makes us tough and resilient. It’s why we become cardiologists and win spelling bees.”

1 Jimmy Carr on the Lottery

“I used to buy lottery tickets every week until I realized you could watch it on TV for nothing.”