Pierre Novellie: the 10 funniest things I have ever seen (on the internet)

The Guardian

02-04-2025

One of the toughest things about being a comedian or comedy writer these days is just how much amazing stuff exists out there in the wild. Feral jokes roaming the jungle of the internet, free to view, shared everywhere, completely uncredited, disappearing as quickly as they appeared. So many of my choices were deleted when I returned to the jungle clearing where I first spotted them. The loss of the baffling German voiceover actor used for the outdoor-lights-bundle product video embedded in an Amazon page is a particularly galling one. Was it a dream?
The internet has proven that everyone can be the funniest person on Earth once in their lives and comedians and comedy writers are often less funny but more consistent. Here is a mixture of both types.
Brian 'Limmy' Limond is one of the best British comedy writers and performers of the century and he's never got the exposure he deserves, I think because English television executives didn't think anyone would understand Scottish accents. His sketches are incredible but these days he Twitch streams and occasionally improvises mad stories from suggestions or simply off the top of his head in the middle of a game. This one is a favourite for my friends and I. Whenever a celebrity or politician gets in more trouble after apologising than before, we remember: don't back doon, double doon.
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I have no real understanding of why Kim Cattrall is doing this or who with and I do not wish to know. I was so dumbstruck by it when first seeing it I had to let it loop several times before the enormous reserve of laughter it created could be released from my chest. For weeks, I would make my girlfriend jump by suddenly saying 'saba sooRAY!' to myself, unprompted.
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These two geniuses are producing some of the best sketches I've ever seen. The Gordon Ramsay one, the Home Alone one, too many gems to name. To introduce you to their work I think it's best if I show you one of their big hitters, a sketch about forgetting your headphones. Their work straddles the mundane and the obscene and surreal in a way that I think is generally done best by northern English comedians (for example Vic and Bob, the League of Gentlemen), and their mixture of fully committing to characters and undermining their own premises makes me honk.
One of the stupidest jokes ever and it made me cry with laughter for two days. A work of art. Trying to explain why this is incredibly funny is like trying to explain picnics: the more you say, the stupider it all sounds.
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When an impression is good, it is funny; when an impression is really good, it is also horrible. From the mixture of regional accents carefully matched to each other, to the upstairs-downstairs class system faux bonhomie, this has everything that makes so much British theatre (and indeed cinema) utterly intolerable outside of a drunken Christmastime viewing. The Monty Python aspect to the voices is both excessively silly and chillingly real.
The comedian Alex Kealy and I lived together one Edinburgh fringe. We had both seen this video a long time before but all it took was merely for him to ask if I had seen it and we were both crying-laughing again. He didn't even finish the question due to laughter and he didn't need to, all I needed to hear was 'Have you seen the Egyptian priest?' and I was gone. Dead.
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There are a lot of videos where people have removed backing tracks or laugh tracks. Friends without a laugh track is a nasty, baffling Godot-style play. Star Wars without the soaring music is awkward and creepy. This one stuck with me because it builds perfectly. Every new thing about Elvis having no back-up music is funnier than the previous thing until the final hilarious crescendo. It is also a perfect impression of the awful half-singing people do quietly while they are in public.
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Another perfect sketch! One of the few truly original takes along the lines of 'imagine superheroes but real'. The downplayed but still gobsmacked reactions are perfect , as well as the cheesy, wholesome offscreen voice of Spider-Man himself. Great sketches are often great observational comedy played out, and this is no exception.
Most of this is not available for free, but it's such a comedy ray of sunshine that beams straight into the core of your brain, I can't not recommend it. The Americans will always do two things better than the rest of the world: improv and game shows. Sam Reich embodies both, and hosts the show with a genial mischief that makes you want to have him host or narrate everything you do in life from now on. I also got the chance to meet him at the Edinburgh Fringe and he was so shocked I knew who he was he must also be a good person.
People in films are always telling each other that they look like shit, and it's just shrugged off. I would be jarringly upset for days
Johnny White Really-Really is the comedy act I have most recommended in my life. I recommend him to the point that I imagine he finds unsettling by now, having long since ceased to be flattered. His tweets make me laugh a lot but I think you need to listen to the specials of the man to understand the tweets. Most of them are available for streaming and some on Bandcamp. In one show he asks, apropos of nothing, 'have you ever accidentally stroked your dad's hand while you're both stroking the same dog?' I would also add that he is one of the only comedians whose shows work just as well as prose as they do onstage. There is no one doing it like him – his specials don't even have audiences so you don't get prompted to laugh by rhythm and mob psychology. You have to actually listen.
Pierre Novellie: Must We? is on at the Westin as part of Melbourne International Comedy Festival until 18 April