So you’ve finally made it into work–albeit dreadfully late–but at least you’re there. And as a bonus (the only kind you’ll be getting this year, mind you), your boss was in a meeting and didn’t notice your tardiness. Now for the real challenge, what are you going to do for the next eight hours? Maybe ask yourself the standard series of questions: why did I go out last night, I want to crawl under my desk and die? When is my coworker going to stop talking? Why is the clock moving so slowly today when the time during the weekend never moves this slow? Then, maybe consider what your co-worker is thinking - surely, it’s something along the lines of “how do I look productive while I’m searching the web?”

Being a team member at Comic Wonder, I no longer have these thoughts.  But hey, if it happens to you, know that you are not alone.  Check out these great websites that were dedicated to your work woes:

• My Corporate Hell - where users share horror stories about their boss, the company waste, stupid people they have worked with and the worst mission statements ever.
• Office Olympics - an entertainment website offering office humor videos mainly performed by their cast.  Users can submit their own office olympic videos, as well.
• Office Misery - their site says they are dedicated to providing office employees with quality dysfunctional work ethics and a low moral working environment.
• Kewlbox - a website full of games you can play at the office.  I recommend Char-iots of Flyers - a game where you select your player and chair and have to work through an office opstical course.
• Office Humor Blog - a blog featuring office pranks, daily jokes, news, downloads, and other office humor.

These are really fun sites & sure to make your work day move faster (if you can hide your monitor)!!

What is it about Chuck Norris jokes? The appeal is almost as universal as Chuck Norris’s dizzying effect on the ladies… well maybe not that good. Granted, some Chuck Norris jokes are in exquisitely awful taste. That said, I’ve found a few real gems out there such as:

Chuck Norris’ tears cure cancer. Too bad he has never cried.

Chuck Norris doesn’t read books. He stares them down until he gets the information he wants.

Chuck Norris does not sleep. He waits.

Now it looks like Chuck Norris himself is finally getting a sense of humor about all this. The site Chuck Norris Facts (http://www.chucknorrisfacts.com) purports to have a list of certified Chuck Norris favorites about His truly. For hardcore Chuck fans, there’s videos and swag – even a design your own Chuck-shirt section. A must visit site for those in love with all things Chuck.

As for my all-time favorite Chuck Norris joke?

Chuck Norris destroyed the periodic table because he only recognizes the element of surprise.

Chucktactular!

Have you checked out the content at Cracked.com?  I originally started thinking the blogger Michael Swaim was HILARIOUS – and quickly realized all the bloggers were true to his form.  They all reiterate the daily occurrences of our society in a TRULY comical way.  It’s fun, wacky content that I’m sure fans of Comic Wonder will appreciate.  How can you go wrong with articles such as, ‘5 books that can actually make you stupider’, ‘20 tacky religious products guaranteed to anger God’, and ‘The five most badass presidents of all time’ to name a few?

Good stuff.   If you have yet to read these blogs & articles – check them out at www.cracked.com!  It may not always be PG (or PG-13 for that matter) – but, it sure is funny!

When we crowned Canucklehead the Comic Wonder of the week, how could we have known that our Canucklehead was THE Canucklehead (as in http://www.canucklehead.ca/)

Our North-of-the-border friend has got some pretty funny stuff over there. (I can relate to this one) He’s also got a good collection of his best Comic Wonder audio jokes over at his site and he appears to be just as proud of us as we are of him.

When it comes to online comedy, the signal to noise ratio is woeful. I have compiled a list of some relatively good resources. More often than not, you will find something to laugh at when you visit these blogs.  If you have a blog you recommend, please leave a comment!

BBC: The Comedy Blog offers humor from across the pond — amusing links, trivia and general randomness.

Dave Barry’s Blog — semi-retired Miami Herald humor columnist maintains his online journal, sharing bizarre news stories and funny anecdotes.

SatireSearch aggregates satirical news, providing an excellent source for funny takes on current events. Not for the kiddies!

HumorFeed incorporates many of the same sites as SatireSearch, but has an editorial review process designed to improve the quality of the content. While there is some adult language, the contributors strive to keep it clean.

Dead Frog is Todd Jackson’s comedy blog chocked full of industry news about stand-up and comedians.

Shecky Magazine — industry insiders Traci Skene and Brian McKim regularly update their blog with comic news and interviews with well-known comedians.

How often have you been among friends, listening to them all offering up hilarious jokes and when it became your turn you were forced to say, ”I don’t know any - I can’t remember jokes?”  I have heard that line way too many times and feel something must be done!  There are many books available on the topic of remembering jokes. If you’re anything like me though, you don’t appreciate the art enough to read an entire book, but think it would be extremely helpful when you hear that joke you can’t wait to repeat, and know you will never remember. 

Here are some great tips I found that originally appeared in The Toastmaster, December 2003.  Good luck on remembering and perfecting your favorite joke. I am sure you will WOW your friends the next time you’re the expected joke-teller!

Decide if you want to remember the joke. A joke must make you laugh before you will want to repeat it. If you don’t tell a joke with complete conviction, you will greatly diminish your chances of getting a laugh.

Ask to hear it again. Ask the person who told it to you to repeat it. He or she will be flattered and gladly do it, and hearing the joke twice will double your chances of remembering it. If others are present, they will probably not appreciate hearing it again, so wait for the first available moment to draw the teller aside.

Make mental notes and visualize. Just after someone tells you a joke, silently repeat to yourself the exact wording used, descriptions of characters, and any mannerisms that made the joke funny. Wait until the joke is over, though. By visualizing, you are creating a movie in your mind. Later, when you tell it to someone, just roll the movie! One easy way to do this is to put someone you know into the joke.

Repeat the joke back to the person who told it to you. The person who told you the joke is the best coach to help you tell it. While listening, he or she can help you fine-tune those nuances that are so crucial to the proper execution of a joke. You may not have to repeat the whole joke, but be sure to repeat key phrases.

Rehearse. Practice, practice, practice. Consider all the elements that make that joke funny, including lengths of any appropriate pauses, physical motions that help the setup and, especially, rehearse the punch line. Speak it out loud, and review it mentally.

Change the joke. Just as the best way to learn how to play a musical passage on an instrument is to change it a little, the same is true of jokes. If you alter the joke slightly, you will remember it easier. This is because it now has some of your own personality stamped on it.

Have a test person. Choose a friend to be your trial audience whenever you want to tell a joke for the first time, preferably someone who shares the same sense of humor. Once you have successfully told a joke, your subconscious will easily and frequently bring it back to you. Success breeds success, and the more you tell and the more people laugh, the more your confidence will grow.

Tell the joke as often as possible. When you hear a joke, tell it to someone as soon as possible. Once you have successfully told a joke, you will remember it for days, weeks, months and even years.

Categorize the joke. In the same way you organize information in your computer into folders, you could put jokes into categories in your mind. For example, “lawyer jokes” go together, so imagine the best joke for setting up one or following another. If one joke leads into another, it will be easy to remember a whole series of jokes. (It’s been observed that Robin Williams tells “jokes within jokes.” But how did he start? Like anyone else, one joke at a time.

Imagine the best circumstances in which to tell the joke. After hearing a joke, you might think of a person or group that would like that joke. If so, imagine telling them that joke, so that next time you are with them, you’ll remember to share it with them.

Think about who told you the joke and why you liked it. Suppose you didn’t use any of the previous techniques except the last one, and then you see your friends and want to tell them the joke but can’t remember it. What then? Try to picture the person who told you the joke that will sometimes trigger the memory. Or think back to the feeling you had when you heard it. What was it about that joke that made you want to share it? If you can remember the punch line, you can usually work backward and reconstruct the joke.

Write it down! This is the most important advice, more important than the rest put together. Unless you write it down, you will forget more than you remember. It doesn’t have to be the whole joke; a few key words will do. Just jot it down and transfer it to a notepad or your computer as soon as you can. Do not write out the whole joke, because when it comes to telling it, it will be more natural if you have written just enough to remember the set up and the payoff.

This marks the 4th week in a row that Funnybone has taken the Comic Wonder crown! Funnybone has an understated style of joke-telling and a huge fan base. Her stable of great joke performances is growing daily and she may be unstoppable.

Check out all of her joke performances here.

Last night I went to dinner with a girl friend who reminded me how annoying the whole Valentine’s Day hoopla can be if you’re single. To my surprise, I went online and found a ton of sites dedicated to Anti-Valentine’s Day!  Here are some Comic Wonder jokes that will remind you that the grass may not always be greener!

Also check out Valentine’s Day Cards for Ex-Valentine’s at www.badcupid.com!

• “Honey,” said a husband to his wife, “I invited a friend home for supper.”
  “What? Are you crazy? The house is a mess, I haven’t been shopping, all the dishes are dirty, and I don’t feel like cooking a fancy meal!”
  “I know all that.”
  “Then why did you invite a friend for supper?”
  “Because the poor fool’s thinking about getting married.”

• A man and a friend are playing golf one day at their local golf course. One of the guys is about to chip onto the green when he sees a long funeral procession on the road next to the course. He stops in mid-swing, takes off his golf cap, closes his eyes, and bows down in prayer.
  His friend says, “Wow, that is the most thoughtful and touching thing I have ever seen. You truly are a kind man.”
  The man then replies: “Yeah, well we were married 35 years.”

• The Devil walked into a crowded bar. Within seconds the bar emptied with people running out screaming all over the place, all except for one old man. The Devil wandered across to the old man and said, “Do you know how I am?” The old man took another sip of his beer and answered, “Yep.” The Devil stared at the old man and asked, “Well aren’t you afraid?” The old man looked the Devil up and down for a minute and shrugged, “nah, I’ve been married to your sister for 40 years. Why the hell should I be scared of you?”

• An unhappy wife was complaining about her husband spending all his free time in a bar, so one night he took her along with him. “What’ll you have?” he asked. “Oh, I don’t know. The same as you I suppose,” she replied. So, the husband ordered a couple of Jack Daniel’s and threw his down in one shot. His wife watched him, then took a sip from her glass and immediately spat it out. “Yuck, that’s TERRIBLE!” she spluttered. “I don’t know how you can drink this stuff!” “Well, there you go,” cried the husband. “And you think I’m out enjoying myself every night!”

• Brenda O’Malley is home making dinner as usual, when Tim Finnegan arrives at her door. “Brenda, may I come in?” he asks. “I’ve somethin’ to tell ya.” “Of course you can come in. You’re always welcome, Tim. But where’s my husband?” “That’s what I’m here to be tellin’ ya, Brenda. There was an accident down at the Guinness brewery.” “Oh, God no!” cries Brenda. “Please don’t tell me…” “I must, Brenda. Your husband Shamus is dead and gone. I’m sorry.” Finally, she looked up at Tim. “How did it happen, Tim?” “It was terrible, Brenda. He fell into a vat of Guinness Stout and drowned.” “Oh my dear Jesus! But you must tell me true, Tim. Did he at least go quickly?” “Well, no Brenda, no.” “No?” “Fact is, he got out three times to pee.”

We are excited to announce that Mark Metcalf has joined the Comic Wonder team as our Head of Humor. In his new role, Mark is touring the country scouting for joke-telling talent. This morning he was interviewed on the Bob & Tom Show with our 2007 winner, Captainhilariousness (aka Chris Cashman). Listen to the interview at www.bobandtom.com.

Although trained as a Shakespearian actor, Mark became an American icon with his role as the sadistic ROTC cadet, Doug Neidermeyer, in the college classic National Lampoon’s Animal House (1978). He later went on to reprise this role in the Twisted Sister music videos “We’re Not Gonna Take It” and “I Wanna Rock”. The infamous role of Neidermeyer was just the beginning for Mark, who now has 27 films to his credit. He has directed such films as When It Comes Early, Bikini Bar, You’ve Still Got Most of Your Hair, and The Wolf Finally Came. Mark also had recurring roles on two hit television shows. He was “The Maestro” on Seinfeld (1990) and “The Master” on Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997).

When Mark is not out in search of Comic Wonder’s next big talent, you can meet & chat him up at his establishment; he is co-owner of Libby Montana Bar & Grill in Mequon, Wisconsin.