How modern comedy was made: 100 “fun”damental jokes [videos]

You might think the modern American comedy scene is so diverse that it’s impossible to boil the basics down to a mere 100 jokes. The Vulture’s Jesse David Fox took on this monumental task with the help of a crack team of comedy experts and a few rules to guide them: First, we decided early on that these jokes needed to be performed and recorded at some point. Second, with apologies to Monty Python, whose influence on contemporary comedy is tremendous and undeniable, we focused only on American humor. Third, we only included one joke per comedian. And fourth, the list doesn’t include comedy that we ultimately felt was bad, harmful, or retrograde. And so, without further ado, here’s a sample of the people who blazed the path of modern comedy. 1906 Nobody Bert Williams, Alex Rogers “I ain’t never done nothin’ to nobody / I ain’t never got nothin’ from nobody, no time / And until I get somethin’ from somebody, sometime / I’ll never do nothin’ for nobody, no time” Bert Williams was the most popular black comedic performer in America at the turn of the 20th century. But his celebrity grew tremendously when he put the songs from his stage show Abyssinia to disc and cylinder. That record included the piece he was best known for, “Nobody.” It’s an upbeat tune whose buoyant arrangement runs perpendicular to its melancholy message of isolation and disappointment, a device that’s since become ubiquitous…

1913 Cohen on the Telephone George L. Thompson, Monroe Silver, Joe Hayman “Are you dere? Last night de vind came unt blew down de shutter outside mine house, and I vant you to send a car-pen-ter — a carp. Oh, never mind, I’ll have it fixed myself.” Though it began as a stage routine, “Cohen on the Telephone” is noteworthy for embracing two emerging technologies: the telephone and the phonograph. Developed in England by Joe Hayman, the definitive Jewish vaudeville monologue became bigger than any one comedian as it grew into a sensation stateside when American comedians like Barney Bernard, George L. Thompson, and most notably Monroe Silver took on the character of Cohen and recorded covers of the routine. Built on a classic misunderstanding-an-accent premise, it popularized the comedic device of hearing one half of a phone conversation…

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