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Hilarious Jokes from the Guy Who Makes America Laugh

Reader's Digest humor editor Andy Simmons shares his favorite funny stories, jokes, quotes, and more.

By Andy Simmons from Reader's Digest Magazine | September 2012
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Our Andy has a book called Now That’s Funny!, and it's filled with jokes, anecdotes, essays, and interviews from his nine years as humor editor at Reader’s Digest. He wanted to shamelessly promote it online. We said: “As long as we don’t have to pay you.” So, here are the jokes, folks!

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Joke sent in by a celebrity:

“Doctor, please help me,” says an elderly patient. “I have silent passage of gas every morning. I have silent passage of gas every afternoon, and I suffer from silent passage of gas in the evening. Sometimes I have silent passage of gas at unpredictable times—for instance, just now. Doctor, can you help me?” “Sure, I can help you‚” says the doctor. “But first you need your hearing checked.”—Dr. Oz, media mogul

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Joke I can’t share with my kid:

Why does the Easter Bunny hide all his eggs? Because he doesn’t want anyone to know he’s screwing a chicken.

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Why we have locks on bathroom doors:

While my three-year-old grandson was attending a birthday party, his friend’s father sneaked off to take a shower before work. Halfway through, the father heard a tapping on the shower door, followed by the sight of my grandson peering in. Looking around the stall, he asked, “Is my mom in here?”—Reader Billie Creel

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I am smarter than at least one person:

Londoner Joanna Kirchmeier arrived home to find her husband, Helmut, in front of a mirror “just staring at himself, his pupils tiny.” Helmut, a newly trained hypnotist, had accidentally hypnotized himself while rehearsing a new act and had been standing like that for five hours.

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The evolution of couples:

After learning that her parents were in a minor car accident, my wife called her mother. “What happened?” she asked.” I was driving and fell asleep,” said her mother, irritated. “And of course, your father wasn’t paying attention!”—Reader Guy Lambert

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Reason to loathe technology:

I don’t shop online, because I don’t own a computer. My belief is they haven’t completed inventing computers yet. Why? Because they don’t work. If they worked, not every business in the world would have a department to fix them. They don’t have a department to fix pencils.—Humorist/curmudgeon Fran Lebowitz

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Reason to love technology:

Consumers in northern Alabama became suspicious when they received recorded messages urging them to go to a website where they could “update” their bank account records. How did victims know it was just a “phishing” expedition? Their caller IDs read “This is a scam.”

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Practical joke I swear I’m going to pull off one day:

I once saw a dead deer by the side of the road. I ran home, put on a Santa suit, and then lay down beside the deer—just in time for a school bus to drive by.—Tom Mabe, prankster

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Philosophy I live by:

I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work; I want to achieve immortality through not dying.—Woody Allen

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Invention that I’m looking for on Amazon as I type this:

It appears that in the face of chemical or biological warfare, a woman’s primary job is to doff her clothes. That’s where the Face-Mask bra comes in. It’s a brassiere that, in an emergency, can be converted into a pair of protective masks. In the event of dangerous fumes, say the inventors, masks may not be available, but there’s almost always a bra handy.

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Complaint that’s not nearly as whiny as I’d have written it:

As a TV writer, I rarely watch TV. And one reason is those big banner ads that scroll across the bottom of the screen, interrupting a show I want to see to promote a show I never want to see. If I’m watching something about Charlemagne, do I need to know about an all-new season of American Chopper?

These ads cover up subtitles in foreign films and obscure key clues on mystery shows. And once, during the somber classic Saving Private Ryan, a Day-Glo green banner unfurled, featuring the capering cast of Uncle Fatso’s Family. And I wondered, Who are you people? And what are you doing in occupied France?—Mike Reiss, a founding writer of The Simpsons

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Advice I plan to pass on to kith and kin (once I figure out what kith means):

When I was a self-conscious teen, my mother told me, “You think people are thinking about your zit or your large nose, but they’re not. No one else is thinking of you as much as you think they are, because just think how much you’re not thinking of other people.” And she was trying to cheer me up.—Comedian Anita Renfro

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Your Comments

  • Cookseverynite

    Hilarious?  By what standard?   I couldn’t believe a magazine with as fine a reputation as the Digest would run a joke about the Easter bunny screwing a chicken.  NOT FUNNY!   Crude, dumb, and disgusting!  Sorry,  your “funniest issue ever” certainly was not amusing.

    • Hambone

      That was funny…not crude…hardly disgusting…and quite clever actually. Haven’t you ever wondered why the bunny hides eggs?

    • ED ORRIS

      I TOTALLY AGREE! ED ORRIS

  • Cookseverynite

    Hilarious?  By what standard?   I couldn’t believe a magazine with as fine a reputation as the Digest would run a joke about the Easter bunny screwing a chicken.  NOT FUNNY!   Crude, dumb, and disgusting!  Sorry,  your “funniest issue ever” certainly was not amusing.

  • Helmut

    The jokes are truly entertaining.

  • MK

    These jokes are sick and disgusting.  Readers Digest you be ashamed of yourself for publishing such utter nonsense.   
    Please produce something that is readable.

  • http://www.facebook.com/lauracushing Laura Cushing

    Geeze, don’t be a prude. Lighten up- the bunny was funny.

  • http://www.facebook.com/stacy.vinson Stacy Music

    Maybe that joke isnt your tast but, really, get over it. Arent there a million other things to be in a huff about other than a silly joke and by the way, I read RD every month but my youngest does not. My older child does and believe me, shes heard worse on broadcast TV. If this kind of thing makes you uncomfortable, then you and alot of others are the reason kids dont get spoken to about certain issues ahead of time. See now Im making a big deal out of others making a big deal! Ok, Im done.

  • Billjaap

    the usual not funny at all american jokes

  • Sponge

    Oh, that’s classy.  What’s next, “turd” jokes?  Way to go Reader Digest.

  • Calvin N Hobbes

    Pitiable link. I wish he had scanned all the ‘Laughter is the Best Medicine’ pages and made an e-book instead.

    • Calvin N Hobbes

      Not commenting on crude or not crude part. Some of these jokes are not funny at all.