Those of you who know me know that I am a consta-writer. Meaning that every day, pretty much no matter what’s going on in my world, I write jokes. I used to do this for my full-time living, every day turning the news into 30 and 50 monologue jokes for TV shows. I still write jokes professionally, but mostly I write jokes because I enjoy writing jokes. Every day I pay attention to what jolts the joke area of my brain, and I turn those humor flashes into actual written-out, crafted jokes.
Which turns out to be a lot of jokes. 5-10 jokes a day will yield 1500 to 3000 jokes a year. Sometimes these are from the news, sometimes from things I read online, sometimes from my actual lived life. I write monologue jokes, standup jokes, quips, aphorisms, insights, insults, zings, burns, absurdities, whatever format hits me. I post about half of these to social media, collect them all into a new book each year, turn some into standup, sell off some to comics, turn others into longer rants and articles, and generally sprinkle them all into my life whenever they can add some spice.
I also create a new sample packet from my daily jokes each year. Which is helpful when someone wants to see fresh samples when they’re deciding whether to hire you. And it’s also just good practice, every year harvesting the best 25 or so joke jokes, a few top top lists, and a longer piece or two.
Here’s my sample packet from last year, 2023.
DAN FRENCH SAMPLE PACKET 2023
“Cats in the Cradle” is a melancholy folk song about two douchebags.
What kind of psycho puts a needle in a haystack?
Hell is just an endless line of women waiting to tell you about a dream they had last night.
So, your name is Maureen. And you’re from Michigan. Which, if I’m not mistaken, makes you a United States Maureen.
[Shel Silverstein, early 1964] -- “I wonder if I could make millions of people feel really bad for a tree?”
Animals build their homes with their mouths.
The fact that George Carlin isn’t a required part of every public education system in America pretty much says it all.
For his next trick, Jesus turned lettuce into pot.
Why isn't there divorce insurance?
Imagine if you had to go outside every morning and sniff out a good place to poop.
My will specifies that when I die I am to be interned in a mahogany coffin, which will be held aloft by a drone hovering 100 ft. above the homes of my various enemies, playing Sting’s “I’ll Be Watching You,” until each of them dies.
Vampires should train mosquitoes to go out and collect for them.
Name one other thing that happened in “Last Tango in Paris”.
Hell, for $200 an hour I’d be happy to act interested in you.
The War on Christmas was settled on a single night in 2023, when Santa dropped incendiary bombs down the chimneys of every lib who was trying to cancel him.
Why was she wearing a riding hood when she walked everywhere in that story?
That’s when I decided that to make the baby feel okay about herself, we should all poop in our pants.
[Beginning of an LA love story] “I want someone genuine,” she whispered, through her thick, silicone-filled lips…
There should be a psychological Roomba that just comes into the room, compliments you, and leaves. “You’re looking good today, Jenna. I heard your last conference call, you were on fire! Keep going, girl, proud of you!”
Everything on earth needs water to survive. [Alligators]: “I’ma gonna hide in their water.”
It’s so cold in Texas that bullets are falling out of the air before they can reach innocent people.
They should change the name to Duck, Duck, Concussion.
Never judge a woman until you’ve walked a mile in her thong.
There is a skinny guy and a fat guy at my gym, who confidently talk the dumbest politics I have ever heard. My mental nickname for them is Laurel and Blowhardy. It’s possible this may be the greatest joke ever written.
She said she was a nomad, but, trust me, she got mad plenty.
There is no question the Bible cannot answer. As long as you don’t care about the quality of your answers.
Fruit trees: “I’ll feed you, but you have to crap out my children as far away from me as you can.”
97% of the time Brit’s are drinking tea. The other 3% they’re saying bollocks.
The very last thing to ever be alive on this planet will be a dying cockroach, weakly drinking from a leaking Coca-Cola can.
Imagine the amount of figgy pudding you had to keep on hand to avoid trouble in Dickensian England.
[Pick-up lines, circa 1945] “Girl, are you a Nazi? Because you are systematically killing me!”
DAN FRENCH TOP LISTS FROM 2023
* Top Romantic Comedies for Zombies
Rotting Hill
Lifeless in Seattle
When Harry Ate Sally
My Best Friend’s Funeral
The Princess Died
While You Were Creeping
My Big Fat Greek Coronary
Bridget Jones’ Last Will and Testament
Four Funerals and Another Funeral
About a Dead Boy
Rigor Mortis, Actually
Top Final Pun Lines from Episodes of “Sex and the City” --
“And with that…
-- I closed the book… on the librarian.”
-- I said goodbye… to the Walmart greeter.”
-- I put the proctologist… behind me.”
-- I moved on… from the U-Haul guy.”
-- I cut off… the lumberjack.”
-- I called it a night… with the security guard.”
-- The flame went out… with the fireman.”
-- I passed… on the quarterback.”
-- I knew that the personal trainer… wasn’t going to work out.”
In honor of the Succession eulogies, here are the Top Tough Opening Lines in a Eulogy
“Well, ding dong, another wicked witch is dead…”
“Sometimes, it’s a shame that someone only dies once.”
“I don’t want to say I won’t miss old what’s-his-name, but…”
“I think we can all agree that hell got a new mayor today…”
“I always envisioned myself confessing to her murder in her eulogy. Unfortunately, cancer got there first.”
“There comes a time in everyone’s life when someone else’s death makes your life better. This is one of those times.”
“One thing I know, heaven just double-padlocked its doors.”
“Some of you didn’t know my father well. I envy you that.”
“Happiness isn’t for everyone. And my mother made sure that was true.”
“Seems the waste of a good coffin, when there’s a landfill so nearby.”
* You Know You’re in Psychological Trouble when…
- Your therapist ends your sessions by sobbing on her office floor.
- Your therapist brings legal counsel to your sessions.
- Your therapist constantly asks, “Can I have that for my book?”
- Your therapist calls your mother once a session to corroborate.
- Your therapist brings an exorcist to your sessions.
- Your therapist starts muttering, “Yeah, right,” during your sessions.
- Your therapist ends your sessions by saying, “Well, not everyone gets better.”
* Top Leading Men if They Were Animals
Spaniel L. Jackson
Robert Cowney Jr
Vin Weasel
Leonardo DeCarprio
Mel Gibbon
Top Europeanized Versions of American Pop Songs
Messi’s Girl
Hungarian Pie
Belarusian Lullabye
(I Wish They All Could Be) Lithuanian Girls
Born to Vespa
800-Year-Old Bridge Over Troubled Water
Send in the Mimes
Stairway to the Basilica
Hotel Romania
I Will Always Amore You
Bulgarian Dreamin’
DAN FRENCH LONG FORM COMEDY SAMPLES 2023
A Visit from Non-Saint Trumpolas
‘Twas the night before Treasonmas, and all through the House,
All the Republicans were stirring, defending their louse.
The Vice-President might soon be hung up with care,
Because he did not agree about the role he had there.
The voters were all snuggled, complacent at home,
not knowing that democracy was about to get boned.
MAGA’s morons were stirring, wearing their stupid red caps,
Their brains were all addled, by years of FOX crap.
From inside the White House, there had been such a blather,
To make idiots and dirtbags and seditionists gather.
No one suspected that the government might crash,
Because of a gathering of hillbilly white trash.
The moon shone some light, but the night was still dark,
As MTG lay a pipe bomb in the park.
When what to my disbelieving eyes did appear,
But a treasonous limo pulled by eight sycophantic reindeer.
With a disturbed orange rider, so villainous and gross,
I knew in an instant it was Non-Saint Trumpolas.
More vapid than beagles his apologists came,
And he dog-whistled, and signaled, and called them by name:
“Now Guiliani, now Eastman, now Meadows, now Bannon,
On Miller, on Ivanka, on Mnuchin, and Kraken!
To Congress we’ll go, the Capitol will fall!
We’ll teach them a lesson about taking it all!
The ignorance will hurricane, the bs will fly,
My followers will disrupt the certification, with a wink of my eye!”
So into secret meetings he and his denial-ists flew,
With thousands of Proud Boys at the ready, they knew.
And though his followers fail to see evidences and proofs,
The rest of us could see his pointed tail and his hoofs.
As Biden worked hard, preparing to take power,
Non-Saint Trumpolas waited for just the right hour.
He dressed in a suit he got from the Maxx,
And he tamped down his hair with his usual anthrax.
A bundle of lies he had flung on his back,
Our national shyster, our Mussolini, our hack.
His eyes how they twinkled, his forked tongue, how merry!
His cheeks were like baboon butts, his nose hairs so scary!
His dumb little lips were perpetually pursed,
Because from Putin’s nipples he constantly nursed.
He was chubby and plump, but claimed such great health,
It was a fiction exceeded by only his claims of great wealth.
I laughed when I saw him, thinking, oh, what a clown!
How could this joke of a man bring a democracy down?
But that look in his eye, and the plans in his head,
Soon gave me to know, I had plenty to dread.
He spread the deception, because that is his work,
He ignored the Constitution, because he’s a jerk.
We gave him the finger, whenever we could,
But deep in his soul, he wears a white hood.
And finally it came, the morning of treason,
when against all that is good, and with greed as the reason,
We heard the narcissist exclaim, with such evil delight,
“To the Capitol now go! And to Democracy, good night!”