Aiden Willcox: the 10 funniest things I have ever seen (on the internet) – The Guardian

Each week we ask comedians to explain what makes them laugh online. Aiden wants to share Weird Al, a Lenny Kravitz parody and the perfect comedy noise
Hello, the Guardian. I am Aiden Willcox and I use the internet. A lot of people seem to think I’m lying when I say this, but my childhood home did in fact have one of those dial-up modems that made the crazy noise. One time, I was bidding on a cheap Neopets lamp and right as I got to the last page of the purchasing process, my best friend’s nan called the house phone, which switched the internet off completely and caused me to lose the lamp forever.
In retrospect, the lamp was ugly and I didn’t really want it. But despite the way that loss made me feel back then, I kept coming back. Coming back to listen to the ear-piercing llama song on repeat, coming back to watch a flash game load for 40 minutes before ultimately being disappointed by it, and coming back to what I now see was a masochistic relationship with the web.
Anyway, none of that’s relevant any more and I like funny videos now! The kind folks at the Guardian have instructed me to wrangle 10 videos together from the internet that I think are really funny. So get comfortable. Whether you’re at home, on a train, at the beach or in the tub, please enjoy these.
Kicking it off with a bang, it’s monki flip. Doesn’t need too much explanation. It’s a monkey that’s doing a flip and I love it. I love how cool the monkey is while it’s doing the flip. No mucking around, he’s ready to go. This is a monkey that respects your time and that you have places to be.
This next one is from the prolific musical comedy duo Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim. It’s from a Christmas special they did and it’s probably my favourite Christmas song of all time. Similar to Monki Flip, it makes me feel epic. I love it all: the melodrama, the costumes, the makeup, the music, the set, the choreography. It’s a masterpiece.
This video combines three of my favourite things: Weird Al, mundane conversation and flash animation from 12 years ago. It’s a great example of comedy delivered through energy rather than traditional gags. There ARE punchlines and jokes, but it’s Yankovic’s passionate delivery that really nails this parody.
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Gorilla funny. I love it.
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I like to think of this article as a metaphorical running of the gauntlet of sorts for the lawyers at the Guardian who are forced to sift through every second of these videos that I genuinely do find very funny. This one is people screaming.
Speaking of the lawyers at the Guardian, there is no way they’re going to let me put this one in here. Conner O’Malley is one of the funniest guys walking around on the planet right now. I love when you can tell that a performer is going off the rails.
I like stuff like this. It’s funny to me for reasons I can’t explain. It’s probably a primal thing. The way it’s cut together makes me happy and it’s just really silly.
This is a clip from a longer live stream that you can watch if you’ve purchased a subscription to the Eternal Family streaming service. The moment in question involves Jerry Paper singing Close to You by Carpenters through a voice changer as he’s rigged up to a makeshift mocap suit controlling a blue bird monster, while a green-screened Jay Weingarten is clowning around in the foreground. Is something that I can only wish to recreate in spirit. The clip may not do the moment justice, but I personally think it’s one of the most incredible comedic moments I’ve ever seen captured on video and think it deserves a place in this list. It inspires me every time I think about it.
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My dear friends Tyler Bain and Miso Bell created this masterpiece about wanting to be a postie and I love it. I met them during the 2022 Melbourne International comedy festival and they’re so talented and funny. Every word they utter into existence is so effortlessly perfect and I can’t wait for them to be international cult figures one day. I once saw them send a single audience member into the cold, dark night during one of their shows to retrieve a briefcase with two cookies inside, which they then ate slowly in front of everyone before celebrating extremely hard.
Congratulations! You’ve reached the end of this predominantly gruelling list of videos. I think it’s time I left you with my personal favourite clip of all time. “Funny as cricket” is a video of my best friend, Patrick Murphy, as he films his childhood friends playing a little backyard game of cricket. At about 40 seconds in, he makes the perfect comedy sound. One can only assume that it was meant to be a trumpet-inspired victory noise. But as we all know, sometimes what comes out of our mouths isn’t what we expect. I think about this noise countless times throughout the year and it haunts me constantly.
So that’s that. I really like all of these videos. I hope you like them too. If you’ve got any questions, send me a message on Instagram. Isaac Haigh and I are bringing back our award-winning musical comedy, Songs From the Heart in the Hole of my Bottom, to both the Adelaide Fringe and Melbourne International comedy festival in 2023, so follow us on social media to keep updated on all that. I’m going to go stare out of a window and take a deep breath now. Farewell.

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