Memorial Hall Library

Funny Resources--No Joke!

background of hot air balloons at sunrise

Many people are looking for humor or comedy right now, and the library can help with that!  While there's a lot of variation in what people find funny, here are some free resources that might help.

Comic Strips
Hoopla has comics available.  Many are graphic novels, but if you log in with your library card, and then set the search option from "everything" to "comics" you can then type the name of a comic strip and see if they have collections.  Try out Garfield or Peanuts to start with!

Washington Post has their comics/funny pages available, too.  The previous link will take you directly there, but you may want to sign in through the library (for free) to avoid their paywall.  Here are instructions for how to do so!  (Scroll to the bottom to find Washington Post.)

Comedies on Film/TV
Kanopy has some comedies among its movies.  Log in with your library card, then search "Comedy" in the search bar, then look at the bottom of the search suggestions for "Subject: Comedy."  Clicking that will offer a list of comedies. (At least, according to the taste of Kanopy's curators!)

Acorn TV has a variety of British shows, including comedies.  There are a few steps to logging in, so the link goes to MHL's page that explains how to access Acorn TV.  Once you access the Acorn TV site, you can click on the hamburger menu (three horizontal lines) in the upper left, select "browse," and then select Comedies is in the list of subjects that appears near the top of the page.

Jokes
Our library e-book collection includes some books of jokes, including
The Laugh-a-Day Book of Bloopers, Quotes & Good Clean Jokes,
The World's Greatest Collection of Clean Jokes,
The Everything Kids' Joke Book, Laugh Out Loud Jokes for Kids, and
Jokelopedia: The Biggest, Best, Silliest, Dumbest Joke Book Ever!  All you'll need is your library card to borrow or request one of these e-books.

Readers Digest offers several varieties of joke: easy to remember, one-liners, knock-knock jokes, etc.

Good Housekeeping also offers an online list of jokes for kids.
 

Laughter Yoga
Laughter yoga involves no traditional yoga poses and lots of laughter and breathing exercises.  Check out these links to YouTube videos by Dr. Madan Kataria, the founder of the worldwide laughter yoga club movement.
Laughing Yoga Alone
I Don't Feel Like Laughing... But I Will Try

For a local take on laughter yoga, you can look at Let's Laugh Today.  This site is run by a married couple living in Massachusetts.  Normally, they offer in-person laughter yoga, but they are currently offering laughter yoga via Zoom (for free).

Strange News
NPR offers a Strange News section that is updated with new stories periodically.