One of my favorite scenes in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back is where Luke is on Hoth recovering from his near death encounter with a wampa, freezing temps, and being stuffed inside a tauntaun by Han Solo. Han, Leia, and Chewbacca are at Luke's bedside and Han is pestering Leia, claiming that her romantic feelings for him is why he's been forced to stay on Hoth.
"I dont know where you get your delusions laser-brain," Leia replies, which sets Chewbacca laughing. ("Laugh it up Fuzzball!")
Funny! I smile whenever I even think of that scene, but I'll be the first to admit that my skills at making others laugh are lacking. Really. My favorite joke? (I tell this to anyone willing to listen.)
Man walks into a crowded bar, sees several pieces of meat hanging from the ceiling, so he asks the bartender what's up with the meat?
Bartender says, "It's a game. If you can jump up and slap the meat then your drinks are free for the night, but if you miss you have to buy everyone in the bar a round of drinks for an hour. Wanna give it a try?"
The man thinks for a moments and says, "Nah, the steaks are too high."
Pretty lame, right? It makes me snicker even if it's not original. I guess I'm not a funny guy, but there are times when I wanna be and that's when I'm reminded of something Steve Martin said: "There's a secret to it, it's no big deal. Before I go out, I put a slice of bologna in each of my shoes. So when I'm on stage, I feel funny."
Yeah, sometimes I wanna feel funny. Especially when I'm around my friend, Carmen. There are times when funny is as contagious as a yawn and we get side-splitting silly, other times...not so much. I've yet to try on a pair of socks by Oscar Mayer for those less jocular moments, but I have been tempted.
Anyway, there are those whose entire wardrobe must be made of lunchmeat because these folks make a living making others laugh. And wouldn't you know it? There are apps that can help you keep tabs on what or who makes you snicker. I've got 3 to tell you about, so lets get to it.
Comedy Central [20.9MB, runs on all iOS devices capable of running iOS 7.0 or later, Maker: Viacomm International]
Comedy Central app
There are cable channels for cooking, sewing, exercising, there's even a channel dedicated to letting anyone say anything they want. The Free Speech Channel is likely the only channel more boring than C-Span. Be that as it may, there is a channel called Comedy Central and it has some pretty funny shows. Now there's an iOS app for that and it's pretty good.
Full episodes, folks!! It's got full episodes of your favorite shows like Chappell's Show and The Colbert Report. It also has shorts, clips, show schedules and more. Unfortunately not all content is freely available. If you see a little lock on any of the content then you'll have to provide your cable or satellite provider account info in order to unlock it. But there's enough here to watch even if you don't have or want to give up that info.
Get favorites and more
The very clean interface is fun to navigate and you can search, find favorites, and access other settings just by tapping on the Comedy Central logo.
Watch funny stuff. Get Comedy Central.
Comedy Central Standup [26.3MB, runs on all iOS devices capable of running iOS 6.0 or later, Maker: Viacomm International]
Yep, it's an app dedicated to standup comedy.
Again, a nice, clean interface lets you easily find and watch routines from over 700 comedians. And there's a Discover feature that links related comedians to the one you're currently watching, so you'll be hard pressed not to find something to watch.
What's even better is that you have full access to all content regardless of your cable or satellite provider affiliation or lack thereof. You just have to suffer through some ads.
Lots of content in Comedy Central Standup
This isn't just old content either. Comedy Central Standup includes videos from recent shows in their Featured mode, so you'll always have fresh stuff to watch.
It's free and has good stuff. What more could you want?
WitStream [9.4MB, runs on all iOS devices capable of running iOS 6.0 or later, Maker: WitStream LLC]
What more could you want? How about continuos, around the clock access to funny people so that whenever they tweet something funny you see it almost immediately? How about seeing all your favorite funny people's tweets in one place? How about being able search by topics, create a list of favorites? How about your enemy's still beating heart on a platter?
WitStream won't dispatch your enemies, but the app will do the rest with ease. You'll get up to the minute jokes about up to the minute news items worth joking about from any well known comedian with something to say on the subject at hand.
Lots of options for funny streams
The interface is stupid simple and you don't have to join anything to see what people are saying. It's pretty much what we've all be waiting our whole lives for. (Wait! That was true love, but I guess this will do while we continue to wait.)
And that, my dear friends, is a wrap for this week.
There's more free stuff, Stampede Run is this week's Free App of the Week and Alienation by Morning Parade is the week's free Single of the Week.