bbc comedy

The classic Fawlty Towers scene in which Basil Fawlty tries not to mention the war while serving German guests, ending in goose-stepping and mocking. It is a two-minute BBC comedy clip with John Cleese.

A Yes Minister sketch in which Jim Hacker and Sir Humphrey meet the BBC and discuss its independence from government pressure. It is a satirical look at the relationship between the state and the broadcaster.

A Blackadder the Third scene in which Dr Johnson delivers his dictionary, which lacks Blackadder's invented insults such as contrafibularity.

A short Yes Minister clip in which Sir Humphrey explains why a hospital with no patients still needs a large administrative staff. It is a satirical look at bureaucratic bloat in the public sector.

A short clip from the BBC sitcom Yes, Prime Minister in which Jim Hacker explains which kind of person reads which British newspaper. It is a satirical take on press readership and bias.

A classic sketch from A Bit of Fry and Laurie in which a man at a police station has a surname that is very hard to pronounce. Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie play it out as a comic exchange.

A BBC comedy sketch from The One Ronnie starring Ronnie Corbett and Harry Enfield, built around a word-play misunderstanding about a broken BlackBerry. It is about three minutes long.

A short That Mitchell and Webb Look sketch in which a rocket scientist and a brain surgeon trade jibes over whose job is harder. It is a BBC comedy clip from 2009.

A scene from the BBC's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy TV series in which Arthur argues vegetarianism in a restaurant where the dish of the day cheerfully offers up parts of its own body.

A short Fry and Laurie sketch in which a man returns from vacation to find his local police station has been privatized, with paid tiers of service. It satirizes privatization of public services.

A Yes, Prime Minister scene in which Sir Humphrey shows how leading questions can make a poll produce either answer on national service.

A short satirical segment from Charlie Brooker's Newswipe that lampoons the formulaic conventions of television news reporting, from stock shots to filler street interviews and news-speak.

A Red Dwarf clip where Kryten fixes a toaster and finds it to be the most annoying machine in the universe, endlessly offering toast.

A Nathan For You sketch in which Nathan Fielder tackles customers' privacy fears at computer repair shops with an awkwardly absurd business solution. It is a comedy clip from the Comedy Central show.

A classic Yes, Minister sketch in which the Minister visits a brand-new, fully staffed hospital with no patients and demands that some be found.

A colorized clip from the 1970 Polish comedy film 'How I Unleashed World War II' in which a character must pronounce the tongue-twisting name Grzegorz Brzeczyszczykiewicz for a Gestapo officer.

The 1957 BBC Panorama April Fools' hoax report showing a Swiss family harvesting spaghetti from trees, republished by Switzerland Tourism. It is a short deadpan newsreel clip with a plummy narrator that famously fooled viewers who knew little about pasta.

A comedy sketch of a business meeting in which an engineer, the expert, is asked to do impossible things like draw red lines with blue ink.

A short sketch from That Mitchell and Webb Sound, the BBC radio comedy, about a safety measure that works perfectly and so gets no credit for the lack of disasters.

A nine-minute Stewart Lee stand-up routine about political correctness and the claim that it has gone mad. It is dry, layered British comedy that takes the complaint apart.

Matt Parker's stand-up routine about spreadsheets, taken from the Festival of the Spoken Nerd DVD Full Frontal Nerdity. It features Excel used in unexpected ways, including turning an image into a spreadsheet.

A Burnistoun sketch from BBC Scotland in which two men try to use a voice-recognition elevator that cannot understand their Scottish accents.

A Mitchell and Webb sketch in which two German soldiers realize their uniforms carry skulls and wonder whether they are the baddies. It is a short comedy bit about people failing to see themselves as the villains.

The classic 'What have the Romans ever done for us?' scene from Monty Python's Life of Brian, in which revolutionaries grudgingly list the benefits of Roman rule. It is a short comedy clip.

A classic Bob Newhart comedy sketch in which a therapist's only advice to a patient is to 'stop it'.

A classic Norwegian TV comedy sketch from NRK's show Oystein og jeg, subtitled in English, in which a monk calls a helpdesk to learn how to use a book instead of a scroll.

A short sketch from That Mitchell and Webb Look in which the characters cheerfully propose a drastically callous solution to poverty. It is dark satirical comedy about cold policy logic.

Daniel Radcliffe performs his party trick on The Graham Norton Show: singing Tom Lehrer's 'The Elements', the periodic table song, from memory. It is a two-minute talk-show clip.

A sketch from The Peter Serafinowicz Show parodying Apple product launches with the absurdly tiny 'Mactini'.

A Chappelle's Show sketch in which drug dealer Tron Carter and a white businessman face the justice system in very different ways.

A satirical CBC Radio This Is That sketch profiling a Vancouver artisanal firewood company that sells bundles of kindling for $1000.

A CBC satire sketch in which a self-proclaimed thought leader gives a talk full of empty gestures and nothing-saying inspiration. It parodies TED-style conference talks.

Norm Macdonald's 2015 appearance on Letterman's final Late Show, delivering a deadpan bit about Germany and its military history. Jerry Seinfeld reportedly called it Norm's best joke.

Conan O'Brien and Andy Richter visit Google's Mountain View headquarters in 2010 for a comedic Q&A. Conan jokes with the interviewer and the Google audience.

A Fry and Laurie sketch about language, full of absurd phrases and wordplay, which also plays on the distinction between langue and parole.

A short romantic comedy by Ted Nelson about the 'microcircuitry of love', with Doug Engelbart as his father and Stewart Brand as the villainous CEO.

A stand-up routine by Stewart Lee on political correctness, offering a satirical defense of inclusive language.

An SNL sketch in which Nick Burns, the condescending IT guy, trains a new tech support hire to mock users over simple computer problems.

A classic Clarke and Dawe sketch from 1991 in which an Australian senator evasively discusses an oil spill, famously saying the front fell off.

A one-minute clip from Monty Python's Life of Brian in which revolutionaries grudgingly list everything the Romans have done for them, from roads to clean water. It is a satirical sketch about refusing to credit a disliked group.