code as data

A sketch from the Seattle comedy show Almost Live! in which Pat Cashman plays a US Bell rep explaining the new 425 area code. It first aired in 1997.

An SNL skit featuring Tom Brady in a mock workplace training video on sexual harassment, where the difference between welcome and unwelcome advances depends on who makes them. It is a satirical sketch.

An Onion News Network satirical segment about a memorial dedicated to the future victims of a dam that officials know will fail. It is a dark joke about known infrastructure risk and inaction.

David Mitchell's Soapbox rant on employers who demand passion and enthusiasm from workers, using satire to skewer fake workplace passion.

A two-minute clip from The Wire season 1 in which D'Angelo explains, using the McNugget, that having an idea does not get you paid. It is a short monologue about who profits from inventing something.

The Monty Python sketch in which a man uses a mistranslated Hungarian phrasebook with absurd results, followed by the courtroom scene.

A segment from the animated film The Twelve Tasks of Asterix, in which Asterix must get Permit A 38 from a maze-like building run by unhelpful bureaucrats. He wins by asking for a nonexistent permit.

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

The famous scene from The Graduate in which a family friend gives Benjamin the career advice 'one word: plastics'. It is a roughly one-minute film clip.

A short CSI clip in which characters try to track a killer's IP address by writing a Visual Basic GUI. It is a famous example of absurd TV hacking.

A short clip of a Garry Kasparov press conference interrupted by a flying object in a prank. It is a brief, crude stunt video.

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 spoof commercial by the Groen Brothers for a Star Wars-style laser defense system against mosquitoes.

A scene from the film Back to School in which Rodney Dangerfield takes his first economics class and brings real-world business experience to a classroom exercise on widgets. It shows the gap between school and the real world.

An Onion News Network satirical segment about a new Sony gadget that is infuriatingly bad, delivered as a profane tech-trends report.

A roughly three-minute Onion News Network satire in which a host consoles a severely depressed zoologist who spent his whole life studying anteaters. It is a short comedy sketch about wasted effort and misplaced obsession.

A comedy video in which a salesperson demands that a web developer fix a down website, with the two talking past each other. It won a Webby award.

A Little Britain sketch featuring the 'Computer says no' catchphrase, in which a clerk refuses requests by deferring to her computer.

A mashup of a Sesame Street Count clip with a Lemon Demon song, where the swear words are censored in absurd ways. It is a short comedy piece about censorship.

A sketch from That Mitchell and Webb Sound in which a caller learns that identity theft is, in effect, a bank robbery in which the bank blames the customer. It runs about two minutes.

The stoning scene from Monty Python's Life of Brian, where a man is condemned for blasphemy after saying 'Jehovah' over a halibut supper.

A short clip from Monty Python's Life of Brian in which an old man is about to be stoned for saying the word Jehovah. It features John Cleese and Graham Chapman in the film's well-known blasphemy trial scene.

A Dutch parody commercial from the Groen Brothers for a supposed Star Wars style mosquito defense system. It mimics the style of infomercials with laser-armed anti-mosquito technology.

A one-minute clip of the famous 'Where's the Beef?' catchphrase from a classic fast food commercial.

A clip from Jurassic Park in which Lex says, "It's a Unix system, I know this," while navigating a 3D file system view.

Penn and Teller help Rob Pike and Dennis Ritchie of Bell Labs play a prank on Nobel-winning physicist Arno Penzias. The clip shows the gag and its setup.

The original Rickroll video, the bait-and-switch link prank built on Rick Astley's 'Never Gonna Give You Up'.

A short spoof of a nature documentary shows spiders building webs after being given various drugs. It is an early internet comedy classic.

A Chris Rock sketch giving comedic advice on how to behave during police encounters to avoid getting hurt.

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 comedy segment where Eddie Izzard travels to Friesland to try speaking Old English, claiming English originated in Holland and buying a cow to prove it.

A short live performance of Tim Minchin's comedic song about skepticism, from his DVD 'So Live'. It argues that open-mindedness shouldn't go so far that your brain falls out.

George Carlin's classic stand-up routine about 'stuff' and how much of life is spent accumulating and storing it, from Comic Relief 1986. It satirizes American consumerism and possessions.

A 2006 parody made by a Microsoft team that shows how the company would redesign iPod packaging, with a box piled with feature claims, logos and clutter in contrast to Apple's clean design.

Comedian and cellist Rob Paravonian rants about having to play Pachelbel's Canon in D, and shows how many pop songs reuse its chord progression. It was recorded live at Penn State.

An episode of the comedic You Suck at Photoshop series in which Donnie Hoyle teaches distort, warp and layer effects while vandalizing a Vanagon in the image. It won Webby awards as a how-to and comedy series.

Economist-comedian Yoram Bauman delivers a humorous translation of Mankiw's ten principles of economics for the uninitiated. It was presented at the AAAS humor session in 2007.

John Bird and John Fortune satirize the investment banking mindset in a mock interview about the subprime mortgage crisis. The sketch lampoons structured credit products and the banks' reassurances shortly before the crash.

A clip from George Carlin's 1990 special 'Doin' It Again' in which he describes how American English has been sterilized with euphemisms, using examples such as shell shock becoming PTSD.

A spoof industrial promo for the Rockwell Retro Encabulator, a deadpan stream of technobabble about an imaginary machine. It is a classic engineering in-joke.