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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.

Tom Murphy's satirical SIGBOVIK 2007 presentation, delivered under a pseudonym, proving that generalized Super Mario Bros. is NP-complete. It is a short, deadpan take on a complexity theory result.

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

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 2000 IBM commercial in which Avery Brooks complains that we still have no flying cars. It plays on the failed futurist promises of the twentieth century.

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 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.

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 Monty Python sketch in which Oscar Wilde, James Whistler and George Bernard Shaw trade witticisms in a stuffy literary salon with Bertie.

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.

In an IT Crowd episode clip, Moss and Roy convince Jen that the internet is a small black box. She believes it and carries it around.

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

A one-minute clip from the Seinfeld episode 'The Shower Head'. It is a short sitcom scene about a low-flow shower head.

A short clip parodying Windows Vista's cancel-or-allow security prompts, in the style of Apple's Mac vs PC ads.

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.

A clip of Louis C.K.'s bit "Everything's Amazing and Nobody's Happy," about how quickly people take modern technology for granted and complain about it. It is a comedic riff on impatience with air travel and gadgets.

A George Carlin stand-up bit from Doin' It Again about soft language and euphemism, showing how softened words hide uncomfortable facts. It touches on topics like shell shock and aging.

A one-minute clip from The IT Crowd in which the characters hear a jingle for a memorable emergency phone number.

Tom Lehrer performs his satirical song Who's Next, about the spread of nuclear weapons, with a spoken introduction. It is a short musical comedy piece from the Cold War era.

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.

The parody anti-piracy warning from The IT Crowd Series 2, Episode 3, a spoof of the 'you wouldn't steal a car' ads. It is a one-minute comedy sketch.

A sketch from the British sitcom Yes, Prime Minister in which Jim Hacker and the chief scientific advisor discuss the logic of the nuclear deterrent.

A short clip from the film Idiocracy showing a hospital reception computer where staff pick a condition from a board of simple pictorial buttons.

A one-minute clip from Chappelle's Show in which Dave Chappelle riffs on Ja Rule and the 'what does Ja Rule say' bit. It is a short comedy sketch with no technical content.

A Whitest Kids U Know sketch built around the idea that saying certain things about the President is illegal.

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.

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.

A short clip from the film Office Space in which Peter explains his typical workday to the Bobs, the consultants.

A two-minute clip from The Wire in which characters work through the meaning of the word evacuate, an exchange that has become a meme.

A one-minute clip from Barack Obama's 2008 Google visit in which Eric Schmidt asks him the most efficient way to sort a million 32-bit integers. Obama answers that bubble sort would be the wrong choice.

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 compilation of Apple's 'I'm a Mac, I'm a PC' ad campaign from 2006 onward.

A one-minute Eddie Izzard comedy clip about how the British Empire claimed countries by planting flags. It riffs on the absurd rule of 'no flag, no country'.

The classic Monty Python sketch in which four Yorkshiremen compete to claim the hardest upbringing, each story more absurd than the last.

Australian comedy group Axis of Awesome perform a sketch showing that dozens of pop hits share the same four chords. It was recorded at the 2009 Melbourne International Comedy Festival.

An 8-minute clip of George Carlin's 1992 stand-up bit on the environment, arguing the planet will be fine and it is people who are in trouble. It leans on the contrast between Earth's 4.5 billion years and humanity's 200,000.

A That Mitchell and Webb Look sketch in which a hospital A&E is staffed by homeopaths who dilute everything, leaving patients with nothing.

A 20-second clip from the Mel Brooks comedy Blazing Saddles featuring the line about morons.

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.