Funniest Farts

By Glenn 

Hey bozos! We get a lot of letters (a, b, c, etc.) written into us about features we should include on our comedy website. The #1 request has to be for more farts!

At least that's what I was saying last week while doing a talk at the local high school on starting your own blog. Right when I was about to finish the speech I cut a HUGE FART. I was so embarrassed I farted out of embarrassment. Local high schoolers on tumblr are calling it the "fart heard round the world," named after the "shot heard the world" that started the Revolutionary War. That shot, and millions of subsequent farts, happened in Massachusetts.

Here are the five funniest farts I have ever heard in person, or while watching CSPAN during Newt Gingrich's tenure as Speaker of the House:

1. pffffffffffffffft - former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Hugh Shelton

2. brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrapt - my dog

3. flllllllllllllllllllllph - my first roommate in college

4. eeeeeeeeeeeesssssssss - former US Rep. Dick Gephardt (D-MO)

5. blhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhpht - me

If you want to try to recreate some of these farts (and who wouldn't?) I recommend checking out the Fart SoundBoard.

Screen capture:


As you can see, the Economist advertises heavily on Fart SoundBoard and, as I found, many other fart-related sites. This isn't surprising, as British people are notoriously into flatulence-related humor. The funniest part of Winston Churchill's "Iron Curtain" speech was when he farted at the end.

Finally, don't forget to check out Twarted, a website that aggregates tweets that mention the word "fart" into a website. There is a big debate in journalism right now about aggregation. On one side is Bill Keller of the New York Times and myself. On the other side is Arianna Huffington and OYIT's Jake. It's wonderful that people can go to this website to see all fart-related Tweets, but what about the original farts themselves? The people who actually made the farts disintegrate and their ashes are swept into the dustbin of history by Arianna Huffington (who now runs the recently-merged-with-AOL Twarted).

I guess it's like what George Orwell said in 1984, "If you want a picture of the future, imagine a butt farting on a human face— forever." Wouldn't we be so lucky.