Each month, many funny videos are posted to every corner of the internet — from X and Instagram to Vimeo and sometimes other weird places we’ll have trouble embedding. Because you’re busy living your life, you might miss some of these funny videos and feel left out when others bring them up in conversation. Well, worry not! We’re here to make sure you’re not listening in on conversations but leading them … as long as those conversations are about funny internet videos. Here, our favorite comedy shorts of the month.
“AMC A-List Is a Total Scam,” by Jonathan Van Halem
Jonathan Van Halem caught the ire of the internet after coming for AMC A-List, a service I wasn’t even aware people had a particularly strong emotional attachment to. The tirade was delivered as part of the recurring New York comedy show Abolish Everything, a brilliant exercise in spirited public debate in which a presenter makes an argument to abolish some element of society while a panel of comedians pokes holes in this argument in order to maintain the status quo. AMC A-List isn’t going anywhere, though Van Halem valiantly tries to speak truth to power here.
“Another Hawk Tuah Banger,” by @hartgoat
We know, and we’re sorry. A viral video wherein a young lady comments on the merits of spitting on “that thang” prior to commencing a certain bedroom activity has taken the entire fucking internet by storm, and we’re a little ashamed that we’re drawing more attention to it. That said, something about the earworm of the young lady’s “hawk tuah” spit-sound onomatopoeia mixed with her openness, charisma, and — let’s face it — accuracy in discussing the sex act deserves a shout-out. This rendition of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” is exactly that. Here’s the original video for the uninitiated. It will soon be in the Library of Congress, no doubt.
“Boomer Mom Telling a Story,” by Alise Morales
In a character monologue performed at New York’s recently reopened Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, Alise Morales perfectly sends up an older generation doubling down on the idea that their traumatic childhoods are really just delightful dinner-table anecdotes and certainly didn’t lead to any coping mechanisms (like a huge glass of red wine). Morales’s performance is somehow both authentically meandering and totally deliberate.
“Comedy Is All About Timing,” by Ryan Goodcase
Ryan Goodcase filmed this lesson on the importance of comedic precision during his set at last month’s Netflix Is a Joke Festival. Like, precise as in down to the second. And just when you think you’re getting ahead of how Goodcase is planning on using the announced gimmick, he reveals himself to be light-years ahead of you in a uniquely surprising and inventive bit of audience participation.
“I Just Want to Enjoy My Lunch Break and Not Deal With LSU Women’s Basketball Head Coach Kim Mulkey … Is That So Much to Ask?” by Mollie Merkel and Rachel Samples
Kim Mulkey is a polarizing figure in sports, to be sure. Less polarizing? Mollie Merkel’s spot-on impersonation of the tough-as-nails operator hanging out at the Venice Beach courts. We’re not sure why, exactly, we need this video at this moment in time, but we do. And Amy Poehler (if not Ms. Merkel herself) must play Kim in any future Coach Mulkey biopic, as many have noted in the video’s comments. Your move, Pixar.
“Mom the Minute She Senses You Are Experiencing Peace,” by Becca Bastos
To harness the imitation of a mom, one must understand constant motion — in and out of the room you’re in, wherever it may be, without any break. One must also understand constant speech — over and over your thoughts, whatever they may be, without … any … break. And this isn’t just mothers. It’s fathers, too. Something about being faced with their adult progeny sends all parents into a tailspin of “to-do’s” and “life-shaping” advice you’d be foolish to go without. God forbid you have a solitary, peaceful thought. The basement needs to be cleaned out!
“Sad LARP,” by Marissa Goldman
Comedian Marissa Goldman has identified a foolproof method for getting over her recent breakup: get really into live-action role play. She’s soon recruited into an epic high-fantasy quest run by a community of LARPers, the only situation in which saying “I tried to appeal to the man in charge, because I’m the same race as him” would be even vaguely acceptable. Goldman engages with the players without the ironic distance you might expect, uncovering their surprisingly sweet backstories echoing and reflecting her own epic quest for love. (Watch it here.)
“Smarter Finances With Dad Economics,” by Rekha Shankar
Speaking of parents, Rekha Shankar has a little dab of precious advice, straight from the mouth of a very financially savvy dad (played by her, of course). Because obsessive, oppressive frugality is the only real way to financial freedom and successful fatherhood.
“We Accidentally Reinvented the Wheel,” by Cool Guyz Online
We’ve all woken up and been faced with the horrors of what alcohol-induced havoc we wreaked the the night before. Cool Guyz Online, though? They paint a picture of a boozy bender so earth-shattering, so physically redefining (in the physics sense), that whichever Sumerian first invented the wheel would be left reeling. Or, perhaps, wheeling.
“We Died!,” by Nick Mestad and Eli Coyote Mandel
Nick Mestad and Eli Coyote Mandel have such a delightful grasp on the language and rhythms of earnest internet guys tag-teaming their enthusiastic pitch for something that we could literally watch them apply this to anything. Case in point: their squealing delight at dying as if they’ve been let into the sickest after-hours club in history. (Don’t ask them how they died; that part isn’t important.)
Like what you saw? Want to be on this monthly roundup? Show us your stuff!
Luke Kelly-Clyne is a co-head of HartBeat Independent and a watcher of many web videos. Send him yours at @LKellyClyne.
Graham Techler has contributed writing to The New Yorker and McSweeney’s Internet Tendency. Send him your videos at @gr8h8m_t3chl3r.
More From This Series
- The Best Comedy Shorts of April 2021
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- The Best Comedy Shorts of March 2021
