In March, Ellie Gibson and Helen Thorn, better known as comedy duo The Scummy Mummies, performed a show while high. Like, 5,364 m (17,598 ft) high. The comedians performed at the Everest base camp and have recently been accredited with executing the “highest altitude stand-up comedy gig on land” by the Guinness World Records. Talk about going the extra mile for a joke. 

But sometimes putting smiles on peoples’ faces and bringing laughter to their homes just isn’t good enough. Sometimes a deal with a streaming platform just doesn’t cut it. Sometimes you need your validation to be verified and accredited by the Guinness World Records. Yeah, sometimes comedians can be… funny. 

This list is a collection of the lengths (and heights, don’t forget heights!) comedians will go to just to get their names featured in the record books. To be fair, some of the entries to the list are records of commercial achievements by comedians, but we’re going to cram the silly ones up top!

(The Scummy Mummies set their record in an effort to raise awareness and funds for Borne UK, a charity that researches premature birth and supports families who endure premature birth.)

THE OLDEST COMEDIAN (FEMALE)

Women aren’t funny? Pfft. Women have been funny for at least the last 88 years and 183 days. And that’s in the Guinness World Records. American comedian and cabaret artist D’yan Forest has performed in New York, Edinburgh, Paris and Ethiopia and continues to get on the stage at Manhattan comedy clubs. Recently she performed on The Drew Barrymore Show as well. Talk about a long run.

MOST TICKETS SOLD FOR AN ONLINE COMEDY SHOW

In May 2020, Richter Creative Office—a marketing agency (?!) in Kuwait—sold a grand total of 1,474 tickets to bag a world record for the most tickets sold for an online comedy show. This one seems sus. It’s in here because we can’t believe one of our own hasn’t trumped this number? There has to be an Indian comedian who has beaten this, right?

LARGEST JOKE TELLING COMPETITION

The largest joke-telling competition took place at the UK’s Hobgoblin Leamington Spa Comedy Festival and featured 312 competitors. Word on the street is that the record will be broken in another joke-telling competition coming into session in India later in July that could feature up to 543 competitors!

MOST JOKES TOLD IN ONE MINUTE

UK Comedian Clive Greenway holds the record for the most jokes told in one minute. Greenway—who overcame speech difficulties in his childhood—made a total of 26, at an approximate rate of a punchline every two seconds. He then hit Guinness with this hilarious quote: “I probably left a gap of a 400th-of-a-second for the audience to react before I started the next joke.” I thought that was absurd, but then I learned that Greenway’s record wouldn’t stand unless the crowd laughed at each individual joke he told.

LONGEST STANDUP COMEDY SHOW BY AN INDIVIDUAL

In 2013, American comedian David Scott performed a 40-hour-and-eight-minute set to become the record holder for the longest standup comedy show by an individual. Props to both him and his audience.

LONGEST RUNNING CHARACTER PORTRAYED BY THE SAME ACTOR

Legendary Australian comedian Barry Humphries AC CBE first played the character Dame Edna Everage back in December 1955. Humphries appeared on TV, on stage and in movies as Everage: a housewife who satirises Australian suburban complacency. 

LONGEST ‘USABLE’ GOLF CLUB

On Thursday, 17 January 2019 comedian and actor Anthony Anderson made history by using a really long golf club. The club was 11.3 metres and the ball had to be hit at least 25 metres for the record to stand. But seriously, at what point does it stop becoming about records and start becoming about how much money you can throw at a random thought scribbled into your notes app? That said, this record has been broken 13 times and Anderson took three attempts to get his name in the books.

MOST PROFESSIONAL STANDUP COMEDIANS IN A FEATURE FILM

India makes the list! In 2010, Sarita and Sunil Pal production Bhavnao Ko Samjho became a record-breaking feature film thanks to a cast that included 47 professional comedians. 

FYI, the exhaustive cast list on IMBD is 53 members. Here it is. Six aren’t comedians. Know which ones? Madhu Acharya, Nitin Anand, Dinesh Bawara, Narendra Bedi, Nitin Bhandarkar, Birbal, Saurabh Chakrawbarti, Uday Dahia, Sandip Gaikwad, Mukesh Gautam, Gurpreet Ghuggi, Dinesh Hingoo, Riyaz Indian, Banwari Lal Jhol, Aarti Kandpal, Parag Kansara, Kapil Kashyap, Dilip Kedar, Sanjay Keni, Kashif Khan, Rehmaan Khan, Siraj Mustafa Khan, Sanghmitra Kumar, Rauf Lalla, Sudesh Lehri, Johny Lever, Sailesh Lodha, Mobin, Madhav Moghe, Nagendra, Sunil Pal, Panchi, Pradeep Patiavee, Chandan Prabhakar, Navin Prabhakar, Ehsaan Qureshi, Rehman, Rajkumar Rencho, Rajkumar Rencho, Khayali Saharan, Sunil Sanwara, Kadar Shariff, Gaurav Sharma, Kapil Sharma, Sambhavna Sheth, Time Pass Shukla, Shakeel Siddiqui, Aastha Singh, V.R. Singh, Anand Sinha, Dipoo Srivastava, Raju Srivastava, Rajiv Thakur, Ashok Vajpayi.

HIGHEST GROSS REVENUE FOR A STANDUP COMEDY TOUR

US Comedian Sebastian Maniscalco made USD 44,902,984 performing for a total of 440,268 people over the course of an 84-show tour last year. Gross numbers if you ask me. 

HIGHEST AVERAGE GROSS FOR A STANDUP COMEDY TOUR

Let’s be honest, on average, Dave Chappelle was more gross than most people last year. Anyway, if Maniscalco’s numbers blew your mind, wait till the end of this paragraph. Chappelle is the highest-grossing standup comedian per show as of 15 September 2022, having made an average of USD 1,954,482 (INR 16,04,18,703) per show. Comparatively, Maniscalco made a meagre USD 534,559 (INR 4,38,75,186) per show. 

MOST COMEDY SHOWS PERFORMED IN ONE YEAR

Finnish comedian Sami Hedberg performed 309 shows in a year. All shows were performed in Finland! For comparison, India is approximately 3,287,263 square kilometres while Finland is approximately 338,145 square kilometres. So, Finland is roughly 10 times smaller than India. In fact, Finland is a little smaller than Rajasthan, which is around 342,239 square kilometres. A quick Google search revealed that Finland’s total population is about a third of Rajasthan’s urban population. After consulting a couple of mathematicians I’m 100% confident that Hedberg has performed for every single person in Finland including all the babies and farm animals.

MOST COMEDY GIGS PERFORMED IN ONE WEEK

The record for most comedy gigs in a week stands at 30, which was achieved by Australian comedian Mark Murphy, who raised money for children’s charity Camp Quality by performing in 30 different venues in 2007. This has to be beaten, right? Can someone do this? Let’s get on the record books again!