Best joke contest no laughing matter

Published on Friday 1 April 2005 02:26

A VIRGIN Radio competition to find the world’s funniest joke has led to an outburst of ill humour after scores of people claimed the winning joke belonged to them.

Listener Emma Lynch bagged the 25,000 prize after a two-month contest with her gag: "The last time I went on holiday, I flew with BA. It was terrible. He kept shouting: ‘You crazy foo’. I ain’t gettin’ on no plane!’"

BA Baracas, played by Mr T, starred in the A-Team.

But scores of people have called the national radio station to say they were the first to think of the joke, along with two professional comedians who also claimed the gag as their own.

Roisin Conaty, a London-based Irish comedian, fired off a furious letter to Virgin Radio, saying she performed the joke on Radio 1’s The Milk Run in 2004.

But it seems the Glaswegian comic Des Clarke has a prior claim, having first performed the joke on BBC’s Live Floor Show in 2002.

The comedian Simon Douglass also performs the joke regularly as part of his act.

And the comedy website Jinx claims to have published the joke earlier, and to have improved it from previous versions.

Comedy insiders questioned the wisdom of running a competition which offered a cash prize in return for material which could have been written and honed by a professional comedian.

Virgin Radio denied the terms of the contest had incited members of the public to borrow material from professional comedians and to pass it off as their own.

The station had 30,000 entries for the competition, which ended on Monday, and was judged by a panel of old-school comics. The top jokes were read out on air by Suggs, a Virgin presenter and Madness frontman.

Paul Sullivan, the publicist for Des Clarke, said the comedian had been stunned to discover the winning joke was one from his act.

"He was quite taken aback that his joke was picked by a panel including the likes of Bernie Clifton and Jim Bowen," he said.

Ms Conaty said: "The greatest tragedy of this sorry saga is that attention has been taken away from Mr T, aka BA Baracas, who was the inspiration behind the joke. I can only hope that this raging controversy results in his return to our screens soon."