Proud to be an American.

I've often thought it would be neat to live in England, but this article that Ryan sent me really gives me some pause.

A survey by Nuts magazine has produced a top ten most groan-inducing festive gags, with a witticism about Santa's choice of pizza securing the top spot.

The joke asks: What is Santa's favourite pizza?

Answer: One that's deep pan, crisp and even.

Oh ye gods. First of all, maybe it's a more common carol in Britain, but "Good King Wenceslas" - which is about a Bohemian king of the tenth century giving alms to a peasant on the day after Christmas - is kind of a deep cut in this country, I think. Here are the lines in the song that might explain the joke above if you didn't get it right away.

Good King Wenceslas looked out on the feast of Stephen
When the snow lay round about, deep and crisp and even.
Brightly shone the moon that night, though the frost was cruel,
When a poor man came in sight, gathering winter fuel.

Huh? Huh? By the way, nothing about Santa Claus or Christmas anywhere in the lyrics. Nice going there, joke writer.

Maybe the problem is that so many of these jokes rely on homophones, and jokes like that work a lot better when they're spoken, because when you write them out you're forced to choose one of the spellings. Someone reading the joke only sees the one spelling and perhaps scratches their head longer than they should. Some other examples:

What's a specimen?
An Italian Astronaut

Bonus vague racism!

What do you call a short sighted dinosaur?
A do you think he saw us!

After this joke was used in Jurassic Park, there probably should have been a rule that no one else could ever use it again. Regardless, notice just how little sense this makes on paper. The saw us/-saurus soundalike is almost totally obscured, and in fact if you didn't know the joke already, you might have to repeat this one to yourself several times before getting it. It might take less time in England where some people naturally have the accent that sticks Rs on the end of W sounds, but still.

Why would you invite a mushroom to a Christmas party?
He's a fun guy to be with.

Again, this looks dumb when written out.

What's brown and sweet and glides around an ice rink?
Bourneville and Dean

I think even if you live in England and get the reference (and then also get the other reference), this is horrific. Well, it must be, since this is a list of the worst Christmas cracker jokes of all time, so I guess I can't get too up in arms. But I'm almost offended that anyone ever thought that was even worth writing down.