The Fourth Funniest Person in Worcester by Rev. Thomas Schade

First Unitarian members and Rotarians Ken Harling and Alicia Lenahan are persistent people, so this was the second year that they asked me to participate in Worcester Rotary’s contest to name the “Funniest Person in Worcester.” All I had to do was 5-7 minutes of “clean, family-oriented comic material” in a contest with a few other amateur comedians. Everybody would pay money to see such a thing and Worcester Rotary would give half the money for relief in Haiti and half to local charities. Good causes; what’s not to love about this deal?


Ken and Alicia kept emphasizing the “Clean and Family-Oriented” part of the rules, which surprised me a little. After all, I am a minister – I work in a church – did they really think that I didn’t know any clean jokes?

Well I do. Four, in fact.

Really, I know five clean, family-oriented jokes, but I can only remember four of them at any one time, so I just say “four”.

Actually, I know many more, but they are not actually, you know, funny, in and of themselves, so I don’t count them. My daughters say that some are kind of creepy, so I leave them out as well.


Four jokes, five minutes. No sweat. As you all know, I can spend three minutes just arranging my papers on the pulpit before I start preaching and another two minutes announcing what I forgot to announce earlier in the service. That leaves two minutes for the corrections to the order of service and we’re good to go. So I figured that this Rotary gig would be easy.

But I knew that I was representing, so I prepared carefully, for the sake of the congregation, the long history of our church, organized religion in general and liberal religion in particular.

I mentally rehearsed those four jokes, which I have told so many time already they are like the Five Smooth Stones with which David slew Goliath, including the one he had trouble remembering, in my hand.

I gave them short coded titles, so I could easily write them down. The titles were cryptic and did not refer to the punch line of the joke, just in case my notes fell into enemy hands. Suppose they would steal my joke about Mother Teresa in heaven, or tell it before me, stealing my thunder? You see my point.

I listed them on a sheet of paper and stared at them all morning. I rearranged them and stared at them all afternoon. At night, I slept fitfully, as they arranged and rearranged themselves in endless sequence, while I slept. For a while, I even considered telling all the jokes without the punchlines and then giving the punchlines in random order during the last 15 seconds and letting the audience figure which laugh went with which joke on their own. Very postmodern in German grammar sort of way.

The night of the contest came and I appeared, ready to go. I was delighted to see a goodly number of congregants gathered to cheer me on. If judging was to based on an “applause-o-meter” left over from “Queen For a Day.” I was in good shape.

Unfortunately, there were judges, whose names will not pass my lips, out of respect for their honor. Their honors had numbers, 1 through 5, with which they could suck the comic juice out of our efforts and reduce our art to dry numbers and statistics. Sigh.

The first contestant was a funny retired doctor. His jokes were mostly clean and sexless, but given how much he made fun of his wife, I imagine they were true to life.

I was the second guy. All modesty aside, I killed. I cracked myself up. I told the joke about the guy who had to give up coffee. I told the story about man who sought advice from the Bible. I told another one I can’t remember now. I told about Mother Teresa in heaven. And for a bonus, I told about the two chocolate bunnies in the Easter basket. I was a hoot. I had to lay my head down on the podium and just snuffle and snort my way to full composure.

The judges looked at me with all the seriousness of a parole board considering releasing a sex offender to a halfway house across the street from their daughters’ sorority.

They had some concerns. Why, for example, did I stand in one place, behind a podium? Why didn’t I move around?

Why did I tell so few jokes, and take so long to tell them? I’m glad I hadn’t worn my robe; they probably would have not liked that either.

They did say that I appeared to be comfortable speaking in front of people. I appreciate the words of encouragement.

Two of the other comedians were genuinely funny – to others and not just to themselves. One guy told unabashedly racist jokes, without a trace of irony. I think one was a semi-professional comedian; the other was a morning radio personality.

At the end of the evening, I did score higher than the racist guy, proving that we have made considerable social progress toward inclusion.

Rotary made a lot of money for some good causes. I’m not quitting my day job.