One of my favorite jokes requires a little preparation. It's from the first movie, 1988's The Naked Gun, in which Leslie Nielsen plays bumbling Los Angeles police detective Frank Drebin and Priscilla Presley plays his love interest Jane. During dinner by the fireplace, Drebin remembers his past grief. “It's the same old story,” he says. “A boy finds a girl, a boy loses a girl, a girl finds a boy, a boy forgets a girl, a boy remembers a girl, a girl dies in a tragic airship crash over the Orange Bowl on New Year's Day.” “Goodyear?” Jane asks breathlessly. “No,” he says, “the worst.”
The Naked Gun and its two smaller sequels are chock-full of similar nonsense, tied to reality by a thread of unwavering deadpan performances. It's the kind of comedy that has largely fallen out of fashion (twelve-year-olds these days are perhaps more sophisticated) and is especially difficult to pull off in our post-irony age. So I was skeptical enough about this year's Naked Gun reboot starring Liam Neeson as Frank Drebin Jr. and Pamela Anderson as his romantic rival that I almost forgot it was coming out. But then word spread: it was really funny. And indeed, after watching it, I agreed that the film was mostly a success – the jalopy clanged a lot, but when the jokes and gags reached me, I hooted.
In the middle of a seduction scene that pays homage to the original, Anderson's character looks out the window of Drebin's apartment, admiring the lights of Los Angeles. “You have a very beautiful point of view,” she says. “You know, I've been drawn to the hills ever since I moved here for college.” “UCLA?” asks Drebin. “I see it every day,” she replies. “I live here.” Ah, this is the thing, dusted off and resurrected from some eighties comedy tomb. Of course, there were better jokes this year, but nothing made me laugh harder.
So, 2025. Good year? No, the worst. However, there were some things that helped us smile through it.
Coldplaygate
The most surprising and unplanned visual prank of the year involved a married (but not to each other) tech executive couple caught in an embrace on the Kiss Cam at a Coldplay concert. “Either they're having an affair or they're just really shy,” frontman Chris Martin said in Real Time. At first it seemed like there were only two people involved in the comedy. But after watching it again (and then dozens more), it becomes clear that this little vignette actually involves three people. First, there is a woman wrapped in an embrace, registering a million terrible things in milliseconds before turning away from the camera, covering her face with her hands. And then there is the man who hugs, who, slower to grasp, slips out of sight. Okay, okay, the world is now very familiar with these poor creatures, the butt of countless late-night jokes. Gwyneth Paltrow advertising campaignre-enactments in stadiums around the world and even Halloween costumes. But don't miss the final moment when the camera pans left to capture a third character – a woman who registers the scene she has just witnessed before becoming part of it – her hand on her temple, grinning madly.
It's your mom calling
Comedian Emily Catalano spoke about this. perfect joke in 2024, but this year it spread: “My mom called me at 3 o’clock today.” PMand the first thing she said to me was: “Did I wake you up?” Have you ever received a metaphorical and literal wake-up call at the same time?”
Wifi doesn't work
This year's winner for “Humorless Tech Billionaire Forced to Endure Technical Difficulties During His Own Technology Presentation” is Mark Zuckerberg. In September, wearing stupid pair of smart glassesThe head of Meta took the stage to give a live demonstration of the company's latest wearables and artificial intelligence products. And then: glitches, awkward silences, repeated ringing of the video call, nervous laughter from the crowd. “These things, you know, these things happen,” Zuckerberg said sternly. He and his fellow titans are endlessly, grotesquely unaccountable to the public—a distinction on full display at this year's presidential inauguration; in the halls of a newly “streamlined” federal government; and along the canals of Venice. But every now and then the gods come up with a little tragedy for even the most powerful of mortals, and a glimpse of the futility of life – and perhaps even its omnipresent mortality – briefly breaks through. For a fleeting moment, Zuckerberg was just like the rest of us, just another guy who can't get his device to work.
Curtis Plum's sick burns
Sliwa finished third in another unsuccessful race for mayor of New York, losing to Zoran Mamdani and Andrew Cuomo. But the beret-bearer, the cat-saver, loves parades The police won where it mattered, drawing some of the campaign's sharpest barbs. In response to calls from billionaire and political amateur Bill Ackman to drop out of the race, Sliwa ridiculed Ackman's suburban home address and eccentric foray in professional tennis and reproached“Come on, Ackman, stay in your lane.” And during an appearance on Fox News, Sliwa delivered perhaps word for word the most insanely harsh political criticism in recent memory, citing alleged incidents of sexual harassment by an opponent and COVID-19-the era of mismanagement in one phrase. “Andrew Cuomo is a scumbag” Plum stated“spanking fans and killing grandmothers.”
“Six seven.”
Just kidding-kind of.
South Park encourages us to relax
What else can you say about Donald Trump? South Park co-creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, fresh off a $1.5 billion deal with Paramount, have found something new. The series' mischievous pairing of the President and Satan, in a love affair reminiscent of the earlier romance Parker and Stone imagined between the Devil and Saddam Hussein, captured most of the attention. But their key comedic insight was a little more subtle. As bewildered characters demand Trump explain his latest outrageous decision, The President bleats in response“Relax, man” and “Get some rest,” and then blithely continues. “Relax,” I began to realize, may be the defining ethos of Trump 2.0, insisted upon by a group of plucky mini-Trumps, each doing their best impression of the boss. Bribery, lawlessness, disregard for decency are all normal now, they say, and to object to all this is a new form of madness. Relax, rest, our country is bleeding.
Sexy thieves in Paris
News of the Louvre jewelry heist came as a message from another era, when world events could be strange and wonderful without turning apocalyptic. In this case, we got a romantic location, a non-violent crime, and even a dapper passerby in a fedora. Parts of the public were predisposed to root for the alleged thieves – even before fake photos began circulating online, portraying them as handsome male models. Jake Schroeder, TikTok's grinning balladeer, captured the sentiment. “The two dudes who robbed the Louvre are literally sexy as hell,” he said. sang. “Steal me, feel me, Louvre me, make me.”
JD Vance skis in jeans
In another good year for protest signs, one greeting the vice president in Vermont stood out above the rest. The day before leaving for a family ski vacation, Vance berated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during a tense conversation in the Oval Office. (“Have you ever said thank you?”) The next day, Vermonters, perhaps the most capricious liberals in the country, responded: one from the northeastThe coldest insults: “VANCE SKIS IN JEANS.”
Katy Perry failed to get lost in space
It was a fair bet that penis rocket has always been the funniest moment in Jeff Bezos' space business Blue Origin. But this year, the Amazon founder briefly sent Katy Perry into suborbit where, encased in a small capsule and overwhelmed by the cosmic significance of her roughly eleven-minute journey, she serenaded her teammates with Louis Armstrong's “What a Wonderful World.” Back on Earth—and likely before she even read the comments on social media—Perry told reporters, “I feel very connected to love.” She wasn't the only one. in autumn Daily mail published photos of Perry kissing Justin Trudeau, the new former Prime Minister of Canada.
The joy of a few bottles of beer
Nowadays, everyone has an opinion about how men should behave and how we can save ourselves from anything. growth retardation, malaise it befell us. Perhaps more people should wonder: what would Sensei Sergio St. Carlos do? This is the character played by Benicio del Toro in the novel by Paul Thomas Anderson.One battle after another”, a karate teacher, and as he describes it, “there’s a little Latina Harriet Tubman situation going on.” While Sensei hides beleaguered immigrant families from semi-lawless and completely evil federal immigration forces, he remains calm, competent, dedicated to justice, and mildly amused by the fuss around him. What is his secret? When the cops stop him as he tries to save the day, the officer asks if he's been drinking. “I’ve had a few,” he admits. – Several what? – the officer asks, and Sensei answers, smiling to himself: “A few bottles of beer.” So, yay: 2025 has been another heady year, and we all deserve it. ♦
