By Brian Mooar
Washington Post Staff Writer
April 1998

Humor on the Internet, it seems, is no laughing matter. Go to your average search engine, type in "humor" or "jokes" and you get gigs of computer-oriented gags like this beauty:

Q: How many Romulans does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: 151, one to screw the light bulb in, and 150 to self-destruct the ship out of disgrace.

This, for those of you who don't already know, is a "Star Trek" joke. A very unfunny one that would have Captain Kirk himself reporting to sick bay.

On balance, much of what's funny on the Internet isn't funny because it's meant to be. If you're looking for good humor, you might be in for a long search. But if unintentional humor is your bag, the Internet abounds.

The best set of unintentionally funny material on the Web, for my money, is the Useless Pages. Check out "Answers From the Cologne Guy," "Alex Chiu's Eternal Life Device" or "Tickle Me Elvis." Anthony's Most Annoying of the Web is another good detour.

Finding quality yuks on the Web is tough, but not impossible – kind of like early television.

One of the best is The Onion, a consistently funny, often-hilarious newspaper satire. In one recent headline, it announces "U.S. Breaks Off Relations With Chad." Chad is a 26-year-old cab driver from North Carolina who drinks a little too much. A USA Today-style infographic explains why so many people bought the Titanic soundtrack: 7 percent "thought CD would contain only screams of drowning victims"; 18 percent "enjoy shrill, bony, mannish Canadian Megastars."

The Oracle Service humor archives is chock full o' nutty stuff. Here you can find a script from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," Unabomber haikus or student bloopers ("In midevil [sic] times most of the people were alliterate [sic]"). The best idea may be to let someone else do the work for you.

For instance, Lycos maintains a funny links page at http://www.lycos.com/ entertainment/humor/. There's even a set of humor links for Maryland. No kidding.