Rankings

Jokes Per Minute, Ranked

Which sitcom packs the most jokes into every minute? We scored every joke across 9 shows and measured the density. Here's the ranking.

Jokes per minute (JPM) is the simplest measure of comedy density: how many distinct jokes a show lands in each minute of runtime. We detected and scored every joke across 10 fully-analyzed sitcoms — The Simpsons comes out on top at 3.31 jokes per minute. Density isn’t the same as quality (our Humor Index weighs craft and impact too), but it’s the stat people argue about most.

1
The Simpsons
14,352 jokes across 226 episodes
3.31
jokes / min
2
Friends
14,227 jokes across 236 episodes
3.13
jokes / min
3
30 Rock
9,283 jokes across 138 episodes
2.86
jokes / min
4
Community
6,565 jokes across 110 episodes
2.6
jokes / min
5
Seinfeld
9,828 jokes across 180 episodes
2.58
jokes / min
6
The Office
10,044 jokes across 201 episodes
2.38
jokes / min
7
Schitt's Creek
4,239 jokes across 80 episodes
2.25
jokes / min
8
Taxi
4,624 jokes across 114 episodes
2.11
jokes / min
9
Veep
4,873 jokes across 65 episodes
2.02
jokes / min
10
Arrested Development
4,908 jokes across 84 episodes
1.94
jokes / min

Why our numbers are lower than the famous “7.44”

You may have seen the figure that 30 Rock runs at 7.44 jokes per minute. That count (popularized by a 2014 Atlantic piece) tallies every comedic line, reaction, and background gag. We count something stricter: distinct, separable jokes a viewer could point to and grade. Our 30 Rock number is 2.86 — lower, but applied identically to every show, which is what makes the ranking a fair comparison rather than a pile of incompatible counts. Read more on our methodology.

Density vs. quality

The densest show isn’t automatically the funniest. Arrested Development has the lowest JPM here yet ranks near the top of our overall Humor Index — it tells fewer jokes, but each one is doing far more work. Joke density is one axis; craft and impact are the others.