Offbeat | Finland comic wins world’s funniest competition

The winner of the Funniest Person in the World competition is a brown-haired, slightly rotund stand-up comic from Finland who boasts he has hit on the perfect solution to the planet’s international monetary woes.
“Countries don’t owe money to each other, countries owe money to banks,” says Ismo Leikola. “If the countries owe money to banks how stupid are the countries to pay. Like the country has an army. The bank has four cashiers and a cleaning lady.”
When Leikola told that joke in the semifinal round of the competition last week at the Laugh Factory in Hollywood it got the biggest laugh of the night.
From there the Finnish comedian bankrolled himself to victory at Friday night’s final round, a five-comic showdown at the Laugh Factory in Las Vegas. The competition was streamed over the Internet.
When the votes were counted Monday, Leikola had 158,945. In second place was Saad Haroon of Pakistan with 59,213.
Leikola wins USD10,000 and a national comedy tour.