I have a soft spot for weak technical jokes. I particularly like the RFC April Fools day publications, and some of the material associated with The Jargon File. Some of the entries in the International Ofuscated C Code contest prod at the funny bone, although others are works of esoteric compact opaque genius. Until now the only real candidate¹ for a "joke" language was Intercal, but even by the standards of weak technical jokes that was a stinker².

Intercal wasn't very funny because it was a conceptual joke about how bloody awful BASIC, FORTRAN, and other languages lacking curly braces were. The code itself was pretty unamusing and in fact even as a concept, BASIC is a lot funnier than INTERCAL, although the resulting atrocities are no laughing matter.

Fortunately the astonishing Ian Griffiths sent me a note earlier pointing out a new entry in this too-sparsely populated category. This new language draws on the inspiration of LOL Cats. If you haven't experienced them before, LOL Cats don't necessarily seem funny when you read the first one or two (or as my friend Jane holds, they are Not Funny At All Dave (add your own piercing glare here)), but they do become amusing in bulk, resulting in much hilarity. Much as with alcohol really³.

The language in question reaches into the sofa cushions of language syntax and pulls out the crumpled kitten that is LOL Code. A snippet of exemplary code from their website should serve to recommend it. I particularly like the way that the code itself is moderately amusing to read. They just need to put a facility for inserting illustrations and it'll be the ultimate self-documenting language. Knuth ain't dead yet, but he might chose it over this:

HAI
CAN HAS STDIO?
I HAS A PAW
IM IN YR LOOP
   UP PAW!!1
   VISIBLE PAW
   IZ PAW BIGGER THAN 10? KTHXBYE
IM OUTTA YR LOOP
KTHXBYE

Read it and weep. Particularly if you're averse to the cute.

Personally I'm particularly taken with the application termination keyword (KTHXBYE), the loop syntax (IM IN UR loop WATCHING YR file IN folder) and the collection type (BUKKIT).

^1.Some would hold that Java is a contender, but to them I blow a loud raspberry.

^2.For bowel twistingly ghastly cringeful failed humour you could go a lot further and find milder than the student who submitted a term paper on INTERCAL. His supervisor was not amused and I don't bloody blame him.

^3.Unless you're Jane, LOL Cats probably don't result in vomiting.