Battle of the puns: The Great Durham Pun Championship returns

Ranked the No. 1 pun contest in the world by Mental Floss, the Great Durham Pun Championship will take place Feb. 4 at 6:30 p.m. 

Over 350 people will come together at Motorco Music Hall to watch contestants go head-to-head and see who has the best puns. 

Each year the competition sells out within days of the ticket openings.

This year part of the proceeds from the competition will be donated to the Durham Literacy Center 

“I made my first pun when I was sitting in the middle of an electrical engineering lecture when my friend Mike Fliss walks into class late carrying two containers of steamed rice," said Jake Palmer, who has a participated in the competition three times. "Surprised, I said ‘Jesus Rice!’  When people all around turned to look at me, I said ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have taken the Lord’s name in grain.'"

Many contestants just like Palmer travel to Durham time and time again to compete for the title of Pun Champion. The Great Durham Pun Championship was created in 2011 by Tom Campbell, co-owner of The Regulator Bookshop for 40 years. 

“It’s a night of pun and games," Campbell said.

Talking about the creation of the competition, Campbell said he was finishing “The Pun Also Rises” by John Pollack and thought: “Wow, wouldn't it be fun to have something like that in Durham?” 

As Campbell began to put the event together, he immediately thought of Duke professor and long time customer of the Regulator Bookshop, George Gopen. Campbell said Gopen had a good sense of humor and an expanded vocabulary, which made him the perfect person to appoint as the judge.

People enter each round and have only 12 seconds to come up with a relevant pun. The clock starts after the judge yells “GO PUN!" —  a pun in itself of the judge’s name, Gopen. Contestants go back and forth until someone fumbles their words or runs out of puns.

“I just enjoy watching the punsters, sometimes there's a pair of people on stage who go back and forth and hardly a second expires," Campbell said. "They often play off of the pun from the previous person, that's just pretty amazing to watch. Some of them are incredibly creative."

If neither contestant is eliminated after 10 consecutive puns, they stop the round and add how much time each contestant took to come up with puns during the round. The contestant who took the least time total in each turn combined wins.  

“Really good contestants will come up with a pun immediately," Gopen said. "Each year the contests have gotten better, faster, funnier and perhaps more aggressive. The RDU area has the largest percentage of advanced degrees in the country, which is why we have great contestants and a great audience.” 

Logan Shoop, the 2018 champion and a 2019 finalist, has participated in the competition four times. Shoop said he prepares for the competition a month in advance by asking his fiancé to throw a random topic at him. 

“I think my favorite part is the wit of it all,” Shoop said. “It’s also something very special and very unique that a local bookstore put together this competition for locals to enjoy. It’s what makes it the best contest out here but that's my opinion.”

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