Getting data from all three tables using a query (SQL)

In my database, I have 3 tables.

Jokes:

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `jokes` (
  `joke_id` int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  `joke` varchar(1024) NOT NULL,
  `category_id` int(11) NOT NULL,
  `vote` int(255) NOT NULL,
  `date_added` timestamp NOT NULL DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP ON UPDATE CURRENT_TIMESTAMP,
  PRIMARY KEY (`joke_id`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB  DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1 AUTO_INCREMENT=1 ;

Category:

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `category` (
  `category_id` int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  `name` varchar(51) NOT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY (`category_id`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB  DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1 AUTO_INCREMENT=1 ;

And finally, Comments:

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `comments` (
  `id` int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  `user` varchar(40) NOT NULL,
  `comment` text NOT NULL,
  `joke_id` int(11) NOT NULL,
  `post_id` int(11) NOT NULL,
  `date` timestamp NOT NULL DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP,
  PRIMARY KEY (`id`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB  DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1 AUTO_INCREMENT=1 ;

These three tables need to be joined together to get data from each. So far i have used these three queries with no luck in getting what i need.

what i need this query to do is

• Assign the joke_id to the joke_id in the comments, and also displays the joke_id in the view.
• Assign the category_id of a joke to the name and display it
• grab the votes
• grab the jokes

1st query - this query does actually grab all the data i want, but at the same time does not grab the joke_id and pass it to view (as i need the joke_id to assign comments to that unique id):

SELECT j.*, c.name, 
co.* FROM jokes j LEFT 
JOIN category c ON c.category_id 
= j.category_id LEFT JOIN 
comments co ON co.joke_id = 
j.joke_id WHERE j.joke_id = '$joke_id'

2nd query - This query joins the category to the correct one, and displays the joke and joke_id for me to assign comments to. But it does not show any comments

SELECT j.*, c.name 
FROM jokes j LEFT JOIN category c 
ON c.category_id = j.category_id 
WHERE joke_id = '$joke_id'

3rd query - This query was provided by a user on stack overflow, but seems to throw a tonne of errors my way when a there is no comment attatched to that joke

SELECT c.*, j.*, co.*
FROM jokes j
INNER JOIN category c ON c.category_id = j.category_id
INNER JOIN comments co ON co.joke_id = j.joke_id
WHERE j.joke_id =  '$joke_id'

Any help altering this query to get all the items in the three database together would be much appreciated!