[HN Gopher] Old jokes
___________________________________________________________________
Old jokes
Author : Gadiguibou
Score : 233 points
Date : 2022-08-04 16:57 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (dynomight.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (dynomight.net)
| JasonFruit wrote:
| Maybe my standards are low, but the ones categorized as _Total
| failure_ strike me as kind of okay. Not great humor, but tbh
| better than half my son 's jokes.
| cwillu wrote:
| That's funny, your mom told me the same thing!
| Peritract wrote:
| The translation does them no favours, but you could definitely
| tell all the total failures and get a laugh.
|
| I'm not entirely sure the author understood them.
| bombcar wrote:
| Considering a lot of jokes depend on a pun or play on words -
| I was surprised that I could figure out almost all of them.
| dionidium wrote:
| > _Another person who was going away wrote to a pedant that he
| should buy him some books. But he regarded the request lightly
| and said to him on his return, "I did not receive your letter
| which you sent concerning the books."_
|
| I'm fairly certain the joke here is something like, "you
| couldn't have known to say you didn't receive the letter unless
| you actually did get the letter." I'm guessing the translation
| isn't helping, but it's actually a pretty routine joke. Not a
| total failure at all!
| samatman wrote:
| Hi Jan,
|
| Sorry I didn't get back to you with those spreadsheet edits,
| I must not have gotten your email!
|
| Best, -Joe -- Sent from my iPhone
| RajT88 wrote:
| Rather than, "That's what she said", I prefer to sneak in "Why
| thank you!".
|
| I believe the first place I heard the "Why Thank You" bit was in
| Police Squad / Naked Gun. The signature "confused guy says
| something unintentionally funny" humor Leslie Neilsen was known
| for.
| [deleted]
| silisili wrote:
| Oh man, Leslie Nielsen movies, specifically the Naked Gun
| series, are my favorite of all time. They are nothing but
| clever double entendres the whole time. Each time I watch them,
| I find something new it seems.
| RajT88 wrote:
| Extremely humor dense. And multiple levels of it as well!
|
| You can enjoy his movies as dumb and silly movies, or you can
| also enjoy the more clever jokes as well. I definitely did
| not totally understand everything when I first saw them as a
| kid.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| I got the referenced epub and it's quite humorous, despite some
| translation difficulty.
|
| The very dark jokes are actually quite funny.
| nikanj wrote:
| My theory for the "why people enjoy this" is: for part A of the
| population, the situation activates the empathy centers of the
| brain, and you share the pain. For part B, the bullying centers
| activate, and you find amusement in the torment of the poor fool.
|
| We all have both centers, only luck will tell which one is wired
| up to "cringe" stimuli.
| georgeecollins wrote:
| My theory is that Shakespeare is full of old jokes and old
| metaphors, for which we don't have an earlier written version. He
| is this one person that is so often quoted and repeated that it
| seems unbelievable that he could come up with so many memorable
| lines. It may be that he was the person who made the works of art
| that preserved the cliches of his era.
| TillE wrote:
| It's a good bet that a new phrase which would require
| explanation is not something you're likely to put in a play.
| But most of the stuff that Shakespeare scholars credit to him
| probably _did_ originate with him.
|
| The printing press was well established in Europe by his time
| (to preserve any prior art), and Shakespeare had an astounding
| gift for language.
| a_e_k wrote:
| I was amused to see a performance of All's Well that Ends Well
| and discover that the "cutting onions" joke goes at least as
| far back as Shakespeare.
|
| At the very end during the big resolution scene, Lafeu declares
| "Mine eyes smell onions; I shall weep anon."
| [deleted]
| nigerian1981 wrote:
| I needed a password eight characters long so I picked Snow White
| and the Seven Dwarves
| mech422 wrote:
| Stolen! Currently torturing my friends and co-workers with it
| :-D
| nigerian1981 wrote:
| Why thank you!
| GnarfGnarf wrote:
| I am haunted by the question of whether our ancestors (who were
| every bit as smart as us) were naive when it came to humor, or
| have we lost something?
|
| Were Caesar and Henry IV's jesters as hip as Richard Pryor and
| Lenny Bruce? Did Dave Chapelle-level humor exist in earlier
| centuries? Charlie Chaplin, Laurel & Hardy etc. were clearly the
| pinnacle of humor in their day, yet I find their acts trite and
| boring. Only "Who's on first?" still works.
|
| Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis were hip in the 50's. Today they are
| _passe_. Is our humor evolving? Are we developing an
| irreversible, ratcheting level of sophistication? Or was there
| some ineffable zeitgeist, a quality to the context that we can
| never recreate?
| renewiltord wrote:
| This Elitch business appears to be wholesale fabrication.
| Hilarious. Added here
| https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Said_the_actress_...
| but I don't get the joke.
|
| Tom K Elitch, Tomkelitch, Tom Kelitch, Thomas Elitch. Is it just
| that "Tom Elitch" owns a business on "Broadway"
| https://clustrmaps.com/a/307mgf/
|
| There's got to be something clever about it unless it's just
| total nonsense for its own sake. Ineptias ineptias gratia? :D
|
| Touche!
| com2kid wrote:
| > A pedant was looking for his book for many days but could not
| find it. By chance as he was eating lettuce and turned a certain
| corner he saw the book lying there. Later meeting a friend who
| was lamenting the loss of his girdle, he said, "Do not worry but
| buy some lettuces and eat them at the corner, when you turn it
| and go a little ways you fill find it."
|
| Not a a half bad joke making fun of people who are bad at logic
| and who doesn't understand cause and effect. Quite a few variants
| of this joke still exist today. It isn't meant to be funny, so
| much as it is an example of faulty logic taken to an absurd
| length.
|
| But this type of pattern matching is something people do all the
| time, and the results of it are often become baked into cultural
| traditions. From not having fans on in bedrooms to eating
| <culturally preferred food> when sick to get better faster.
| Someone witnessed A, then B, then C happen in rapid succession,
| so they assume A, B, and C are related to each other.
| toast0 wrote:
| > eating <culturally preferred food> when sick to get better
| faster.
|
| Some of these are more than just tradition. I'm familiar with
| having different kinds of soups or maybe eating spicy things.
| Having soup increases your liquid intake which generally helps
| your body process stuff (you could of course just drink lots of
| water, but that's not very culturally significant), spicy
| things can increase sinus drainage which is helpful too.
| mbg721 wrote:
| My favorite broken-logic joke about this is that a (pick your
| favorite ethnicity) grandmother owned two chickens, but one
| day, one of them got sick. So she killed the healthy chicken
| and made soup to nurse the other one back to health.
| gnicholas wrote:
| Like Lisa Simpson's tiger-repelling rock:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSVqLHghLpw
| johnfn wrote:
| > A pedant was looking for his book for many days but could not
| find it. By chance as he was eating lettuce and turned a certain
| corner he saw the book lying there. Later meeting a friend who
| was lamenting the loss of his girdle, he said, "Do not worry but
| buy some lettuces and eat them at the corner, when you turn it
| and go a little ways you fill find it."
|
| This is interesting: it's the sort of quip that, if said
| extemporaneously in conversation, would probably get someone to
| laugh. The funny thing would specifically be referencing back to
| a conversation/event that happened a few days ago. The thing that
| makes it less funny in the compressed form is that you don't have
| to put the 2 and 2 together of "oh yeah, that's an event that
| happened a few days ago which is related to this situation"
| because the compressed joke has spoon-fed you the context.
|
| Maybe jokes were such a novel form at the time that even the
| compressed form was still funny back then?
| TremendousJudge wrote:
| Also, there's something about translated jokes. Not just in the
| sense of language, but also in the sense of culture. If
| somebody right now tried to translate a modern English joke to
| Thai, but only knew about the language through reading the
| works of Shakespeare, a King James bible and the US legal code,
| it doesn't seem that the result would be very funny to somebody
| from Thailand.
| dieselgate wrote:
| The funniest part of that for me was the "friend lamenting the
| loss of his girdle"
| prometheus76 wrote:
| A girdle in that time would now be called a belt.
| dieselgate wrote:
| Indeed, didn't know that. The last time I used a girdle was
| for holding hip padding in high school football.
| cecilpl2 wrote:
| One of my favorite Norm MacDonald jokes:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oseqh7SMIvo
| thesuitonym wrote:
| The shaggy dog story is a time honoured form of anti-humour.
| nigerian1981 wrote:
| Currently searching for dog houses on Amazon
| davidw wrote:
| That was worse than getting rick-rolled.
| Jalad wrote:
| Not quite as old as some of the jokes in the article but I really
| like this one from a previous thread:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13587528
|
| For context, the joke is set in the Soviet Union
|
| > Russian engineer got fed up of having all responsibility and
| low salary, so he moves to another city and pretends to be an
| ordinary worker, same salary and peace of mind. However, not long
| after communist party sends him to evening classes. On his first
| day there at maths class he was asked about circle circumference
| formula, but for some reason he could not remember it off hand,
| so he goes on blackboard and tries to work it out with linear
| integral. After exhausting whole blackboard he finally gets the
| result:
|
| > -2RPi
|
| > Then all of the sudden he hears all of the class whispering to
| him: "Change the direction of integration!"
| thesuitonym wrote:
| The Soviet economy really was more efficient than ours--their
| shelves were empty decades ago!
| bombcar wrote:
| Monstrous Regiment by pratchett is basically this joke in novel
| form.
| racl101 wrote:
| First time I heard: _that 's what she said_ as a punchline for
| double-entendres...
|
| was around mid-to-late 90s on _King of the Hill_ and I was a
| teenager. It was an episode where Ben Stiller guest starred as a
| new employee who worked with Hank Hill at _Strickland Propane_
| and the premise was that this new employee (I forget his name)
| would create a toxic work environment where he 'd make crude
| jokes about everything and everyone and nobody had the balls to
| stand up to him except for Hank.
|
| Now, given that writer/producer Greg Daniels, worked in both
| _King of the Hill_ and _The Office_ I figured that maybe he made
| the joke prominent in the latter show.
|
| But I'm probably wrong.
| bitcurious wrote:
| "This inn on the road to Iwanoue is a cold place to sleep...
|
| Oh monk, would you please lend me your robes?
|
| The monk's reply:
|
| Those who have given up the world wear only a single layer of
| moss-rough cloth,
|
| yet not to offer it would be heartless.
|
| Let us sleep together, then."
|
| A poem/joke by Ono no Komachi from c. 825 -- c. 900
| circa wrote:
| I didn't see a mention of Chris Farley. He says it in 2 of his
| movies from the 90s I believe.
| t-3 wrote:
| I wonder how many of the unintelligible jokes are puns and
| wordplay? That's one of the most favored categories of jokes, and
| hardest to translate.
| Digit-Al wrote:
| I wonder why they had such a thing for pedants.
| Kaibeezy wrote:
| Iffy translation of "smarty pants" or "Mr know it all"?
| davidw wrote:
| "Well hello Mr Fancy Pants"
| derbOac wrote:
| I kind of wondered how much connotation, puns, etc. been lost
| to us over time. Things like that matter. A lot of these
| jokes would have a bit more color if "pedant" was seen more
| as "Mr. know it all".
| singlow wrote:
| Seems the word being translated is Skholastikos.
|
| At its root its a person who doesn't work. A scholar didn't
| work and could devote their time to acquiring knowledge. But a
| lazy person could also be a scholastikos.
|
| So I think here it is getting the double treatment, referring
| to a person who has lots of book smarts but no common sense.
|
| Pedant kind of makes sense as a person who thinks themselves
| smart, so perfect for being the butt of a joke about being
| stupid. Pedant, afterall, was once just a word for teacher in
| English, but has taken on a negative connotation.
| camjohnson26 wrote:
| Is that where "pedantic" comes from?
| bee_rider wrote:
| Pedantic describes the attribute of being a pedant. It is
| like "employee" and "employed." Hopefully this isn't too
| pedantic, haha, but they almost seem too closely related to
| describe one as coming from the other.
| singlow wrote:
| You are asking whether pedantic is derived from pedant? I
| assume so. It can both mean like a pedant (emphasizing
| minutiae) or it can mean just dull, as we often think of
| classroom activities being dull, which is similar to
| didactic, although pedantic is probably only used in the
| negative sense where as didactic still has more
| neutral/positive usage in addition to meaning dull. So I am
| not sure if Pedantic ever meant generally to be related to
| teaching by design or intent.
| homonculus1 wrote:
| The answer is "yes"
| saxonww wrote:
| I was wondering the same. Was 'pedant' at the time more like
| what we'd call 'peasant' today?
| renewiltord wrote:
| Etymologically appears to be 'headmaster'. I imagine that
| this and the Cumaeans are just a "pick a specific because
| it's funny" joke. Partly this makes fun of a certain class
| intentionally, but partly just because it's specific.
|
| For instance, there are also
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sardarji_joke
| trebbble wrote:
| By the time the translation was made (~1920), it could also
| be "know-it-all" (I assume this started as a sarcastic use
| of its sense of "headmaster") which is pretty close to its
| typical meaning today--to me it implies someone who often,
| unnecessarily or inappropriately, corrects others, but that
| may be a recent connotation, and it's still close.
|
| We'd have to find the original text and consult a
| translation dictionary, I expect, to figure out exactly
| which sense was intended.
| vlunkr wrote:
| > I've noticed a disturbing phenomenon: Many people who only
| recently watched the US version of The Office seem to think that
| Michael Scott invented That's what she said.
|
| Citation needed on that. Certainly it's been attached to the
| office, but if you've actually watched it you would know that
| Micheal Scott never invented a new phrase on purpose.
| RC_ITR wrote:
| I'm guessing you watched the office (or were at least sentient)
| during its original run.
|
| It's "classic" TV now, and it's always hard for kids to parse
| what's new and a allusion in "classic" TV.
| kalimoxto wrote:
| I think this idea (that the phrase originated with The Office)
| entered the zeitgeist because of 30 Rock
| https://youtu.be/Z2DGHRMJQLw
| thesuitonym wrote:
| ``I've noticed'' is the citation. It's a personal anecdote, not
| a thesis paper.
| vlunkr wrote:
| I know, it's just condescending implying that all these
| office fans don't get the underlying joke.
| [deleted]
| anamexis wrote:
| The very next sentence says as much.
| trebbble wrote:
| The author goes on to point out that that's exactly what the
| joke there is _supposed_ to be--Scott making a mess of attempts
| to deploy a tired joke _is_ the joke.
|
| A poster in these very comments admitted to having believed
| that the joke originated with The Office. I suppose the
| author's "citation" is that they've personally witnessed this
| enough times to make an educated guess that it's a fairly
| widespread belief.
| effingwewt wrote:
| No one in these comments has said they thought that. The
| closest was someone saying 'he may not have invented it, but
| he brought it back.
|
| I think you'd be hard pressed to find even a few instances
| out of the millions of viewers who would have thought Michael
| Scott invented the phrase.
|
| I just assumed it was hyperbole.
| __david__ wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32346330
| samatman wrote:
| It certainly had a fad run as 90s slang, thanks to Wayne's
| World, before the Office was even a glimmer.
| effingwewt wrote:
| Yea, I'm 41 now, so I guess there goes me being old, but
| I guess its old enough now that people confuse the
| origin.
|
| Like when artists cover a song and younger folks don't
| realize it wasn't the original.
|
| I'll make a mental note to keep in mind I'm old now so as
| not to become the old man on the porch screaming at kids.
| trebbble wrote:
| Oh shit I forgot about it being in Wayne's World. That's
| very likely the first place I heard it.
| trebbble wrote:
| > Yeah, I appreciated this article -- will confess I
| definitely thought the joke originated with The Office.
|
| - kevin___
|
| I'd not be a bit surprised if a double-digit percentage of
| viewers thought the joke originated there.
| effingwewt wrote:
| I don't know how I missed it.
|
| I guess these days not everyone hears it growing up?
|
| Seems I need to widen my view.
| kevin___ wrote:
| Didn't expect my first comment to be so controversial!
|
| I just asked a few friends if they thought it came from
| the show or not. The first person that responded thought
| it had come from the show as well. The second knew the
| joke hadn't originated from there, but attributed its
| popularity to appearing on the show.
| trebbble wrote:
| > I don't know how I missed it.
|
| Haha, I was sure I'd read that post, but had to look for
| quite a while to find it again, myself, for some reason.
|
| > I guess these days not everyone hears it growing up?
|
| I'm actually not sure _I_ heard it until after it was on
| The Office and it was suddenly _everywhere_ , constantly.
| If I did, it wouldn't have been long before that. "Your
| mom" was big (LOL, _yeah_ she was) when I was a kid,
| though.
| [deleted]
| narag wrote:
| I wonder if the point of the amphora is that pitch will cover the
| decoration or either it will seal the pores.
| t-3 wrote:
| I think it's about the decoration, and I'm pretty sure the guy
| who painted himself in pitch did so in order to pretend he was
| wearing the leggings he couldn't fit into.
| wahern wrote:
| Presumably a stolen amphora would have been very fancy and
| possibly conspicuous, so more specifically the joke works
| like, a person bought a stolen Picasso to hang in his
| gallery, but crudely painted it over so he wouldn't get
| caught.
|
| I totally missed the pants/pitch joke, good catch. Reminds me
| of an episode of It's Always Sunny where Frank keeps flushing
| articles of clothing down the toilet and uses black paint to
| cover up, except it ends up being a pretext for a later,
| unrelated bit.
| derbOac wrote:
| That one has kind of turned in over my head a lot. I didn't
| think of the decoration for some reason when I first read it,
| but then it made more sense. I also imagine it would be pretty
| sticky?
|
| I think some of these things would land differently to an
| audience more intuitively familiar with these things in their
| daily lives.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| These remind me of a category of "joke" that some of my middle-
| school peers and I engaged in: the non-joke. The only one I can
| remember went something like: _a man walks into a bakery and asks
| for two baguettes. The baker looks at him, thinks for a moment
| and says "It's OK, you can leave your bike outside"_.
|
| Looking back, I think this idea was somehow rooted in the idea
| that jokes have _delivery_ and that if you use that delivery
| (rythmn, emphasis, body language) maybe you could say anything
| and be funny. There was also the peer effect - if you had an
| audience "plant" in the school yard that would start the
| laughter, sometimes it would catch even for these non-jokes.
|
| Decades later, the idea I described above seems both obviously
| false, but also true, in the sense that a lot of modern stand up
| is based on "say anything the right way and people laugh".
| However, "the right way" for standup is very different than the
| "telling a joke" structure.
|
| On the other hand, it does feel to me at this point that this is
| the crux of the contemporary poetry slam: read an arbitrary text
| in the right way, and while it may not win any prizes, it will
| feel like poetry, because _that 's what make it poetry_.
| dtech wrote:
| This is also because laughing at jokes is a way to
| (unconsciously) show that you get it, and/or belong with the
| "in-crowd". So people tend to laugh at jokes other's find
| funny, even if they wouldn't themselves, and remember the joke
| must've been funny because they laughed. Also see: laugh
| tracks.
| anyfoo wrote:
| I know what you mean, but it isn't quite the same I think.
| The anecdote I told in a sibling comment about a friend and
| me sitting in the back of my mom's car is an example. We were
| two very good friends, so there was no "in-crowd" dynamic at
| all, and we were absolutely loosing over it, it was genuinely
| funny to us. Roughly the same age as what OP stated, so there
| just seems to be something inherently funny about those non-
| sequiturs to young folks... maybe that's when you start to
| "deconstruct" concepts like humor.
| edmcnulty101 wrote:
| My favorite non-joke.
|
| What did the farmer say when he walked outside and saw that his
| tractor was gone?
|
| Damn it. My tractor is gone.
| xxs wrote:
| Unrealistic - insufficient cursing.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| I wouldn't expect a lot of cursing in that scenario. I'd
| expect a lot of cursing from a farmer experiencing some
| sort of understandable problem that happens to him all the
| time, but not from one experiencing a mysterious,
| unexplained emergency.
| smitty1e wrote:
| That's a non-sequitur, no?
| Max-q wrote:
| > Looking back, I think this idea was somehow rooted in the
| idea that jokes have delivery and that if you use that delivery
| (rythmn, emphasis, body language) maybe you could say anything
| and be funny.
|
| This is "Friends" summed up. We are only laughing because they
| tell something like it was funny, and the canned laughter tells
| our brain to laugh.
| triceratops wrote:
| > This is "Friends" summed up... the canned laughter
|
| Are you not aware that the show was filmed before a live
| audience? Watch how the actors pause between lines - they're
| actually waiting for the crowd to finish laughing. And that's
| the case for most sitcoms from the previous century.
|
| It might not be your kind of humor. But real audiences found
| the show funny enough to laugh so long and hard, when they
| were under no obligation to do so, that the actors had to
| have unnaturally long pauses between their lines.
|
| Many modern internet commenters have a misguided tendency to
| automatically dismiss any show with a laugh track as
| inferior. FWIW I think _Friends_ was a great show for most of
| its run, with top-notch comic writing, within the constraints
| of the medium at the time. Sitcoms were nearly always single-
| camera format, and shot in a studio with a live audience. The
| storylines had to be accessible to casual watchers. The shows
| lived and died by weekly ratings, and needed to have ad
| breaks at specific times, which also influenced the writing,
| casting, and pacing.
|
| Just to show you that I'm not swayed by mere laugh tracks and
| longevity, let me also announce that anything made by Chuck
| Lorre is absolute drivel.
| fastaguy88 wrote:
| Anyone can tell a joke:
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=m8raDUn0UgQ
| guelo wrote:
| Delivery is the crux of a lot of comedians. If they have good
| delivery they can get away with saying a lot of unfunny, even
| mean repulsive things, and have the audience laugh along with
| them
| function_seven wrote:
| My favorite:
|
| How many pancakes does it take to shingle a roof?
|
| Orange, because snakes don't _have_ armpits!
| twodave wrote:
| My Dad used to tell this one, but the punchline was "because
| fish can't eat ice cream!" Thanks for taking me back in time
| :)
| humanistbot wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-humor
|
| You might enjoy the work of Andy Kaufman.
| salmo wrote:
| We used to really enjoy a long elaborate joke setup with a let
| down as the punchline in college.
|
| My favorite was "A patron sees a whale sitting in a booth at
| the bar". You go on and on about him coming back day after day
| seeing the wale, describing the beverage, etc. Just improv it.
| The key is going as long as you can while keeping the audience,
| but still getting that frustration and tension from them.
|
| At the end the patron gets up the courage to talk to the whale
| explains to the whale that he had seen him for days, was
| amazed, etc. Then the whale looked at him and responded [insert
| best whale noise impression].
|
| Since he passed I've seen a bunch of Norm Macdonald videos of
| this. He really was the best. The moth joke and others that go
| on for ~30 mins each on Conan are amazing.
|
| He plays them dumb but is basing them off like Russian
| literature tropes that go way over the audience's head. The
| repeated build up, let down, and then finally just a silly
| punch line that could have landed in 3 sentences is incredible.
| And his ability to play off Conan's occasional shots...
| gregstoll wrote:
| The author just wrote an article about this as well -
| https://dynomight.net/no-soap-radio/
| yccs27 wrote:
| Some of the variations just had me in tears and I can't
| really explain why.
|
| Edit: I guess it's the same formula as most jokes: There is
| some logic in the setup, and the punchline replaces it with a
| different logic or pattern. Only in this case, the original
| logic isn't common sense, but the expected pattern of each
| type of joke. A meta-joke in that regard. It really depends
| on you being blindsided, but immediately recognizing the new
| "logic" at the punchline.
| ranger207 wrote:
| Yeah this is a meme in the modern internet sense, where a
| large portion of the humor comes from recognizing the
| format
| brianpan wrote:
| A joke breaks expectations. Setup: "What kind of bear has
| no teeth?" Punchline: "A gummy bear" breaks the
| expectation you have trying to think of a type of animal
| bear.
|
| Non-jokes or meta-jokes break the expectation but in an
| unusual way. "Why did the chicken cross the road?"
| punchline breaks your expectation of an broken
| expectation. You thought it was a joke, but it turned out
| to be a statement. The aristocrats joke turns out to be
| just a dirty story- the story is the "joke".
|
| Memes are not non-jokes or meta jokes. Memes are
| refillable jokes in a known container. You see the
| picture, you know what the joke is. Just like a TV sitcom
| is storytelling/joketelling in a refillable container.
| You see the kooky friend character, you know how he/she
| is going to react.
|
| The aristocrats joke happens to also be a refillable
| container (you can tell/retell it however you want), but
| that's not the part that makes it a non-joke.
| manimino wrote:
| "To get to the other side" has a double meaning (to die,
| perhaps by being hit by a car).
|
| So the chicken joke is not necessarily an anti-joke.
| anyfoo wrote:
| I remember how intensely funny such non-sequitur jokes were to
| us at the same age. And they were quite similar to the one you
| quoted, absolute nonsense.
|
| I vividly remember sitting in the back of my mothers car with a
| friend and just losing it for laughter. It was uncontrollable
| and my mother was rather annoyed.
|
| It's almost sad that it doesn't work at all anymore.
| joosters wrote:
| Kind of related: https://twitter.com/KidsWriteJokes
|
| It's a collection of jokes (apparently) written by children.
| They aren't funny, in the sense that they make no damn sense.
| Yet, lots of them are funny in the sense that they are
| completely ridiculous but you can see what the child was trying
| to do, i.e. deliver a joke in the same style as they have heard
| before, e.g. Knock, knock Who's there?
| A ladybug. Ladybug who? A LADYBUG. I just SAID
| that.
| aantix wrote:
| "Some people say funny things.
|
| Other people say things funny."
|
| Both can be equally comedic. Looks like you and your friends
| discovered that.
| nyx wrote:
| Michael Davis, comedy juggling act: "They say a comic says
| funny things, but a _comedian_ says things funny. This makes
| me a juggler. "
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKRrfAzdpW8
| wizofaus wrote:
| Surely the ultimate non-joke involves querying the purpose of a
| chicken's road-crossing adventures...
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| "to die, in the rain"
| zxcvbn4038 wrote:
| I've never seen a chicken try to cross a road, they always
| seem to stay well away.
|
| Geese on the other hand seem convinced they are tougher than
| anything with four wheels.
| happimess wrote:
| It's a pun. The chicken gets hit by a car and dies. It
| reaches The Other Side.
| wizofaus wrote:
| If there's a pun it's one referencing the line from Othello
| about "this foul proceeding", but good luck coming up with
| one that would get a laugh outside very select circles.
| swores wrote:
| Nope, that's a pun you've shared, but it's not _the_
| definitive answer in any way as you seem to think.
|
| There is no single correct chicken crossing the road joke,
| but specifically the person you're talking to is speaking
| about an anti-joke where you don't even get to it crossing
| the road because you're stuck on the question of why cross
| the road rather than the act of crossing it.
| anyfoo wrote:
| That seems to be the recent interpretation (or at least I
| only recently read about it, it seems to be a thing right
| now), but I remain unconvinced.
|
| It's just entirely plausible to me that the pun was just a
| "happy accident", and the originator of the joke really did
| mean to give a groan-inducing borderline-tautological
| answer that does not offer any insight besides the obvious.
| You were expecting a punchline, but your expectation was
| subverted!
|
| And at least that's also funnier than that lame pun. I'd be
| pretty disappointed to be honest, but we'll probably never
| really find out.
| stryan wrote:
| > Looking back, I think this idea was somehow rooted in the
| idea that jokes have delivery and that if you use that delivery
| (rhythm, emphasis, body language) maybe you could say anything
| and be funny.
|
| Reminds me of the Code Geass abridged series Code MENT (most
| famously known for the Soup Store[0] meme) which relies on this
| type of humor heavily. Most of the jokes in it aren't really
| funny on their own and are essentially just nonsensical
| statements delivered in strange and distinctive ways rapid fire
| while VERY loosely related to the plot of Code Geass. But with
| the right delivery the lines become hilarious and easily
| quotable: just look at how many Soup Store parodies there are.
|
| [0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAUnDDTz30k
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| I had a somewhat similar feeling watching _How I Met Your
| Mother_ -- there are many places where it 's obvious that the
| show expects you to laugh, but in most of those places, there
| is no joke. Instead, there's a continuity reference.
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| "What is purple and hums? An electric grape. Why does it hum?
| Because it doesn't know the words."
| texaslonghorn5 wrote:
| I remember a similarly themed non joke where the meaningless
| and irrelevant punchline was "no soap, radio."
| [deleted]
| saghm wrote:
| When my father first told me that joke when I was a kid (with
| "two elephants in a bathtub" rather than one being hippo), I
| just assumed that the elephant who wanted the soap was named
| Radio.
| Todd wrote:
| There was a thread on HN a week ago about this.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32250203
| Apocryphon wrote:
| What a delightful practice
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_soap_radio#Execution_of_the.
| ..
| [deleted]
| reaperducer wrote:
| For those of you in the Apple ecosystem, Siri was loaded up with
| a new batch of dad jokes on August first.
|
| Every night before I go to bed, I end the day with, "Hey, Siri,
| tell me a joke." Why is Cinderella so bad at
| soccer? She keeps running away from the ball.
|
| Loading up Siri with new jokes every month would be my dream
| Apple job.
| xxs wrote:
| Yeah 'soccer' - positioning is very important and running away
| from the ball is not necessarily incorrect, esp. for the
| defense.
| rfrey wrote:
| A few comments above this one there is a subthread on the
| meaning of "pedant", you might enjoy it.
| dkurth wrote:
| Re: the age of "That's what she said":
|
| I thumbed through The Frogs (Aristophanes) at a used book store
| once. This play was written circa 400 BC. In the prologue, one
| character is offering to entertain the audience with a few jokes,
| and another character says, "Yes, but not 'That's what she
| said.'" The joke was too over-used.
|
| I was astounded to think that the joke was _that_ old! But it 's
| actually not. The old jokes of ancient Athenians were a little
| too obscure, I guess, so the translator picked a modern example.
| Still, that translation of The Frogs is from the 1950s, so the
| joke was old at least that far back. (Here is the translation:
| https://archive.org/stream/in.ernet.dli.2015.65406/2015.6540...)
| shagie wrote:
| I looked up some other translations...
|
| 1908 - "Not "Oh, my poor blisters!" -
| https://archive.org/details/frogstranslatedi00arisuoft/page/...
|
| 1995 - "Anything but "What a strain!""
| https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext...
|
| Original greek - "plen g' 'os thlibomai.'" -
| https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus:text...
|
| This appears to translate as "except 'as I grieve.'" according
| to Google Translate -
| https://translate.google.com/?sl=el&tl=en&text=plen%20g'%20'...
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > This appears to translate as "except 'as I grieve.'"
| according to Google Translate
|
| That Perseus link will give you dictionary entries for the
| words. Relevant glosses of os appear to be "as; how; so;
| thus". thlibomai is the passive form of a verb meaning
| "press; squeeze" and metaphorically "oppress; afflict";
| examples in the Great Scott (LSJ) show it being used to
| describe a shoe _pinching_ a foot, a shoulder _rubbing
| against_ a narrow doorway, lips _pressing against_ each other
| in a kiss, and the circumstances of poverty _making things
| difficult_ for a poor person.
|
| So it's easy to imagine that it might feature in the
| punchline of a pun. But even without constructing a pun, it
| would be easy to translate that as something like "see how I
| suffer?", which could be the punchline to any number of
| jokes. It sounds like a good translation of the modern
| punchline "first world problems", for example.
| riquito wrote:
| that one looks more like a very liberal translation to match
| the present audience (see shagie comment)
| cafeinux wrote:
| Well, that's what dkurth said.
| cm2187 wrote:
| Favorite ww2 joke:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1u11t9/an_raf_vet_is...
| coldtea wrote:
| > _This is the largest category. You can see what's being
| attempted, but the joke utterly fails. Sometimes it fails so hard
| that it almost works as anti-humor. Overwhelmingly these are a
| variant of "Once this guy did something dumb."_
|
| What the author doesn't get is that those are meant not just as
| ha-ha jokes, but also as ironic comments on behavior. E.g., his
| example on this category:
|
| "A pedant was looking for his book for many days but could not
| find it. By chance as he was eating lettuce and turned a certain
| corner he saw the book lying there. Later meeting a friend who
| was lamenting the loss of his girdle, he said, "Do not worry but
| buy some lettuces and eat them at the corner, when you turn it
| and go a little ways you fill find it."
|
| This is an ironic remark on how people think what worked for them
| circumstancially, it will work for others, even in another
| situation. E.g. this joke could be used almost verbatim as a
| ironic critique of modern-day cargo cult of success (where
| copying BS circumstancial things a rich person does, like "waking
| up at 6am" or "only eat Soylent to save time") is supposed to be
| how you find success.
|
| Or take:
|
| "Another person who was going away wrote to a pedant that he
| should buy him some books. But he regarded the request lightly
| and said to him on his return, "I did not receive your letter
| which you sent concerning the books.""
|
| The joke here is not about "someone saying something dump", but
| rather poking fun at "the check is in the post" kind of behavior.
|
| Moving on: "Cumaeans are stupid. I'm not sure what the Cumaeans
| did to deserve this, but there's a whole section with jokes like
| this"
|
| The point is not Cumaeans, and those kind of jokes at some group
| (from the Polish to rednecks) are a staple all across the world -
| including by those groups made fun of themselves.
|
| Or one he is confused about, which is perfectly clear:
|
| "A pedant had purchased a pair of breeches and since they were
| very tight and he had difficulty in getting into them, he pulled
| all the hair off himself."
|
| It just a critique of people doing something supposedly to help
| with a situation, that actually has zero returns. (the guy
| couldn't fit in his clothes, so he shaved his body hair - as if
| that would make much of dent to his body volume).
|
| One can see that there are tons of examples of this behavior in
| modern life (and, alas, in programming).
|
| The author says he is especially confused about this joke, but
| the meaning is, once again, totally clear:
|
| "A shrewd fellow whilst wrestling fell into the mud and in order
| that he might not seem to be clumsy, he got up entirely covered
| with mud and stood conceitedly through the whole contest."
|
| It's again poking fun at the well known "save face" behavior,
| that if you accidently fail at something, you can try make it
| appear like you didn't fail, but rather intended what happened.
| There are like 100 examples of the same exact behavior in modern
| comedy movies.
|
| In essense, the author appears to take the jokes too literaly or
| as actual advice, fails to see their point, and in general
| appears to be quite the ...pedant, like the butt of some of those
| jokes!
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| > "A pedant had purchased a pair of breeches and since they
| were very tight and he had difficulty in getting into them, he
| pulled all the hair off himself."
|
| > It just a critique of people doing something supposedly to
| help with a situation, that actually has zero returns. (the guy
| couldn't fit in his clothes, so he shaved his body hair - as if
| that would make much of dent to his body volume).
|
| I understood this joke differently: You're supposed to pull the
| breeches to get into them, but the guy pulled his hair instead.
| kevin___ wrote:
| Yeah, I appreciated this article -- will confess I definitely
| thought the joke originated with The Office. I think the author
| just missed a lot of the punchlines in the jokes that they
| didn't find funny, many of these formats are still in use
| today!
|
| The one you describe is a classic format: someone has a
| problem, then through accidental, unrelated circumstances,
| solves it. They meet someone else with the same problem, and
| the punchline is that their advice is "have you tried..?"
|
| > A pedant having fallen into a pit called out continually to
| summon help. When no one answered, he said to himself, "I am a
| fool if I do not give all a beating when I get out in order
| that in the future they shall answer me and furnish me with a
| ladder."
|
| The author ends being unsure their strategy is sound -- but the
| point of the joke is that it's clearly not sound, and one that
| would only make sense to a pedant.
|
| > "Another person who was going away wrote to a pedant that he
| should buy him some books. But he regarded the request lightly
| and said to him on his return, "I did not receive your letter
| which you sent concerning the books.""
|
| The punchline is that the pedant clearly received the letter,
| or he wouldn't know to say that the he's claiming to have not
| received concerned books. Today it might be: "Hey, did you get
| my text message?" "The one asking if you could borrow my car?
| No, I didn't."
| fugalfervor wrote:
| macspoofing wrote:
| >Many people who only recently watched the US version of The
| Office seem to think that Michael Scott invented That's what she
| said
|
| He didn't invent it, but he brough it back.
| tootie wrote:
| Part of his character was his relentless imitation of classic
| comedians. He does terrible impressions of Bill Cosby, Rodney
| Dangerfield, Henny Youngman, Dan Aykroyd. He wins over Holly
| when she recognizes his Jon Lovitz impersonation.
| z9znz wrote:
| Sorry, as a self-discovered empath...
|
| > Why enjoy this and not videos of people falling off of
| skateboards
|
| Because watching people suffer makes me _really_ suffer.
|
| That's why the Office and other Ricky Gervais self-deprecation
| shows were fun but also very painful. However, his After Life
| series was incredibly touching. Even thinking about it makes me
| emotional.
| fleddr wrote:
| A seal walks into a bar, hops on a chair and orders a beer.
|
| Bar tender: "A talking seal! I've never seen anything like this.
| You should go work in a circus!"
|
| Seal: "Why? Does the circus need microservice architects?"
| justusthane wrote:
| What do you call a black guy sitting at the front of a plane?
|
| A pilot.
| fleddr wrote:
| A man sits on the train and as he looks up, he sees a dinosaur
| sitting across him.
|
| "A dinosaur? on the train? What on earth is happening?"
|
| Dinosaur: "Well, don't get used to it. Tomorrow my car is
| fixed".
| justusthane wrote:
| Two muffins are sitting in an oven. The first muffin says,
| "Man, sure is getting warm in here." The second muffin says,
| "GOOD LORD, IT'S A TALKING MUFFIN!"
| dieselgate wrote:
| In regards to old jokes this just made me think of "phallic
| imagery" being discovered as graffiti in Roman cities/Pompeii.
|
| Along with "And he says, 'do you love me,' and she says, 'no! But
| that's a real nice ski mask'"
| bambax wrote:
| > _One of the twin brothers died and a pedant meeting the
| survivor asked him, "Did you die, or was it your brother?"_
|
| When I was young someone told me a very, very similar joke and
| attributed it to Mark Twain: "We were twins. One of us died. I
| could never tell if it was my brother or I."
| wwilim wrote:
| I recently found an article about Ancient Roman jokes. My
| favourite went something like this. Apparently, "logic jokes" are
| ancient as well.
|
| > A man asked a friend to buy two 15-year old slaves for him next
| time he visits the market. After a few days, the friend returns
| and says: "I couldn't find any 15-year old slaves at the market,
| so I bought you one 30-year old slave."
| blippage wrote:
| Michael Jackson goes up to Elton John: "I'll swap you a ten for
| two fives."
| mulmen wrote:
| Old farmhand wisdom:
|
| "One boy is worth half a man. Two is worth nothing."
|
| Heard that one after wasting 10 minutes chatting instead of
| loading the truck.
| mgkimsal wrote:
| Dorian Gray jokes _never_ get old...
| russellbeattie wrote:
| I happened to see a black and white video of Flip Wilson telling
| his infamous baby joke on the Tonight Show [1], and thought to
| myself that I _barely_ know who he was, let alone anyone born
| after me.
|
| Seems like a great way to build a following on TikTok would just
| be to go through the countless hours of standup comedy that was
| shown night after night on late night TV in the 50s and 60s,
| cherry pick the best bits and just start making clips. Even if
| you were called out for copying, a funny bit is a funny bit.
| Think of the wealth of material from George Burns, Milton Berle
| or Carol Burnett that could be reintroduced to the world as 30
| second vids.
|
| 1. https://youtu.be/xG3v_kA0Stw
| larsrc wrote:
| Even some of the puns in Shakespeare's plays have become lost due
| to language and social change. I would not be surprised if a
| bunch of the old jokes, especially the apparently non-sensical
| ones, are puns or have punny elements.
| dtech wrote:
| especially double entendres or meanings more common in speaking
| language than writing language, or theater for Ancient Greek,
| might very well have been lost to time.
| joshuaissac wrote:
| There are some renditions of Shakespeare's plays with
| pronunciations from where and when they were written. It
| recaptures some of the puns and jokes that are not apparent in
| most modern accents.
|
| https://youtu.be/gPlpphT7n9s
| bambax wrote:
| Shakespeare didn't recoil from putting puns in the titles of
| his plays either! For example, "nothing" was a placeholder for
| ladyparts (no-thing: the absence of the 'thing', the thing
| being, of course, the penis).
|
| And so, "Much Ado About Nothing" doesn't really mean "a lot of
| fuss for no reason". Or maybe it does, but it carries a strong
| double entendre: "make noise for the pussy".
| scrypter wrote:
| ""That's what she said" - Some Guy" -Michael Scott
| jodrellblank wrote:
| Not as old, but there is an Esperanto book of "113 humorous
| things" from around 1910, and so many of them are mother-in-law
| jokes or husbands and wives hating each other, e.g.
|
| 15. "Mother, I don't want to marry Ricardo, he says that Hell
| doesn't exist!". "Calm youself, little daughter, when I am his
| mother-in-law I will convince him of it".
|
| 18. is roughly "In a country it rained (a lot or a little?). One
| farmer said 'This year, out of the ground will come everthing we
| put beneath it'. His colleague said 'By God, don't say that,
| friend! My mother-in-law is down there!'".
|
| 21. A widower was showing some friendly guests around his garden.
| "Look", he said, "There is the tree where my three unhappy wives
| hanged themselves". One of the attendees, who was a husband,
| asked for a cutting from the tree - that he might plant it in his
| garden.
|
| 24. A fiance gave confession on the day of his wedding.
| Afterwards he said "Father, you forgot to give me the
| punishment". "No", said the clever priest, "you already have it".
|
| 30. "See that man? I hate him". "Why?". "He asked before me for
| my wife's hand, and she refused him!".
|
| 78. "Dear friend, why don't you want your son to marry?". "I
| don't want my wife to become a mother-in-law".
|
| 90. "How is your mother-in-law doing?". "She's getting better,
| but I haven't lost all hope."
|
| 96. A servant calls to his sleeping master 'Sir! Sir! Your
| mother-in-law just died!'. "Oh! How much sadness I will have in
| the morning when I wake from this dream" replied the son-in-law.
|
| Some are plausible jokes but not very funny. e.g.
|
| 14. "Waiter, Omelette!", "We have none". "Meat?" "Also none".
| "Fish?" "Also none". "So why say one can eat according to their
| desires?" "Sir, it means the desire of the restaurant owner".
|
| 29. "The drum you sold me makes no sound". "I hoped as much".
| "And why do you make drums?" "To sell them".
|
| 35. "Is God everywhere?" "Yes, father". "Then he is in the yard
| of your house?". "No, father". "Why not, stupid boy?". "My house
| doesn't have a yard, respected teacher."
|
| Some are reasonable:
|
| 19. In a Barber's shop: "How would you like me to shave you?"
| "Silently".
|
| 10. A 60 year old woman and her daughter looks the same age. "One
| claims they are two daughters" says the census taker, "but you
| could more rightly say they are two mothers".
|
| 71. "It'd be a miracle if I win the lottery." "What's your
| number?" "None." "Then how will you be able to win?". "That's why
| I said it would be a miracle!".
|
| [1] http://www.elerno.cn/elibro/113humorajoj.pdf
| loxs wrote:
| Before reading this, I thought I am sort of proficient in
| English. Not any more... Haven't looked up so many words in years
| papandada wrote:
| Never get into a synonym duel with a translator ... you will
| not prevail
| VyseofArcadia wrote:
| I've come to appreciate Brooklyn 99's "title of your sex tape" as
| a fresh new twist on "that's what she said". I especially like
| how it's usually nonsensical or sad.
|
| > I can't find anything, and I don't know what to do!
|
| > Title of your sex tape
| geocrasher wrote:
| I have been known to tell jokes that have punchlines that are
| twisted in such a way that if you don't catch on, you will think
| I am either an idiot, or a horrible person. Two
| guys have fast cars and decide one day to have a contest to see
| whose car is faster. I can't tell you the rest of the joke
| though. It's racist.
|
| See, if you get it, you laugh. If you don't get it, I'm suddenly
| a very bad person. I told this joke in public, to a stranger,
| once. They thanked me for not telling them the punchline (not
| realizing of course that that WAS the punchline). I don't tell
| this joke anymore. Well, except here. But there's context.
| leonhard wrote:
| Ok I'll bite. I don't get it but I also don't even think you're
| racist, I'm just completely lost. Maybe it's a non-native
| English issue? Please elaborate
| jpswade wrote:
| https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ThatsWhatSheSaid
| jonathankoren wrote:
| Nasruddin had some good jokes.
|
| Mullah Nasruddin was traveling when he came to a town. The elders
| of the town asked him to give a sermon at the temple, which he
| grudgingly accepted. On the appointed day, he strode to the
| pulpit and asked the congregation, "Do you know what I'm about to
| say?" To which they replied, no they did not. He looked at them
| with disappointment and said, "Well, I'm not going to waste my
| time talking a bunch of people that don't know what I'm talking
| about," and left.
|
| Another:
|
| Nasruddin was taking a shortcut through a cemetery, when passed a
| funeral. Speaking to the mourners, the officiant said, "Today we
| have buried a politician and a good man." Shocked, Nasruddin
| said, "I did not know that times were so hard here, that you had
| to bury a two people in a single grave."
| danielodievich wrote:
| When I was 10 or 11, my father slipped me a book of Hodja
| Nasruddin. I _LOVED_ it and went around sprouting witticisms
| and clever jokes to my friends. Most of them landed well, with
| an occasional thud or kids rolling their eyes at me at the
| weirdness or oldness of the jokes. Some of those still come up
| in my day to day use. Timeless stuff!
| renewiltord wrote:
| Hilarious! I think this is made doubly amusing by the fact that I
| make jokes like the ones in his "Total Failure" category.
|
| > _A pedant was looking for his book for many days but could not
| find it. By chance as he was eating lettuce and turned a certain
| corner he saw the book lying there. Later meeting a friend who
| was lamenting the loss of his girdle, he said, "Do not worry but
| buy some lettuces and eat them at the corner, when you turn it
| and go a little ways you fill find it."_
|
| For instance, I was in a motorcycle accident recently, but also
| coincidentally got a great deal on a Peloton. Someone asked me
| how I got it for cheaper and I explained that it involved first
| learning to ride a motorcycle and then colliding with a car.
|
| Personally, I found the whole thing hilarious, but written down
| it sounds totally nonsensical, which makes it even funnier.
| fleddr wrote:
| A recent favorite, which you can use whenever something bad
| happens in the world:
|
| "My grandfather of 73 y/o didn't fight in WW1 and WW2 to let it
| come to this!"
|
| "What?? He wasn't even born in WW1, and a toddler in WW2!"
|
| "Like I said, he _didn 't_ fight".
| anyfoo wrote:
| > (I can't enjoy this kind of thing [The Office] --I feel only
| agony. Why enjoy this and not videos of people falling off of
| skateboards? But I guess most people are different.)
|
| This was only a tangent, but I agree with this. I really don't
| like "cringe" humor.
|
| There seems to be an entire British subgenre catering to that
| (which apparently the British original of The Office is a part
| of), and _only_ to that. It 's pretty extreme. As far as I know
| The Office in the US was retooled to be more "funny" than the
| original, which was apparently just cringe. (Didn't watch it so
| it was hard to say, but I've tried to watch other similar British
| shows like that.)
|
| Fortunately it's only a subgenre, because there's plenty of other
| British comedy that is absolutely, and famously, fantastic... If
| you haven't watched Coupling, Look Around You, or The Peter
| Serafinowicz show, you're really missing out!
| closewith wrote:
| The reason this kind of cringe-worthy humour becomes popular is
| that almost everyone identifies with one or more of characters.
| When they're young and/or insecure, it seems almost unbearable
| to watch, but they're not sure why. As they grow older, it
| becomes relatable as they become less self-conscious and more
| self-aware.
| Jenk wrote:
| At the time of The Office release here (UK) it was a perfect
| satire. Many of us (not just in my bubble but according to lots
| of popular media outlets) very much had a socially-desperate
| David Brent for a boss, try-hard Gareth and drifter Keith as
| peers and we very much associated with Tim and/or Dawn who felt
| trapped in a world surrounded by the above metaphorically
| spinning our wheels in the mud of (then) modern office life
| with no prospects or hope in life.
| anyfoo wrote:
| Obviously it appeals to a lot of people, it wouldn't be so
| successful otherwise, and I'm not here to bash people's
| taste. It's just that _for me personally_ I probably would
| not want to be reminded /wallowing in that in my
| entertainment if I was in the same situation, and as someone
| who not in that situation it just feels like looking at a
| train wreck. But I can totally understand how people feel
| differently and it allows them to relate and laugh about it.
| Jenk wrote:
| What I was trying to say is that I don't think it would
| have as much success as it did then, if it were released
| today. The number of "lifer" employees with no aspirations
| is vanishingly small compared to 20+ years ago.
| jmkd wrote:
| Nighty Night [0] is the peak of this wonderful (to me)
| subgenre. Top question on Google search "Is Nighty Night
| funny?"
|
| Couple of great quotes from the Wikipedia page [1] "The
| Guardian called it "an exquisitely vile comic creation" and
| adding that "The Office might have popularised the comedy of
| embarrassment, but Nighty Night has moved it on." The Times
| called it "a blistering wall of superbly unredeemed cruelty
| that manages to trample over every social convention in a pair
| of cheap stilettos."
|
| [0]https://www.google.com/search?q=%22nighty+night%22
| [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nighty_Night#Reception
| FabHK wrote:
| > British subgenre
|
| A British comedy series I can recommend wholeheartedly is _The
| IT Crowd_ (available on Netflix, at least in some countries).
|
| An exemplar of the subgenre "what on earth were they smoking?"
| is _The Mighty Boosh_.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_IT_Crowd
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mighty_Boosh_(TV_series)
| pwdisswordfish0 wrote:
| I'm surprised noone has brought up what I recall being told was
| the oldest known joke. Not sure about the specifics, but IIRC
| it's from a mesopotamian cuneiform tablet and goes something like
| "Name something that never happened -- A wife has never farted in
| her husband's lap". Supposedly a reference to the common
| knowledge at the time that everyone involved (or maybe just the
| wife) would vehemently deny it if it did happen, or perhaps
| awkwardly pretend it didn't happen, knowing well that everyone
| noticed and politely joins in the pretense.
|
| I don't like it when people act as if these were objectively bad
| jokes. Many jokes are very dependent on a specific cultural
| moment as well as carefully crafted wording. Lots of current
| jokes fall can flat if you slightly change the phrasing, even if
| they aren't word play. And then there's delivery, pacing, knowing
| your audience...
|
| Surely widespread literacy and technology allow modern people to
| develop comparably sophisticated tastes just by the sheer wealth
| of entertainment we consume, but people 5000 years ago were still
| people and I'm sure they found humour in similar places as we do.
|
| edit: here's a source: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-joke-
| odd-idUSKUA147851200... Again, I would take issue with the
| reduction to "toilet humour". Clearly the comedy of manners
| aspect plays the larger role, even if farts are somehow eternally
| funny.
| RajT88 wrote:
| I would suggest that humor itself evolves. That we enjoy
| flavors of humor which are novel and new and specific to our
| cultural moment.
|
| Internet humor is big on surreal non-sequiturs. I suspect that
| while it may have existed as a style of humor before the
| internet, that it may not have existed 3000 years ago as a
| style of humor.
| q7xvh97o2pDhNrh wrote:
| Phillip J. Fry, his hand outstretched, holding a stack of
| money.
| pwdisswordfish0 wrote:
| Great Star Trek reference, that's exactly what I mean
| pwdisswordfish0 wrote:
| I suppose that must be true in as much as technology and
| culture influence each other, but while the term "meme" is
| fairly new, the phenomenon is quite universal. Like, what's
| funny about Kilroy Was Here [0] or drawing that
| constructivist S-shape in elementary school [1]?
|
| Another thing to consider apart from cultural differences and
| translations is that a lot can go wrong betwen a hit joke
| being told and a scribe getting around to immortalising it.
| It's obviously a game of telephone. Comedy is a craft and
| written comedy is different from stage comedy. I can imagine
| a joke absolutely killing at the end of a stand-up set, but
| falling flat when told in isolation, because it was a call-
| back or otherwise profited from a primed audience. It's quite
| likely that someone might naively retell only the bit that
| got the laughs and only then realise their mistake. Or the
| shared experience of the audience might elevate a bit to an
| in-joke that is only funny to them because they know the
| rest. Decades later, only the devolved memes that obliquely
| reference this shared knowledge survive in writing and future
| generations are left wondering what was wrong with their
| ancestors' odd humour.
|
| Here's hoping future generations will be aware of Douglas
| Adams' work, but it seems entirely possible that in a
| thousand years, people will speculate why our we found towels
| or the number 42 so funny.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilroy_was_here [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cool_S
| endofreach wrote:
| Totally agree. Though I must say, i believe any joke today that
| gets printed on something, is almost certainly an objectively
| bad joke.
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