Who makes up jokes?

October 20, 2005 5:48 PM

Who makes up jokes?

Have you, or anyone you know, ever invented a joke that you know for sure spread and became a standard? How does this generally happen? Funny people make up a joke + friends + more friends = joke everyone knows?

posted by ORthey to writing & language (41 comments total)

My old friend Jack Conover invented some jokes, as well as some "joke forms." On such form is the "Mothra" joke, which I have repeated many names, in many variations. It goes something like:

So Mothra goes to the Empire State Building, and wants to go up to the observation deck to take in the view. He goes through the lobby towards the elevator, when the elevator operator stops him -- "I can't let you up to the observation deck, you're Mothra! You're a horrible monster who has killed thousands of people! Besides, you have a 100 foot wingspan, you'll never fit in this elevator!" To which Mothra replies "Aaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiirrrrrchchhchch!"

One more, so the formula becomes obvious. So, Mothra goes to the Store 24 (replace Wa-wa, 7-11, Plaid Pantry as regionally appropriate) to get some gum. He puts his gum on the counter along with a $50 bill, and the cashier says "I can't sell you this gum, you're Mothra! You're a horrible monster who has killed thousands of people! Besides, I can't make change of a 50!" So Mothra says "Aaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiirrrrrchchhchch!"

Have you heard it? If so, this is a reasonable valid answer to the question. If not, I'm just flapping my wings. Man, I miss Jack.
posted by TonyRobots at 6:13 PM on October 20, 2005

oops, "names" = "times"
posted by TonyRobots at 6:14 PM on October 20, 2005

I haven't heard it, but I like it.
posted by ORthey at 6:15 PM on October 20, 2005

I make up lightbulb jokes sometimes. They are easy:

"How many vegans does it take to screw in a lightbulb?"
"One to screw it in, and the other to read the ingredients."
OR
"Lightbulbs aren't vegan!"

I also made up some jokes about cats:

"Where does a cat go to learn about culture?"
"A mew-seum"

"What's the top-selling girlie magazine among cats?"
"PURRR-fect 10"

I admit, they're corny. But in my limited experience, I've found that puns are great for making up jokes. As is a standard format, i.e. the lightbulb joke. I figure you spread them around by telling them to lots of people and "selling" them by LOL'ing when you deliver the punch line.
posted by elisabeth r at 6:30 PM on October 20, 2005

I recall quite clearly the Father of the richest kid at the preppy boarding school I went to for high school (think one of those old, old New England families whose last name is the same as the Fortune 500 company that the grandfather founded) claimed to know the definitive answer to this question. It was his belief that all topical jokes (he gave the example of "NASA stands for 'Need Another Seven Astronauts" and Natalie Wood not floating jokes) originated in one of two places: (1) White Collar Prison Yards and (2) Trading Desks on Wall Street. At the time I was under the impression that he must know all the secrets of the universe owing to his privilidged position in the great American Capitalist Pantheon. Now I wonder if he liked hitting the sauce a little too much and wasn't a bit of a blowhard.
posted by wtfwjd? at 6:34 PM on October 20, 2005

After hearing a funny pirate joke, my family made up lots of other pirate jokes together. We enjoyed them.

The original joke:

"Did you hear about the pirate movie?"
"It was rated "Arrrrrr.""

A new, made up joke:

"What did the French pirate say as he departed?"
"Arrrr revoir."
posted by croutonsupafreak at 6:35 PM on October 20, 2005

I second the trading desk theory. Within minutes of a major news event, my co-workers who dealt with traders would inevitably be rattling off topical jokes (generally in poor taste.)
posted by Opposite George at 6:50 PM on October 20, 2005

Stop me if you've heard this one...

When I was younger, I too used to wonder where jokes come from. The Bible, I reckoned.

Then, 'round high-school age, I discovered that anyone can do this. All you have to do is have identified a central irony, or really lousy pun, then build a story around it. While I haven't invented a joke that made it round the world, I have made up jokes that have gotten re-told to me a little while later.

Nowadays, rather than build a narrative joke, I try to work them into conversations or situations, which seems to get more of a laugh because people aren't expecting a punchline.
posted by jimfl at 6:51 PM on October 20, 2005

Andy Breckman. On his and Ken's WFMU comedy show he said about Christo's gates: "If I had twenty million to spare I would have done exactly the same thing, but I think I would have used a slightly different color." At the gates I used this joke as if it were my own, to good effect. Later down the path we heard some yuppy steal the same joke. (With poor delivery I might add.)
posted by StickyCarpet at 6:53 PM on October 20, 2005

You mean he was telling exactly the same joke, but with a slightly different delivery?
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 7:12 PM on October 20, 2005

Isaac Asimov wrote a short story about this topic. In the story, jokes came from aliens. The aliens left when someone discovered them.
posted by malp at 7:33 PM on October 20, 2005

"What did the French pirate say as he departed?"
"Arrrr revoir."

I laughed.
posted by five fresh fish at 7:36 PM on October 20, 2005

Wall Street Traders

Truer than you might have guessed. The study of jokes is actually a subfield of folklore, part of verbal folklore. There have been many studies tracing the appearance of topical jokes soon after their precipitating event. In the 80s, the New Yorker did a great piece on the spread of Challenger jokes, which took only hours after the initial reports of the disaster. It took only hours. Their findings? That there were two joke 'hotspots', or regions of the country where jokes were spreading outward from. The first, a real joke incubator, was indeed downtown Manhattan. The other was in California - San Francisco area, if I remember rightly, but I might not. Sorry I can't find the article online.

Anyway, the points made were good ones. People in joke 'hot spots' are well educated and likely to be highly aware of news events shortly after they occur. They are also extremely well connected to many communications media (phone, net, palm device, inter-office systems, face-to-face, print media), and they check their communications systems by the minute. They're usually in cities, where their social networks are broad and they can act as arbiters, hearing a joke in one social group and bringing it to another (or sending it to all the far-flung friends in the address book).

So that takes care of why jokes seem to spread from cities, and why Wall Street in particular is well set up to be a joke hive. But it doesn't answer the question about who makes jokes up.

The closest thing I can give to an answer is to say that there really are no new jokes, in the purest sense. Jokes are built on memes, and changing details or sequence or names can update an old joke for a new audience. Jokes are typically built around serious issues -- sex, death, incompetence, powerlessness, illness, transgression. Even when people pun, or make up light-bulb or 'blonde' jokes, they're simply updating a trope and applying it to a new situation.

I wouln't say that there are no jokes that spring whole from a creator's pen -- there certainly are. But they soon get adopted by the folk process and turn into apparently authorless jokes. Either that, or they're not very good and are soon forgotten. Remember that jokes are structured verbal performances that contain narrative and play on surprise -- so by 'joke' we're talking about something specific, not just a funny character, impression, or tagline.
posted by Miko at 7:40 PM on October 20, 2005 [1 favorite]

Interesting piece on 9/11 disaster jokes (great works cited on similar topic, too); Scholarship on black humor; book by a prominent scholar of jokes.

As an aside, only this week did I learn how the phrase "Gallows humor" came to be. Turns out there's a joke -- a murderer is condemned to be hanged in the public square before a vengeful crowd of thousands. As he climbs the rickety wooden steps, the platform shudders. Nervously he asks "Is this thing safe?"
posted by Miko at 7:51 PM on October 20, 2005

I went to the grand opening of the Model Cafe in New Orleans, back in 1994 (girl I was dating at the time did some legal work for them). The Model Cafe was like Planet Hollywood, but for supermodels. Ridiculous.

As the supermodels were walking in, we stepped into their entourage and followed them into the VIP room. So, we drank all night in this VIP room, it was wild. The Mayor was there, several supermodels were there, half the cast of 90210, and half the cast of Mad TV. We mocked the people who couldn't get in to our "special" room.

Anyway, long night. At one point, I'm standing at the buffet and this guy keeps shoving me, you know, fighting for shrimp and caviar. I look over, and it's David Copperfield, who is (or was) married to one of the supermodels. He's also a famous magician.

So, I go back over to my girlfriend, and she's talking to one of the 90210 people and I say, "Hey, did you see that David Copperfield is doing magic over there? He's making the buffet disappear." We all got a good laugh. Party continues.

By the end of the night, there's like...five people left in the room. It's 4am, and I am more than fucked up. We're enjoying the last of the spoils of the evening (and filling my girlfriend's bag with half empty bottles of Stoli) and the fat guy from Mad TV comes up and says, "Hey, did you all see that David Copperfield was doing magic tonight? He was making the buffet disappear."

It was one of the proudest moments of my young life.

Also, I accidentally felt up Elle Macpherson and saw Naomi Campbell's cooter that night.
posted by ColdChef at 7:53 PM on October 20, 2005 [1 favorite]

There's a classic sci-fi short story that asks this very question (I haven't read it for a while, but this is an OK paraphrasing, I think):

[spoiler alert]











Some univac technicians have some downtime, so they decide to ask the (giant, world-running) computer where jokes come from.

The computer thinks on it, and determines that that since humor isn't strictly required, from an evolutionary standpoint, it must have been inserted into society by an outside source (IE, aliens).

They then ask the computer why the aliens would do this, and it thinks on it, and replies it must be an experiment of some sort.

The guys then realize that humans are just lab subjects, and since the knowledge of the test makes the subjects useless, all humor immediately disappears.
posted by o2b at 7:58 PM on October 20, 2005 [1 favorite]

Also, I heard my first Hurricane Katrina joke two hours after the hurricane passed. A friend who was trapped in New Orleans told me:

"Have you heard that Disney is filming a new underwater movie down in New Orleans? It's called 'Finding Negro.'"

The person who told me the joke is not black, but he's far from a racist. It was funny to me because it was shocking that it came out so fast.

The second Katrina joke I heard was:

"What does President Bush think about Roe vs. Wade? He doesn't care how people get out of New Orleans."

I think I heard that one on MetaFilter, but I may be wrong.
posted by ColdChef at 8:00 PM on October 20, 2005

My Dad used to write jokes for the equivalent of the Letterman Shows years ago. He got paid per joke and they got used all the time.
posted by fshgrl at 8:38 PM on October 20, 2005

It seems that the natural extension of Miko's explanation would be sites like Metafilter.

So... Rumsfeld is briefing the President one morning, letting him know some things about Iraq from the previous day, "Well, there were four roadside bomb attacks within 15 miles of the green zone, Al Jareeza is broadcasting a new message from a local militant, and five Brazilian soldiers were killed in a suicide bomb attack."

To which, Bush asks, "That's bad. How many is a brazilian?"
posted by odinsdream at 9:10 PM on October 20, 2005

Jokes come from people with creativity.
posted by delmoi at 9:10 PM on October 20, 2005

At school one day, Mrs. Brown was talking about how the Jews were persecuted in the Second World War. Suddenly, Jimmy burst into tears.

"What's wrong Jimmy?" Asked the teacher.

"My great grandad died in a concentration camp." Jimmy replied.

"Oh dear! I am sorry to hear that."

"Yeah. Fell out of a guard tower. Broke his neck."
posted by Dean Keaton at 9:59 PM on October 20, 2005

Yo Mama!

I'm seconding prisoners.
Also, borderline schizophrenics.
And computers.
And productive alcoholics/drug addicts.
Creative ones.

God is also pretty good at it.
posted by hellbient at 10:31 PM on October 20, 2005

02b,

I'm pretty sure that's an Asimov tale, can't recall the name at the moment though.
posted by borkencode at 2:08 AM on October 21, 2005

I made one up years ago, which a stranger told me in a bar a month later. It's one of those jokes that demands you spoonerise the punchline:

What's the difference between a highly-rated chinese chef, and a horny lighthouse keeper?

Well, one ranks on his wok ...
posted by Pericles at 3:52 AM on October 21, 2005

o2b: "There's a classic sci-fi short story that asks this very question"

borkencode: "I'm pretty sure that's an Asimov tale, can't recall the name at the moment though."

Yes, it's The Jokester by Isaac Asimov. And it was Multivac, a fictional computer, not Univac, a real one.
posted by Plutor at 5:13 AM on October 21, 2005 [1 favorite]

i made this one up.

what do you call a shipment of mexican pickles?
a case-of-dill-as (a quesadillas)

bad, i know.
posted by lotsofno at 5:18 AM on October 21, 2005

I got asked by a bloke where jokes come from. I told him they come from the Isle Of Wight. He believed me. Every time I think about that I have to physically restrain the laughter erupting from me.
posted by Jofus at 5:19 AM on October 21, 2005

Whats the difference between a chicken and a grape?

They're both purple, except for the chicken.
posted by cyphill at 5:57 AM on October 21, 2005

Another great source is newsrooms. Within hours of any event, you can expect the copy editors and designers to already be riffing on it. Usually while drunk, though they discourage that in modern newsrooms.
posted by klangklangston at 6:20 AM on October 21, 2005

Yes -- I worked in a newsroom in the Bay Area during the OJ thing, and the jokes were immediate, tasteless, and really funny.
posted by youarejustalittleant at 6:45 AM on October 21, 2005

Dean Keaton, that joke appears in the Stephen Fry novel The Liar.
I mention it since the question is about the origins of jokes as opposed to, say, telling jokes.
posted by George_Spiggott at 6:48 AM on October 21, 2005

A friend of mine in high school (who's quite famous now) always used to commit to memory any jokes and wisecracks I came up with and use them in other social settings to enhance his own (fairly deserved) reputation for wit. I'm usually good about attribution so he knew not to trot them out as original if I admitted I hadn't made them up. On a couple of occasions I neglected to do this and it was hilarious when he would find an excuse to corner me later to give me this betrayed-sounding "that wasn't original" complaint after he'd tried to pass it off as his own.
posted by George_Spiggott at 6:52 AM on October 21, 2005

Within minutes of a major news event, my co-workers who dealt with traders would inevitably be rattling off topical jokes (generally in poor taste.)

Another great source is newsrooms.

Indeed. Jokes pour out of newsrooms/media environments, probably for the same reasons that they pour out of Wall Street.
posted by Vidiot at 8:43 AM on October 21, 2005

To which, Bush asks, "That's bad. How many is a brazilian?"

That's the funniest joke I've seen on metafilter. Thanks.
posted by callmejay at 8:51 AM on October 21, 2005

I've made up a series of "Deja Vu" jokes that I've heard repeated before.

For example:

I've tasted this mustard before: Dijon Vu.
I've seen that cow before: Deja Moo

You can figure out the rest: it's easy for "series" jokes like this, just run through the alphabet. Deja Boo (ghost), Deja Coup (revolution), Deja Do (hairstyle), Deja Foo (Mr. T impersonator), Deja Goo (I'm not going there)

You get the point.
posted by Merdryn at 9:19 AM on October 21, 2005

cyphill, for some reason, that joke made me laugh out loud. Thanks.
posted by ORthey at 9:46 AM on October 21, 2005

My SO and I spent days trying to out-do each other with Yao Ming jokes...

Did you hear about Yao's homeless cousin - Slum Ming?

And on and on... I can't even remember the good ones now.
posted by clh at 10:47 AM on October 21, 2005

Who makes up jokes?

I'm going to go with the obvious: comedians. Emo Phillips just had an editorial in the Guardian discussing how a joke of his took on a life of its own and lost attribution:

This morning I received thrilling news: a joke I wrote more than 20 years ago has been voted the funniest religious joke of all time! . . . Two things, however, have slightly tarnished my thrill.

First, the website that conducted the poll, Ship of Fools, did not attribute me as the author. Arghhhhh! Sure, it has been quite a while since I performed it. And true, I'm not on TV all the time like some comedians I could name if I watched TV all the time. But come on, guys! The slightest Google search! But back in the day ... ah, my friends! That joke and I astounded the world! Everywhere I played, in the largest of British theatres, the audiences clamoured for it! I told it not once but twice on British television. A few years ago it was voted by my peers as one of the top 75 jokes of all time. It has been anthologized in several joke books, most recently in Italian; the translator gave me a copy a few weeks ago after one of my shows. He pointed the joke out, without telling me which it was ... but I immediately recognised my old friend by the word "ponte".

I would say in this age of mass media, that many, many jokes flow from television, movies, music, plays, books, comics, magazines, stand-up acts: Steven Wright, Jack Handey, Calvin & Hobbes, The Far Side, MST3k, SNL, Chris Rock, The Simpsons, Conan O'Brien, the Farrelly brothers, Monty Python, etc., etc, etc, ad infinitum.

In other words a large percentage come from comedy writers, artists, entertainers - precisely those people who invent jokes for a living.
posted by dgaicun at 11:19 AM on October 21, 2005

Naked blonde walks into a bar with a poodle under one arm, and a two-foot salami under the other. The bartender says, I guess you won't be needing a drink. Naked lady says
[post truncated]
posted by Smedleyman at 5:16 PM on October 21, 2005

Just think of common phrases, think of words that sounds similar to keywords in the phrase, and build an oddball story around it. For instance, one of mine:

My sister thinks everyone in my family is a former infamous leader working for the newsmedia. My dad is supposedly Hitler, writing for the Chronicle. My mom is Mussolini, reporting for the Post. Me? I'm Stalin, for Time.

or,

Why did everyone bring pillows to the Sunday service? They heard it was on El Shaddai (Shut-eye).

I once recall reading a short story written by Isaac Asimov that had this extensive buildup just for one lousy familiar-phrase pun at the end. He had an alien society, some weird events, and concluded with something along the lines of, "The weaky squeal bets the goil." This story got me started on this type of joke-making.
posted by vanoakenfold at 1:32 AM on October 22, 2005

The only joke that I'm sure I made up all by myself is: What does JFK Jr have in common with a trombonist? Neither knows how to control pitch with his instruments.
posted by Eothele at 3:33 PM on October 24, 2005