I wrote these jokes to make a point.
Version 1
—Knock knock.
—Who’s there?
—Death.
—Death who?
—Ultimately, it makes little difference in what form death arrives or by what name we call it. We all go one way or another and while there may be more dignity in some manners of demise, more time to prepare, or less suffering, the ultimate destination couldn’t be more similar: gone and gone and gone forever.
Version 2
—Knock knock.
—Who’s there?
—Death.
—Death who?
—Does it really matter?
For me, they’re both funny (for you, maybe neither), but for different reasons. Version 2 is funny because it’s quick to point out a universal absurdity. Version 1 is funny because it gets the tone of a knock-knock joke so spectacularly wrong. In Version 2 we laugh at ourselves for caring what kind of death is knocking. In Version 1 we laugh at the form the joke takes. I think that makes Version 1 a meta-joke, a joke about jokiness.
But that wasn’t my point.
My point was there is usually a way to say what you mean that is perfectly appropriate to your intentions, sometimes more than one, but always many, many, many, many, many ways to get the tone all wrong and spoil the effect you were going for, usually by falling for ready-made language or by overwriting what could be written simply.
My point is that when the chicken crosses the road to get to the other side we laugh at the well-made joke. We laugh at how badly the joke gets it wrong when the chicken crosses the road to find itself in sudden and much-valued possession of some other-sidedness.
Which sort of jokes are you writing?
Which sort of jokes are these?:
—How many licensed electricians does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
—Just one.
—How can you tell the difference between an oral thermometer and a rectal thermometer?
—The taste.
Exercise for the Leave a Reply fields below:
Write a joke that gets the tone so wrong that it either dies on the spot or is funny precisely because it upends our expectations.
alwaystired247
AnonymousStudent
azntaco
beforeverge
BigBabyBaller
bitagaming
breakingbad1820
Caravan
cinderella1013
davidbdale
Yankeelover18
fatboy489zt
giantsfan224
glacierfreeze21
gobirds17
green0728
gymrat230
Gir
jerseymikes1106
jesusisking1738
jetsfan806
Kenneth Alex Krug
manipulator66
mercythyhealer14
McCormick Karner
mochaatrain
oni
powerranger
peanut2348
pinkcottoncandy4
princess01430
redbird1123
rubes1256
shxrkbait
sillyinternetperson
soulpond47240
spatel8267
stingingcrib5
tacotyphoon
thepersonindisguise
usmnt23
worldofjuice999
xephos1
Counterintuitive Fall 2022 
—What happened when Tony fell out of the tree?
—He broke his arm.
FOOATL
Falling out of a tree laughing.
If you were a booger I’d pick you first
-Knock Knock
-Who’s there?
-Me lol
/Users/lavalleea0/Desktop/Photo on 1-30-14 at 3.48 PM.jpg
there was supposed to be a picture of me but I guess it didn’t work. My joke bombed. I’m so ashamed.
Sadly you cannot upload images into comments, Alex. You can certainly do links in posts, and I believe you can paste images also. I may be able to do so with my magical Administrator powers.
If I can paste the url for your gravatar into a comment, yours will appear above this text.
And if that works, here’s the code behind that image, where you would actually use the less than and greater than symbols, not the language or the brackets.
[less than symbol]img src=”http://2.gravatar.com/avatar/373b783f8ce5b42d689822cd99e36e7f” alt=”” /[greater than]
I got the gravatar in without typing code by opening my comment in Edit and using the img button to paste the url I had saved when viewing your gravatar, but I’m not sure Authors can open their comments in Edit.
– What is red and smells like blue paint?
– Red Paint.
-What’s a pirate’s favorite letter?
-The Sea
Why did Amy fall out of the tree?
Because she had no arms.
Knock knock.
Who’s there?
Not Amy.
hahahaha
Wicked, Josue. Extremely funny.