1.             Q. “What’s funnier than a dead baby?”

A. “A dead baby in a clown suit”

2.             Q. “What’s the difference between a Corvette and a pile of dead babies?”

A. “I don’t have a Corvette in my garage”

Jonathan doesn’t remember from whom he learned his Dead Baby jokes, but he believes he was in about 8^th grade, in New Jersey, when he first heard the joke genre.  Jonathan says the context in which one might tell a Dead Baby joke is whenever anyone else brings up a dead baby joke, to add to the laughter. When I asked Jonathan what he thinks about the Dead Baby joke genre of folklore, he shrugged, and said, “Well, I picked out the funny ones. I liked ‘em. The ones I liked stuck in my head.”

I, however, do not think these jokes are funny, and believe them to be in horrible taste. As a woman, perhaps I’m pre-wired to blanch at anything referring to a dead baby, even a “joke” about one. Perhaps men (who tend to be the bearer of these jokes) don’t carry that same emotional tie to infants, and therefore can recite these jokes with ease and humorousness.