Tag Archives: funny

Mexican riddle

--Informant Info--
Nationality: Mexican
Age: 50
Occupation: Housewife
Residence: Los Angeles
Date of Performance/Collection: 04/28/2020
Primary Language: Spanish
Other Language(s):

Main piece: 

The following was transcribed from a riddle between the informant and interviewer. 

Informant: De qué color es el caballo blanco de Napoleon? 

Interviewer: el color? Uhhh haber… 

Informant: Hay de veras? Esta no la tienes que pensar! Ya ni laces!

Interviewer: Ahh blanco verdad? 

Informant: Pues si. De qué otro color podría ser un caballo blanco?

Full Translation: 

Informant: What color is Napoleon’s white horse? 

Interviewer: The color? Uhhh let me think…

Informant: Really? You don’t have to think about this one! Cmon…

Interviewer: Ahh white… right? 

Informant: Well yes. What other color can a white horse be? 

Background: My informant was my mom. She was born in Mexico City. According to her, this is a joke that appeared on tests as a “free point” but most people would get it wrong because since it was a test, they’d overthink and write a different color. She uses it to mess around with people. 

Context: I was helping her with dishes and asked her if she knew of any jokes or riddles from when she was a kid. She immediately referred to this one. She made fun of me for not getting it right away. 

Thoughts: This one is to make a quick joke on the textbook overthinkers, including myself. I also panicked a little because I felt like I knew the answer but hesitated to say “white”. I can see why students would miss this free point. They probably thought to themselves it was too easy to be true. Overall I liked the joke because the answer is right there in the question, literally but still missable.

English riddle

--Informant Info--
Nationality: American
Age: 17
Occupation: School
Residence: Los Angeles
Date of Performance/Collection: 04/29/2020
Primary Language: English
Other Language(s):

Main piece: 

The following is transcribed from a riddle the informant gave the interviewer. 

Informant: A pine tree grows 10 pineapples. 

Interviewer: Ok. 

Informant: Two of the pineapples out of the 10 fall. How many pineapples are left on the tree?

Interviewer: On the tree? Or are there? 

Informant: Are there on the tree. 

Interviewer: I would say ten minus two so 8 left. But it’s probably wrong. 

Informant: Correct! You’re wrong. There are 0 pineapples on the pine tree.

Interviewer: How come? What do you mean? 

Informant: Because pine trees do not grow pineapples. 

Background: My sister was born in LA and she goes to school in Downey. She first heard this riddle about a year ago. She usually says when there’s “usually nothing to talk about”. She remembers it because “it was pretty good and easy to follow”. 

Context: After giving me a myth, I asked if she knew of any jokes or riddles. She responded with “yes I know this one” and continued with the above riddle. This was taken from my room. Casual. 

Thoughts: I fooled myself. I consider myself a numbers person so when I heard 10 and 2 I just did basic subtraction but I didn’t pay attention to the pine tree and pineapple detail. In a way, I guess it shows I’m not a good listener. All in all, it was a short and concise riddle that served its purpose. It made me say “oooh yeah” after getting the joke. I tried to fool my dad later on but he said 0 so he actually listens. This can be a listening test now that I think about it. A good listener would say 0 and a poor listener would say 8 just like I did. 

A Plane Crash Riddle

--Informant Info--
Nationality: American
Age: 11
Occupation: N/A
Residence: Camarillo, California
Date of Performance/Collection: 03/24/19
Primary Language: English
Other Language(s):

Main Text:

JM: “There was a plane crash. Every single person died, who survived? The answer would be every married couple because every single person died.”

Context: 

This riddle was collected from my 11 year old sister who is currently in fifth grade and about to go to middle school. When I asked her where or when she would tell a riddle/joke like this, she told me that she would usually tell it to her friends on the playground at recess. I also asked her if it was every common for her to tell jokes or riddles in the classroom and she responded that she usually does not because then the teacher would get mad because it is teaching time and not play time.

Analysis:

One reason that children are passing along a riddle with such content can be explained by analyzing the environment that children are faced with at school. In elementary school all the way up to high school, many young kids and young adults are preoccupied with finding a boyfriend or girlfriend and all of the adolescent urges that are associated with this. The riddle plays off of the idea of there being a difference people single people and married people and for this to be a topic of discussion amongst young people is not really surprising. As said in chapter 5 of the book Folk Groups and Folklore Genres An Introduction, Jay Mechling says that people, especially children make jokes or base their folklore off of things that it has been taboo for them to talk about. Kids around 11 years of age are entering puberty and exploring new things about their body that come with puberty. In other words, one reason that this riddle is being passed around by 11 year olds and other kids in elementary school is that it takes about relationship status which kids themselves find as a constant preoccupation at school which is treated as taboo by most parents. It is also important to note that this riddle was collected from an 11 year old fifth grader who understand that this riddle is an example of a play-on-words and this kind of riddle would probably not be passed around by younger children due to its complexity.

Another main part of this riddle that can be analyzed is its focus on dark humor. Although the answer to the riddle has more to do with the play-on-words than on the subject of the plan crash itself, it is important to analyze why a plane crash would be the plot in the riddle in the first place. According to Peter Narvaez, the author of Of Corpse: Death and Humor in Folklore and Popular Culture, many jokes and riddles are made to be dark humor. This means that the plot of the jokes and riddles are centered around many dark aspects of life like genocides, death, rape etc as a means to act as a release to those telling the jokes. People have been made to believe that they can not talk about dark experiences or occurrences, so as sort of a way to fight this oppression of speech per se, these jokes are created.

Coupled together, these analyses produce the idea that this joke was created and told among children as a way as addressing the topics that children have been made to believe that they are unable to talk about as well as a release of people’s beliefs on some things that are considered ‘dark’ in the form of humor. These forbidden topics hidden in the form of a joke/riddle allow this riddle and people to continue addressing these oppressed needs without repercussion from adults or other individuals, allowing the riddle to survive and continued to be told hopefully for years to come.

High School Senior Streaking Prank

--Informant Info--
Nationality: American
Age: college age
Occupation: student
Residence: Los Angeles
Date of Performance/Collection:
Primary Language: English
Other Language(s):

IG: Ha, every year in high school in the spring the seniors would go to someone’s house who lived next to the high school and take off all their clothes and then we would run through the high school campus and it was really funny because everybody would leave class to watch us and then everybody would get their grade docked because all the teacher were hella against it and then every year the principal would stand there with just his like arms crossed but also like shading his eyes because it was so weird to look at your students naked but it was so funny because we would wear masks, obviously, so it would be kind of anonymous but then one year (laughs) my best friend fell (laughs) and she was bleeding and then somebody- like her mask like sorta fell off and then somebody in the crowd ripped it off so she had to (laughs) she had to run naked and bleeding and her face was out through like- we have a huge campus because it was a really big public school and it was really funny and then once we got to the end of the route of the run the gates were all locked so we all had to climb over a fence which was so painful because your bare legs are out and everything, but it was so fun and it happens every year so you just have to do it even if you don’t really want to-

VG: Oh my god!

IG: Yeah

VG: Where- Where- Where did you go to high school?

IG: ****** High School.

VG: Is that in ****, ****?

IG: Yeah, it has like 4,000 students.

A: Yeah, sorry, that sounds a lot like ****.

IG: Yeah, totally.

VG: That’s so funny though.

IG: It was rite of passage for sure.

VG: Yeah.

IG: Yeah, but also like so inappropriate. We wer-We were on the streets of Berkeley naked cause we had to get from the house to the school.

VG: So, it’s illegal.

(A laughs)

IG: Yeah, exactly. I know! And people were drinking and…I mean you had to get up some nerve- probably a lot of people, so…it was like extra illegal and then you would have friends who would be the getaway cars, waiting for you, which was so hard to ma- like manage because not everyone can fit. And then one year, it was so chaotic that somebody- my neighbor like crashed into another car- not like badly, but he just like skimmed the side, and everybody’s already trying to get you in trouble that day, so then just to do that next to the school was so bad- but then it was ok because the school was pretty lenient because everybody got in trouble all the time…so yeah. It was great.

 

Background:

Location of story – Northern California  

Location of Performance – Classroom, Los Angeles, CA, late morning

 

Context: This performance was done in a group of 3-4 people after a class in response to a question about potential high school traditions, festivals, jokes, or riddles. IG was unsure at first and then was enthusiastic about sharing once she remembered this story. Hers followed one joke made. IG and I are classmates. I censored the high school name for privacy reasons. 

 

Analysis: There are many obvious and severe breeches of normal social decorum as well as the law in the continuation of this tradition. The fact that it still exists demonstrates how integral this performance is to the school and surrounding community’s identity; if they did not see that it was worth the benefits, they would most likely be able to stop with with increased police force or harsher punishments. I think this performance is particularly interesting because it demonstrates that just because some rituals and traditions may be illegal, they are often so engrained into the identity of the community that it is difficult to stop the practice and nearly impossible to remove the memories from the community’s mind if it continues. I myself have participated in senior pranks, but this was still shocking to me. Additionally, I thought it was funny that other student knew the exact location of where this prank took place. Evidently, this prank was not just fitting to the identity of the high school community but to the identity of the town as well. In fact, the other student was not even from the town and was able to identity its attitude and myth. 

 

Modifying Fortune Cookie Fortunes

--Informant Info--
Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Date of Performance/Collection: Spring 2019
Primary Language: English
Other Language(s):

Piece:
J is the interviewer.
K is the interviewed party.

K: “I would like to preface this with the fact that none of these are legitimate rules, I don’t think, as far as they go, and they’re just what I’ve always done. So whenever you go to a restaurant and they give you fortune cookies, right at the beginning, I’ve always heard that it’s bad luck or something to grab one — anyone but the one that’s closest to you. You have to grab the closest one otherwise its either bad luck or your fortune won’t come true or something like that. But then something that my mom would always do, believe it or not, is that whatever you read, whenever you say — it has to — you just add the words, when you read it out loud to other people, you read it and you say your fortune and then you add the words, as uncouth as they are, ‘in bed with a midget.’ So people will read their fortune, and it’ll say, ‘good luck will come to you’ or, ‘good favor’ or ‘you’ll discover something about yourself’ and then you say in bed with a midget at the end.”

Analysis:

Even though they come at the end of Chinese food meals, fortune cookies are actually a known American invention, so they exist as an example of one culture adding to another and being adopted by the new culture. If I ever go to a Chinese restaurant, I feel somewhat cheated if I don’t get a fortune cookie at the end of the meal, knowing full well that fortune cookies have no legitimate claim to Chinese heritage.

Fortune cookies exist for many people as a lighthearted form of the spirituality of another culture. The jovial nature of their existence is a perfect way to incorporate personal traditions of making the experience even funnier. At many of the dinners where fortune cookies are served, I have experienced a similar tradition of reading the fortunes and deciding who had the best one or putting personal spins on the fortunes to make them even better.

Context:

The interviewed party is a 21-year-old, male southern-California native. He lived his whole life in Irvine, California until he moved to Los Angeles to study at the University of Southern California. This interview was conducted in person at the interviewer’s house. The audio of the conversation was recorded in order to ensure accuracy when writing the spoken words.

TMB Band Name: Cumquat

--Informant Info--
Nationality: German, American
Age: 18
Occupation: USC Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Date of Performance/Collection: 4/24/18
Primary Language: English
Other Language(s):

While interviewing my informant, Audrey, I decided to document her Band Name. She got her Band Name from the upperclassmen of her section in the Trojan Marching Band (TMB). Audrey is a member of the Mellophone section. I asked her to perform her band name to me as if she were asked to “introduce herself” by another member of the band:

 

Killian, who was sitting near Audrey during the interview, chimed in to start her off just as he would when asking another band member to introduce themself: “Who are you!?”

 

Audrey: “Once upon a time my name is Cumquat.”

 

Killian: “Why?”

 

Audrey “Because I Cum Quat-ly.”

 

My informant would usually perform this Band Name/Joke ritual in a social setting with other members of the TMB. Sometimes she is asked by alumni of the band who are interested in hearing the new Band Names their section has come up with. Members of the band also frequently ask each other because they are often humorous or come with humorous jokes attached. It is also used to test the band Freshmen to see if their jokes are up to par with the standard set by current band members.

 

According to my informant, everyone in the band has a Band Name that they have been dubbed by their older section members. The Band Names are different in each section. Some sections give their members short names that function as traditional nicknames (example: “Egg”). My informant was mostly able to give me knowledge of how the Mellophone section names its members.

 

My informant’s section gave her a strange because they have to figure out how it applies to them/ what the other section members know about them. My informant is not entirely sure why she is dubbed ‘Cumquat.’ She knows that it’s a reference to the movie xXx: Return of Xander Cage. Other than that, she is unsure why the older section members decided to call her that.

 

Analysis

I have seen my informant introduce herself on many occasions with a few different Name Jokes. The particular joke she gave me is about average compared to the usual raunchy, outrageous jokes the section normally uses, although it requires a little more thought to understand. I think this is a good representation of how Mellophone Name Jokes usually are. I personally enjoy this social band tradition. Everyone has a name, so it’s fun to get to know all the members of the band just to hear them. The tradition of Band Names also further unties the band as one entity.

 

Dark and Stormy Night Story

--Informant Info--
Nationality: German, American
Age: 18
Occupation: USC Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Date of Performance/Collection: 4/24/18
Primary Language: English
Other Language(s):

I interviewed Audrey when I met her in Everybody’s Kitchen, a USC dining hall. I asked if she had any folklore she wanted to share. She asked me if she could share a joke that she learned from her brother in elementary school. I allowed her to perform it for me, and then I wrote it out:

 

It was a dark and stormy night. The winds were rough. A man and his son sat on a boat in the sea. The man clings to the side of the boat, grabbing his son’s hand as the boat was tossed around in the water. The man says to his son, “We’re not going to make it, son.” The son says “Oh no.”

So the man says to his son, “Let me tell you a story before we die… It was a dark and stormy night. The winds were rough, and a man and his son sat on a boat in the sea. The man clings to the side of the boat, grabbing his son’s hand as the boat was tossed around in the water. The man says to his son, “We’re not going to make it, son.” The son says, “Oh no.”

So the man says to his son, “Let me tell you a story before we die… It was a dark and stormy night. The winds were rough, and a man and his son sat on a boat in the sea. The man clings to the side of the boat, grabbing his son’s hand as the boat was tossed around in the water. The man says to his son, “We’re not going to make it, son.” The son says, “Oh no.”

So the man says to his son, “Let me tell you a story before we die…”

 

I then asked my informant for more context of how she learned the joke and when she would tell it. She told me: “My brother was just messing with me. He waa like, ‘you wanna hear a story?’ And I was like, ‘okay.’ And we kept telling it even though we had all heard it. It just never stopped being annoyingly funny.”

 

Analysis

While I have never heard this particular shaggy dog story, I have heard many like it. I am a huge fan of shaggy dog stories because they easily annoy people. Actually, a couple friends had joined us at the table while I was collecting this piece, and one of them angrily left the table when he realized there was never going to be a punchline. It was also good collecting this particular piece with people around because we all got to communally enjoy the joke and laugh at it together.

 

TMB Band Name: Sexing a Bush

--Informant Info--
Nationality: Irish, American
Age: 19
Occupation: USC Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Date of Performance/Collection: 4/19/18
Primary Language: English
Other Language(s):

While interviewing my informant, Killian, I decided to document his Band Name. He got his Band Name from the upperclassmen of his section in the Trojan Marching Band (TMB). Killian is a member, and section leader, of the Mellophone section. I asked him to perform his band name to me as if he were asked to “introduce himself” by another member of the band:

 

“Someone would say ‘who are you?’

And then I say, ‘Once upon a time, my name is Sexing a Bush’

Someone would say, ‘why?’

‘Because my dead dad didn’t like to shave down there.’”

 

My informant added after the performance that he doesn’t like to use the same joke twice, and that that’s important for me to note in my documentation.

 

My informant would usually perform this Band Name/Joke ritual in a social setting with other members of the TMB. Sometimes he is asked by alumni of the band who are interested in hearing the new Band Names their section has come up with. Members of the band also frequently ask each other because they are often humorous or come with humorous jokes attached. It is also used to test the band Freshmen to see if their jokes are up to par with the standard set by current band members.

 

According to my informant, everyone in the band has a Band Name that they have been dubbed by their older section members. The Band Names are different in each section. Some sections give their members short names that function as traditional nicknames (example: “Egg”). My informant was mostly able to give me knowledge of how the Mellophone section names its members.

 

My informant’s section gave him a strange name because they have to figure out how it applies to them/ what the other section members know about them. My informant informed me that he is dubbed ‘Sexing a Bush’ because it’s a reference to a song from the popular show Crazy Ex Girlfriend. The other members of the section believed that the lyrics of the song fit his personality.

 

Analysis

I have seen my informant introduce himself on many occasions with a few different Name Jokes. The particular joke he gave me is very extreme and inappropriate (I debated even including it in the archive). The section normally uses raunchy, outrageous jokes, but I consider this joke a little too outrageous. I personally enjoy this social band tradition. Everyone has a name, so it’s fun to get to know all the members of the band just to hear them. The tradition of Band Names also further unties the band as one entity.

 

TMB Band Name: Venti Four Logo

--Informant Info--
Nationality: Japanese, Mexican, American
Age: 23
Occupation: USC Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Date of Performance/Collection: 4/19/18
Primary Language: English
Other Language(s):

While interviewing my informant, Peter, I decided to document his Band Name. He got his Band Name from the upperclassmen of his section in the Trojan Marching Band (TMB). Peter is a member of the Mellophone section. I asked him to perform his band name to me as if he were asked to “introduce himself” by another member of the band:

 

“Once upon a time my name is Venti Four Logo.

Someone then asks me ‘why?…’

Because I’m a Marshal Snake.”

 

My informant would usually perform this Band Name/Joke ritual in a social setting with other members of the TMB. Sometimes he is asked by alumni of the band who are interested in hearing the new Band Names their section has come up with. Members of the band also frequently ask each other because they are often humorous or come with humorous jokes attached. It is also used to test the band Freshmen to see if their jokes are up to par with the standard set by current band members.

 

According to my informant, everyone in the band has a Band Name that they have been dubbed by their older section members. The Band Names are different in each section. Some sections give their members short names that function as traditional nicknames (example: “Egg”). My informant was mostly able to give me knowledge of how the Mellophone section names its members.

 

My informant’s section gave him a long, complicated name because they have to figure out how it applies to them/ what the other section members know about them. My informant is dubbed ‘Venti Four Logo’ because of a few reasons: 1. He’s tall, hence the ‘Venti’ part. 2. He has a history of getting coffee at Starbucks, hence the ‘Venti’ part. 3. He’s obsessed with Apple, hence the ‘Logo’ part. He does not yet know how the ‘Four’ part fits into his name, although he recognizes that “Four Logo” is a play on the drink “Four Loko.”

 

Analysis

I have seen my informant introduce himself on many occasions with a few different Name Jokes. The particular joke he gave me is a little tame compared to the usual raunchy, outrageous jokes the section normally uses. I personally enjoy this social band tradition. Everyone has a name, so it’s fun to get to know all the members of the band just to hear them. The tradition of Band Names also further unties the band as one entity.

 

Anti-Joke

--Informant Info--
Nationality: American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence:
Date of Performance/Collection:
Primary Language: English
Other Language(s):

Main Piece: Anti-Joke

 

My brother told me this joke:

 

Brother: “Ask me if I’m a tree.”

 

Me: “Are you a tree?”

 

Brother: “No.”

 

Background:

 

This is my brother’s go to joke and has been for a while, and he finds it funnier than the person who he tells it to. He was told this by a teammate in high school who is around the same age as him, and tells me it is called an “anti-joke.” This was a big thing for a while, when people would begin to tell a joke and the listener would expect a funny punchline, but there really is no comical aspect to the joke. Here is another example of a joke like this:

What is green and has wheels?

Grass, I lied about the wheels.

 

My brother loves this joke because it is generally not seen as funny, but the fact of how stupid it is and how the listener is trying to think of what the punchline is leaves them dumbfounded by how simple it is and how there really is no point to the joke. Some people may think of how stupid the teller is, but once the joke sets in the listener tends to find it pretty comical.

 

Context:

 

This joke doesn’t necessarily have a subject, but is more so something you tell people at a random time when they’re unhappy or need to get their mind off something, because you are so caught off guard by the joke not having a punchline and having no real point.

That being said, there really isn’t a specific time or place when this joke is told, but rather it comes up when least expected and tends to catch the listener off guard, and that is what can make it so funny.

 

My thoughts:

 

I personally find this joke pretty funny, but I have a pretty odd and very far out sense of humor. My brother first told me this one day when I got home from water polo practice after a rough day of classes and the coach ripping me for messing up, and I had a pretty downer mood at that point. He had picked me up that day and could tell I was in a bad mood, and the first thing he said to me was, “ask me if I’m a tree.”

I find the stupidity of anti-jokes to be the funniest part, and seeing the confused and puzzled look on the listeners face more satisfying than the joke itself. I have used this joke occasionally and it tends to put a smile on the listener’s face whenever I tell them.