Category Archives: Humor

Armenian Genie Joke

Age: 40
Occupation: Driver
Residence: LA
Primary Language: Armenian

[Translated from Armenian] Three neighbors come across a genie lamp in the city. 

The genie pops out and says, “For finding me each of you gets a single wish of your heart’s desire. But, be forewarned that whatever you wish for, the other two guys get the same but 10 times better.

The first guy says, “I want a Mercedes Benz.” And the genie grants his wish. So, the first guy is driving around feeling good about himself when he pulls up to his driveway and sees Ferarris, Lamborginis, and Porches parked on their lots.

The second guy say, “Genie, I want a big house.” And the genie grants his wish. So the second guy is happy, running around his new house checking out all the rooms, until he looks out the window and sees his neighbors’ towering mansions. 

The third guy looks around and says, “Genie, you know what? Just give me (high pitched voice) a weeee little heart attack.”

Context: This joke was told at a birthday party over food and drinks. The performer and audience were quite drunk.

Thoughts: This is funny because the third guy already has everything he could have asked for and didn’t want to be outdone by, and become jealous of his neighbors by wishing for something else. Instead, the punchline is implies that a “weeee little heart attack” would be tolerable for him but 10 times that would deadly for his neighbors. Problem solved.

Armenian Nose Joke

Age: 28
Residence: Fresno
Primary Language: English

Why do Armenian’s have big noses? 

Because the air is free!

Context: [informant] I first heard this from my cousin when I was a kid. I really though she was going to give a reason why our people have big noses but it was joke about them being cheap. I kind of took it personal even though she was Armenian too, but later I heard the same exact  joke about Jews and thought it was funny.

Thoughts: This is a prime example of multiplicity and variation. The stereotypes here are that Armenian and Jews both have big noses and tend to be money-centric cultures, so it makes sense the same joke can be applied to either culture. Having “big” noses implies they use it sniff up as much free air as possible.

The Girl in the Bathroom

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Long Island, NY
Performance Date: 4/18/21

Main Description

The informant describes the story of the little girl said to haunt her high school’s bathroom. The girl’s name was Pearl (a name derived from her high school’s mascot’s name), her cries could be heard between flushes, and she became the joking scapegoat of most high school girls’ problems. 

Informant’s Opinion

“Pearl wasn’t a scary ghost at all… more of an inside joke that everyone could bond over. Like, ‘Your hair’s looking bad? Pearl must’ve had something to do with it.” I’m really curious about where she came from though, because every girl knew about her but no one knew anything about her. How did she die? Why did she haunt the bathroom? No one knew.”

Thoughts

This story reminds me of Harry Potter‘s Moaning Myrtle: a girl who died in the girls’ bathroom and who provides comic relief throughout the Harry Potter series. I would assume that the girls of the informant’s high school watched Harry Potter and then wanted to create their own Moaning Myrtle in their bathroom, and in doing so they were able to iterate authored literature and create folklore from a copyrighted source.

Horse Walks Into a Bar

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Long Island, NY
Performance Date: 4/18/21

The Joke

Horse walks into a bar. Bartender says, “Why the long face?”

Description

The informant describes this joke that her mom used to tell. Her mom thought it was hilarious but no one else found it funny. So, whenever something unfunny happened, family members would say this joke to show that the present situation wasn’t funny.

Analysis

This is a great example of metafolklore. This is essentially a joke about another joke, specifically a joke about the unfunniness of another joke.

The frog, the rice cake, and the veteran

Nationality: United States
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Exeter, NH
Performance Date: 04/03/2021
Primary Language: English

BACKGROUND: My informant, MP, was born in the US. Her family is from DC and have lived there for as long as she can remember. MP was a bit of a class clown at my former school so I asked her if she has any interesting jokes she would like to tell me. According to MP, this is her favorite joke that she inherited from her older brother.

CONTEXT: This piece is from a conversation with my friend to exchange jokes.

Me: So this is a two-part joke?

MP: It’s gonna be a long one yeah. So once upon a time there was a rice cake. A rice cake and a frog are looking off of a pier and the rice cake, looking into the water, saw its reflection and said: “I am the prettiest rice cake in all the lands.” The frog was fed up with the rice cake and responded “If you say that one more time, I’m going to push you in the water.” The rice cakes was like “okay.” So the pier is quiet for a bit. No one really says anything. Then eventually the rice cake looks back into the pond and is like, “I am the prettiest rice cake and all the land.” So the frog pushes him into the water. 

Okay so here’s the second part. So I guess once there was a man and a woman and they were like high school sweethearts. Um, and they’re really in love. And then suddenly like a war happens, like, yeah, one of the American Wars and he gets drafted for the Navy and she’s really sad. And he’s like, “Don’t worry, I’m going to give you this ring now. And I promise, like once I get back, we’re going to get married. Just like, think about this ring whenever you miss me. Or look at it or whatever. And we’ll get married when I get back from the war.” Um, and he’s like,”Yeah, once we come back, I’ll meet you at the dock and we’ll get married. So what happens? He doesn’t die. Right? Yeah. So he doesn’t die. He comes back to the town. Um, but unfortunately the town built a completely identical dock to the other one, but it’s on the other side of the town. And so since the woman’s been living there the entire time, she goes to the right dock and he goes to the new one, completely confused. And the woman thought he must’ve died in the war and she find a different husband moves on. But he’s so heartbroken and he’s like, “You know what? I’m going to dedicate my life to this pier because she didn’t pull through for me. I’m going to pull through for myself.” So then all the kids knew him in the town. He’s known as like the dude who works at the dock and who fishes every day. Years and years and years and years go by, 50 years pass. And one day he goes out, sits on the dock to go fishing, then reels in the rice cake.

Me: What? What’s the punchline?

MP: He reels in the rice cake. That’s the end of the joke.

THOUGHTS: At first I felt very swindled by the joke. MP purposely added a lot of pauses and gesturing to drag on the joke for over 4 minutes. By the time I got to the end, I was salivating to know how a frog and a rice cake would connect to a girl and a veteran. Also considering that MP was a fairly funny person, I expected the joke to come to a very cathartic conclusion. The fact that it ended so abruptly and randomly made me angry, realizing that my reaction to the uselessness of the joke was the joke itself. The punchline is that there is no punchline, almost elevating the joke beyond what it would’ve been if there actually was a joke. It’s basically an anti-joke, built on the irony of its dissatisfaction.

For another example of a long-winded anti-joke, see: Brunvand, Jan Harold. “A Classification for Shaggy Dog Stories.” The Journal of American Folklore, vol. 76, no. 299, 1963, pp. 42–68. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/538078.