My informant remembers his best friend Michael telling him this joke in middle school in Irvine, California, and he told me that his friend heard it from a soccer teammate. He says he thought it was really funny the first few times he heard it, but now it has lost some of its entertainment value because he has heard it so many times from the same friend.

“A brunette, a redhead, and a blonde escape from prison. In order to hide form the cops, they hide in an abandoned farmhouse. There are three burlap sacks in this farmhouse, and each of them climbs into one in order to hide. When the cops search the house, they say, “There’s three burlap sacks here, so kick them to make sure no one is hiding in them.” The cop kicks a sack and the brunette yells, ‘MEOW,’ so the cop says ‘It’s just a stupid cat.’ The cop then kicks the next sack and the redhead yells, ‘WOOF,’ so the cop says ‘It’s just a dumb dog.’ When the cop kicks the last sack, the blonde screams, ‘POTATOES!'”

I thought this joke was really entertaining when I first read through it. I’ve never heard this particular variation before, but I have heard a few others like it. The brunette-redhead-blonde theme seems to be common with blonde jokes, and follows the “Rule of Threes” that is also prevalent in Western folklore. It’s interesting that such a deeply rooted aspect of tales (the Rule of Three) can come across in such a modern, informal joke. As a blonde, I don’t find blonde jokes offensive; honestly, I feel like the blonde stereotype is an entertaining one because I know just as many airheaded brunettes and redheads as blondes.