Boy Named Butt Itches (Children’s Joke)

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/21/2019
Primary Language: English

[The subject is CB. Her words are bolded, mine are not.]

Context: CB is one of my friends, and a sophomore student in college. Both of her parents are lawyers in the military, so she was born in Charlottesville, Virginia, but has also lived in Germany, Kansas, and Oregon. The following is a joke that she heard from a friend around third grade, but has remembered to this day.

CB: Um, there’s a boy named Butt Itches. And his mom named him Butt Itches, yeah. And, uh, he’s about to start school, and he goes to school for the first day, and his teacher’s like, “What’s your name?” And he’s like, “My name is Butt Itches.” And the teacher’s like, “That’s not really your name, like, that’s a fake name,” and he’s like, “No, really, that’s my name.” And she’s like, “You know what, if you don’t tell me your real name, I’m going to send you to the principal’s office,” and he’s like, “No, my name is Butt Itches,” and she’s like, “Go to the principal’s office.”

So, then he goes to the principal, and the principal’s like, “What’s your name?” And he’s like, “My name’s Butt Itches.” And, um, the principal’s like, “No way is that your name, like, tell me your real name,” and, uh, he’s like, “No, really, my name is Butt Itches.” And the principal says, “Okay. If you don’t tell me your real name, I’m gonna call the police.” And, um, he’s like, “My name’s Butt Itches,” and so he calls the police, and the police come, and they hold a gun up to him. And they’re like, “Tell me your name!” and he’s like, “My name’s Butt Itches!” And they’re like, “That’s not your real name! Tell me your name!” And, uh, he says, “No, my name’s really Butt Itches,” and they say, they say, “If you don’t tell me your name, we’re gonna shoot you,” and he’s like, “My name’s Butt Itches,” so they shoot him, and he dies, and right at that moment, his mom is walking by, and she runs up to him and she says, “Oh, my poor Butt Itches!” And the police officer says, “Would you like me to scratch it for you?”

Thoughts: This joke is very clearly a children’s joke, and one of the most obvious signs of this is that it uses tabooistic vocabulary, which is popular in children’s folklore. Beyond that, though, it reveals more about how children look at the world: the antagonists in the joke are all authority figures, and the child, who is the protagonist, is not really doing anything wrong by telling them his name, but he is punished by them anyway, which is how children may feel when they are punished. It also displays a childlike idea of how levels of authority work in society, with the teacher ranking under the principal, who ranks under the police, which are the ultimate authority because they have the power to punish children the most severely, which, in a child’s mind, would be by killing them. The punchline of the joke is also a kind of dirty tabooistic humor which would understandably make the joke more enjoyable for children, and in addition to all this, I can tell that the joke is from a Western culture because it is told in three levels, with Butt Itches having to defend himself to three different audiences before something happens.

The Mail Buoy – A Practical Joke on New Sailors in the Navy

Nationality: Vietnamese
Age: 50
Occupation: Financial Management Analyst
Residence: Ewa Beach, HI
Performance Date: April 14, 2019
Primary Language: Vietnamese
Language: English

Item:

T: With new sailors, we go out and say “Hey! Watch out for the mail buoy so we can pick up our mail!  Keep an eye out for that mail buoy, if you’re not gonna get that mail buoy, we’re not gonna get our mail!”

Q: So the new sailors would go out and they would look for it?

T: Yep.

Q: So how long is it gonna take them before they find out it’s a joke?

T: [Laughs] They will never know unless somebody tells them.

 

Context:

I collected this practical joke in a conversation about the informant’s time in the U.S.  Navy; I asked him about a few of the traditions I had heard about before and he also told me about a few others including the mail buoy joke.  The informant is denoted by the pseudonym ‘T’ and I am ‘Q’ in the exchange above.  The informant served in the U.S. Navy for 26 years before retiring as a Senior Chief Petty Officer in 2017.  He learned this joke from other sailors in 2002 when he was stationed on a ship for the first time since enlisting in 1990.  He never got this joke played on him since he was more experienced when he was first on a ship, leading others to believe he had been stationed on a few before, nor did he play it on other sailors, mentioning how there were plenty of younger sailors to play pranks on the new seamen fresh out of boot camp.  He remembers this joke as a humorous part of the time he spent stationed on a ship, and also mentioned other funny rituals and jokes played on new sailors later on.

 

Analysis:

The mail buoy prank on new sailors is a classic example of practical jokes played to establish who is in and who is out of a particular identity, further distinguishing who has the knowledge and experience from who doesn’t.  In this case, the mail buoy practical joke is a way of legitimizing the change in identity from a new to a seasoned sailor.  Particularly in the military where a power structure determined by rank already officially exists, these kinds of practical jokes and other initiation rituals serve as a further distinguisher between those of different power, experience, and knowledge levels.  There are also other identities that transcend the official structure, such as being a sailor in the Navy since members may not always be initially stationed on a ship.  When the more knowledgeable, higher power, or more experienced individuals initiate the joke, they display the fact that they are in that particular identity (though it may not yet be known to those the joke is being played on).  Once the other individuals learn about the joke, though, or get the punchline in other words, they are now also in on that group.  In the mail buoy joke, seasoned sailors would know that mail is not actually delivered in a buoy to the ship, but the seamen straight out of boot camp may not and actually take the warning to find the buoy seriously.  The fact that the new seamen would believe in the buoy would clearly mark them as new sailors.  The humiliation of realizing the mail buoy is not a real thing would serve as an initiation ritual to the group of seasoned sailors and the recognition of the joke would be an internalization of this new change in identity.  These types of practical jokes, particularly in the military, are significant ways in which people ritualize a change in their identity and studying them, like in the mail buoy piece above, can indicate what change is occurring.

Pinning Money on Bridal Veil

Nationality: American
Age: 62
Occupation: Journalist
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 3/23/19
Primary Language: English

Context

I asked the informant for any traditions or customs he had participated in. Though not Cajun himself, the informant has a residence in New Orleans and has participated in the culture for many years.

Main Piece

Mary and I got married at a crawfish boil in rural Louisiana – in Eunice – in the backyard of a family and, uh, some leading cajun musicians and cultural crusaders and, uh, one of the traditions for at a wedding there — and probably in other cultures as well — is, uh… people will come up to the bride and just pin money to, uh, to her veil and people were doing that all over and so, y’know, we’re, y’know, everywhere we went at this party people were just doing that and uh, and then we also learned that people on their birthdays, down around there, people will, they’ll have money pinned to their shirts… people will just come up and put more on the safety pin. You’ll see somebody walking around at some point with money pinned to their shirt and you’ll turn and say “happy birthday!”

Notes

The tradition of pinning money on a bride’s veil, as well as pinning money on someone’s clothes when it is their birthday, is common in Cajun communities, though its origins are difficult to trace; there are accounts of similar practices in Europe and Africa. Another part of the custom which the informant may not have experienced is that the bride and groom will dance when someone pins money on the veil.

Eternal Youth Face Mask

Nationality: American
Age: 56
Occupation: Writer/Poet
Residence: Santa Monica, CA
Performance Date: 3/23/19
Primary Language: English

Context

I was interested in finding an example of a folk remedy or natural beauty regimen that had been taught to my mother from someone else in her family. While she could not think of any folk medicine examples, she did find a copy of her mother’s face mask recipe, which she read aloud.

Main Piece

Okay, this is the Silver Eternal Youth Mask, “Silver” meaning — that was her maiden name, and um… Grandma, and um, what she did was, she used to make this mask and put it on her face so she would look younger, and it was something that was passed on through her family — she learned it from her mom. When she turned 40, she decided that she was gonna create a business called 40 Plus, it was a line of products, and, so, this was one of the products that she was gonna try to sell. And so she tried it out on me, but it turned my face beet read. Anyway, so I’m gonna just read you the recipe:

Silver Eternal Youth Mask

3 egg whites, beaten until frothy.

One tablespoon honey.

  1. Mix together. 
  2. Place mixture all over face and neck. Feel how the mask tightens face and neck.
  3. Lie down with feet elevated. Place moistened cool cotton balls over eyes.
  4. Rest for 15 minutes. Think sweet thoughts.
  5. Remove mask with whole milk.

Notes

This piece gives insight into 20th century beauty standards (particularly the fact that it was passed from mother to daughter) and the association of beauty with “eternal youth.” I also was intrigued that my grandmother had planned on selling this product. As we have learned in class, many supposed Western medicine innovations are adaptations of indigenous methods; essentially, commodified and mass-marketed versions of things for which no one person can truly take credit. It would be interesting to know if commercial beauty products have similar folk origins.

A Wart in Your Eye

Nationality: Salvadorean
Age: 56
Residence: California
Performance Date: 2019
Primary Language: Spanish

Main Piece:

I asked the informant if she remembered what she told me would happen to me if I stared at dogs having sex… She laughed and then: “Yeah, I told you you would get a perrilla on your eye.” I asked her to describe what that was, because to this day I have no idea what it is. “Well, I am not completely sure of what it is. When I was young my mother, in El Salvador, would tell me not to stare at dogs when they…you know…because a perilla would appear in your eye. I think it is a kind of wart, or something similar to a wart. I am not sure. I just knew it was not something I wanted to grow out of my eye!”

 

Context: The informant is a middle-aged woman, born in El Salvador. She learned this myth from her mother. She believes that this was a way to maintain a child’s innocence, and to stop them from learning about sex too early.

Analysis: I agree with the informant; I think this myth was created to stop kids from growing up too fast and raising questions about what sex is.