Blonde Joke – Cow in the Tree

A blonde, a brunette, and a redhead decide to try to steal a farmer’s watermelons.  Ripe and juicy, these fruits are delicious and known throughout the neighborhood for their delicious taste.  A couple boys had always stolen these watermelons and were revered through the school for their audacity.  After a while, these three girlfriends got together and wondered why they could not steal the fruits themselves.  They made a plan and when the appointed day came, they three met, all dressed in black.  They stealthily crept through the fields while the farmer snored in his house.  Alas, if it were not for the farmer’s trusty hounds, they three probably would have gotten away with their act.  However, woken by the intruder’s footsteps and their poignant perfume, the dogs started barking up a racket.  The three girls fled into the trees bordering the fields as the gruff old farmer and his dogs came out.  When the dogs stopped at the tree the brunette had climbed up, she was forced to think quickly.  “Chirp, chirp,” she said.  “Oh, it’s only a bird,” the farmer thought, and moved on to the next tree.  The dogs clamored around the next tree which hid the redhead, as the farmer shook the tree.  “Meow, meow, hisss.”  “Oh, just another stupid cat,” the farmer decided.  Coming to the final tree in which the blonde had hid, the dogs again went crazy.  Peering up, the farmer was greeted with silence.  He paused, then shook the tree again.  “Mooo, mooooooo.”

I was told this somewhat lengthy blonde joke by my little brother, Nathanael.  He is currently a junior in high school, attending Mira Costa High in Manhattan Beach, California.  Having attended the same high school, I have a general feel for the demographic makeup.  Over eighty percent Caucasian, the school has more than its fair share of blondes, brunettes, and redheads.

This joke makes fun of both blondes and, to a lesser extent, the entire female race.  The three girls failed in their attempt to steal watermelons, as they awaken the guard dog which in turn wakes the farmer.  The boys, on the other hand, had successfully stolen watermelons for years.  Finally, at the butt of the joke is the poor blonde, who, in emulating the clever animal noises of the others, finds herself selecting one of the only animals which would not able to be found in a tree.  Thus in this already incapable group of girls, the blonde-haired one is the most pitiful.  My brother is full Chinese.  Since he is not white or female, perhaps it is fitting that this joke makes fun blonde girls.  In an environment where he is a definite minority, perhaps jokes like these represent a subtle form of rebellion against the majority.

I have heard another variation of this joke somewhere; however as I already have included numerous blonde jokes, I felt that the addition of another would be repetitive.  This other version sets up the same three girls in a similar situation, except they are hiding in grain sacks in a barn.  The first makes the “squeak, squeak” sound of a mouse.  The second once again meows like a cat.  The unfortunate blond in the third sack is kicked.  She cries out “Potato, potato!”  This version of the joke is very similar as far as the punch line goes.  The first two make unlikely though believable sounds, and are passed over by the angry farmer.  The poor blonde, however picks a ridiculous sound to make, and it is implied that she is discovered.  Cows obviously cannot climb trees; furthermore, potatoes most definitely do not exclaim “Potato!”  The variation and multiplicity of this joke helps validate it as a legitimate, though somewhat ridiculous and humorous, piece of folklore.

Blonde Joke – Stranded on an Island

Three women, a brunette, and redhead, and a blonde are stranded on a desert island in the Pacific Ocean.  There is no food or way of surviving for an extended about of time.  The mainland, however, is only ten miles away.  Knowing that they face certain death if they stay there, the redhead decides to try to swim to safety.  She swims three miles, gets tired, then drowns.  The other two islanders are obviously dismayed; however, the brunette knows that she has to at least try to swim to safety.  “I’m stronger than that weak redhead; if anybody has a chance of making it off this island, its me.”  Having said this, she sets off.  She swims and swims, passing the redheads three mile mark.  However at around seven miles, she tires out, and unable to stay afloat, drowns.  The blonde is now left all alone.  “I guess I may as well try too,” she said.  She starts to swim. One mile, two miles, three miles… before she knows it, she is nine miles away from the island.  “I’m really really tired,” she says, “I  can’t go on!”  So, she swims back to the island.

My younger brother, Nathanael Gong, told me this story when I asked him for a “funny joke.”  He currently attends Mira Costa High School in Manhattan Beach, California.  A junior, he says he cannot remember where he learned this joke.  Having grown up in the same house in Hermosa Beach as him, perhaps it is not unsurprising that the joke sounded extremely familiar to me when he started telling it.

The source, Nathanael, explained that this joke was just one in a large series of what he called “blonde jokes.”  This category of jokes is founded on the belief that blondes are inherently less intelligent than individuals with other colors of hair.  These jokes usually imply that the subject is a blonde woman, though often they do not specify gender.  This gender implication could testify to the belief that men are more intelligent than women.  Thus blonde jokes are based a couple of bigoted ideas – that blondes are not as smart as those of other hair colors, and that women are less intelligent than men.

The reason this joke is funny, of course, is because of the stupidity of the blonde individual in this story.  Having been stranded on the desert island with two friends, a redhead and brunette, the blonde is presented with the same dilemma as her friends.  The term “brunette” is most commonly used to refer to brown-haired women; for this reason I will refer to the individuals as women.  The redhead is the first to try to escape the island.  Unfortunately for her, she is not strong enough to swim the entire distance and drowns after three miles.  The brunette goes next, making it much farther than the redhead but ultimately falling short of survival.  Based on the results of these two women, it could be inferred that the author of the joke felt that brunettes were stronger or in some way more capable than redheads.  Finally, we come to the poor blonde.  She swims a whopping nine miles before deciding she is too tired and swimming back.   This is of course the irony of the story; even though she could have swum one more mile to the safety of the shore, she instead chose to swim the long miles back to the desert island.  Her stupidity in this situation is the facet of the joke that makes this joke funny.  The listener and teller both realize the smart decision (to swim the extra mile) and the blonde’s ignorance of it. Upon coming upon this fact, both get a good laugh out of this poor individual’s stupidity.