Tag Archives: humor

How About That Ride In?

Nationality: German
Age: 25
Occupation: Salesman
Residence: Pasadena, California
Performance Date: 4/15/12
Primary Language: English

“How About That Ride In?”

My informant, 25 years old and living in Pasadena, CA, was a big fan of the Hollywood blockbuster, “The Hangover”, which was released in 2009. He says that he distinctly remembers one of its most famous lines- “how about that ride in”- when the group of young men arrive in Las Vegas where the plot of the movie begins. My informant tells me that ever since the movie came out, that line has “literally become a part of American folklore for guys my age”. “I’ve heard it countless times from my buddies and other peers when we’re all just hanging out”, he says.

My informant says that this piece of folklore is used as a sort of comical relief from an awkward or dull situation. He says it is usually said when conversation is lagging or there is an awkward silence to lighten the mood and bring humor to the room. “Sometimes people say it as a joke when they arrive late to a meeting or gathering. I’ve really heard it in so many different situations” said my informant. He says that he just assumes that everybody knows that it’s a line from a movie, so it’s not ‘weird or awkward’ when somebody comes out and says it in a random situation. My informant says that he ‘laughs every time’ and that it’s ‘gotten him out of some pretty awkward situations in a funny way’. “Sometimes, when people don’t know that it’s a line from a movie, it gets even more awkward, very fast”.

My informant also says that he can use it as a sort of test, to see if this person is somebody he would like to spend time with or hang around with. He is convinced that it how they react to it will show whether or not they have a good sense of humor, and are into popular culture.

I agree with my informant, and have heard this phrase many times on my own as well. It seems like it would be a good icebreaker or funny quote just to lighten a mood. I think it is a great example of a piece of folklore that is stemmed from a part of authored literature, in this case, a film. It becomes more of a folkloric term because it is used in different contexts and to achieve different tasks than it originally was supposed to in the film. It has begun to grow and gain newer meanings among a younger American crowd.

Annotation: The Hangover, Movie, 2009

Joe College

Nationality: American
Age: 25
Residence: NC
Performance Date: 2000
Primary Language: English

My informant for this story is my friend.

In his family, dating back to his grandparents, though they were fairly poor and grew up during the Depression and were economically impacted, many members of the family went to college.  This was somewhat unique for the time period, specifically for the region and time they lived in.  Furthermore, many of the children went on not just to college or higher education, but to attain several degrees or terminal degrees.

Accordingly, it became sort of a rite of passage for each sibling to begin their college career and make the visits back home and participate in the other typical collegiate activities.  As each one got closer to go to college and was accepted, all the members of the family would start to call him “Joe College.”  My friend’s grandfather said he was never sure where the term originated or who first started saying it, but he was the oldest of his generation within the family and when he got towards the end of high school and was accepted into college, his parents, grandparents and his siblings began calling him “Joe College.”  It became something that each one went through, again, like a rite of passage.  When he had his own children, he did the same, as did each of his siblings and I remember when my friend got accepted to college, his grandfather called him “Joe College.”  I never knew why or what it meant exactly until I researched it for this assignment.

Always Cut the End of the Ham Off Before You Cook It

Nationality: American
Age: 70s
Residence: NC
Performance Date: 2002
Primary Language: English

My informant for this story is my friend’s grandmother.

My friend’s grandmother is a great cook.  She would often cook for us and going over to her house for a meal was one of my favorite things to do.  She would cook many different things.  On special occasions, she would cook a large ham, if there were going to be enough people there to eat it.  Almost every time she would cook a ham, either she or someone else in the family would remind her or ask her if she had cut the end off of the ham before cooking it.  This was sort of a running joke and I never thought much of it until after one meal, she was discussing the origin of the saying.  She had said that her husband’s mother, who taught her many of the recipes she still practices, had always told her to cut the end off the ham prior to cooking it.

It was years later before she realized that the reason they always said this was because they never had a pan big enough to accommodate cooking a ham with the end intact.  To this day, she laughs about this, having not known the reason for so many years.  She also mentioned it so many times to my friend and to me that I often think about this anytime I have ham or on holidays or other special occasions where a ham is being cooked.

Beware Pregnancy Cravings

Nationality: American
Age: 53
Residence: NC
Performance Date: 2004
Primary Language: English

My informant for this story is my friend’s mother.

Everyone has heard that pregnant women have very powerful and often strange cravings.  For example, they may crave two totally different foods that they would ordinarily not want.  Whether it is because of hormones or chemicals that occur as a result of the pregnancy, it certainly seems to be true, at least based on what I have heard.  My mother’s friend used to tell a joke that “If you crave something while you’re pregnant and you don’t get it, the baby will be born with a birthmark of the item that the mother was craving and didn’t get.”

I have never heard this anywhere else, except in my friend’s family.  But I must admit that every time I see someone’s birthmark now, I examine it to try to discern what kind of food it most resembles and then imagine that person’s mother craving that food during the pregnancy.  For example, a friend of mine has a birth mark on her left fore arm that looks very much like a strawberry.  I have told her the joke and she thought it was very amusing.

親父ギャグ — Purposely Lame Japanese Jokes

Nationality: Japanese
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Naha, Okinawa, Japan
Performance Date: 4/2/12
Primary Language: Japanese

親父 (oyaji) in Japanese is a somewhat derogatory word for middle-aged men (for instance, my informant said that the word 親父 reminds her of a half-drunken forty-ish man sprawled on the couch in a sweaty wife-beater, watching a baseball game). ギャグ (gagu) is derived from the English word gag, and literally just means joke. Translated literally then, 「親父ギャグ」 is “middle-aged man jokes,” which is not far from its contextualized definition.

親父ギャグ aren’t just meant for middle-aged men, however. In short, an 親父ギャグ is simply any extremely lame joke, usually some form of pun or wordplay. There is a stereotype (or a blaison populaire of sorts) in Japan that dictates that middle-aged men are the ones that most often tell these jokes, because they do not care whether other people find it funny, as long as they themselves think that the joke is funny. Indeed, my informant’s father is an 親父ギャグ man, and when he tells one of these jokes, he finds his joke funny, but also finds it funny that none of his audience thought it was funny– in fact, he almost takes pleasure in their raised eyebrows and the shaking of their heads as they say, tiredly but affectionately, “Oh, there he goes again.”

My informant grew up in the city of Naha in Okinawa, Japan, and had 親父ギャグ engrained in her life from a young age by her own father. 親父ギャグ are most times made purposely lame–it seems as if it is a way, almost, of lowering oneself on purpose, so that other people are encouraged to be more themselves as well, a sort of ice-breaker. Look, the performance of it says, there’s no judgment here! Oftentimes 親父ギャグ can liven up a gathering or conversation in that way; it is extremely difficult not to smile or laugh at someone who is laughing hysterically at their own lame joke. When telling an 親父ギャグ, the subliminal aim is not to make everyone laugh at the joke–the point is to have everyone laugh at you laughing at your own joke, making yourself seem more accessible to everyone around you. In that sense, it is often a great act of bravery to tell an 親父ギャグ (unless, of course, you think it’s actually funny, and are embarrassed when nobody laughs at the joke itself). Both parties need to accept that the joke is lame, and laugh about it.

Some examples of 親父ギャグ from my informant’s father, which may or may not retain their humor through the translation (not that there was much humor in them to begin with):

A: “How do you say sidewalk in Japanese?”
B: 歩道？ (pronounced hodou, sidewalk, in Japanese.)
C: なるほどう！ (pronounced naruhodou, means I SEE! in Japanese)

Get it? Or this:

こんにゃく、今夜食う
konnyaku, konnyakuu
I’ll eat konnyaku tonight.
(This is funny, or supposed to be funny, because the food is konnyaku, and “I’m gonna eat tonight” casually is “konya (tonight) kuu (eat)” so they sound almost exactly the same.)

These are the kind of jokes that would get glazed-over expressions, silence, and low “ohhhhhhh my goodness…….” kinds of reactions if told in America. The difference is, that these jokes’ significance rest in their very lameness.

In Japan, a society governed by relatively strict social hierarchies and characterized by an almost extreme amount of politeness, these lame jokes are a way to let off some steam, and temporarily cast off any forms of judgment. 親父ギャグ are relaxing, in a way, because they do not require much effort from either party–the performer is not really trying to be funny, and all the audience needs to do is roll their eyes a bit, and smile.

ANNOTATION: In Japan, there is a popular children’s book series called 「かいけつゾロリ」(Kaiketsu Zorori), published by Poplar Publishing. The original books were also made into a feature-length film, a comic, and an anime. In this series, the fox protagonist of the story (and a wanted criminal) keeps traveling around the world with the goal of becoming the “King of Pranks.” This fox protagonist, Zorori, is the owner of the ぶっくらこいた (Bukkura Koita), a book that tells 親父ギャグ (oyaji gyagu) so bad that they physically freeze all those who hear it. In the series, he often uses this books to freeze or confuse his pursuers and opponents in order to make a quick get-away. That 親父ギャグ are used in a children’s series to add humor, then, illustrates the way 親父ギャグ are often viewed in Japanese society–something to make fun of, a distraction of sorts, but something people enjoy and find humorous all the same.

<Hara, Yutaka. Kaiketsu Zorori No Doragon Taiji. Kaiketsu Zorori. Tokyo: Poplar Publishing, 1995.>

<原, ゆたか. かいけつゾロリのドラゴンたいじ. かいけつゾロリ. Tokyo: Poplar Publising, 1995.>