Tag Archives: humor

“The Thunderstorm”

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Poway, California
Performance Date: March 2007
Primary Language: English

While the victim is unsuspecting or away, perpetrators will fill an empty, large trash bin full of water.  Then, when the victim leaves to use a public restroom and selects a stall, the perpetrators will dump the huge amount of water over the door of the stall, flicker the lights, and bang on the sides of the stall, simulating a thunderstorm.  Of course, the idea is to completely drench the victim while they are absolutely defenseless, with their pants down. This will put the victim in a completely uncomfortable position, at least until they can change their clothes. 

 

My source first learned of this practical joke when he found himself victimized.  Last year he lived in an on-campus dormitory, where between 20 and 30 male students live on a floor together and share a large, public-style bathroom.  Another student had heard of this prank and had been dying all semester to pull it off.

At the time, my source had changed into some comfortable clothes and was about to settle down and type out a report for one of his classes.  As time passed, he had to use the restroom.  Of course, the other student had filled a trash can with water earlier in the day and was waiting for this exact moment.  With the help of two other students, the perpetrator was able to dump the bin full of water onto my source.

“I was tired from writing the paper, and a bucket-full of water was what I least expected.  So, yes, I was completely shocked,” reported my source.  His first reaction was to cover up and get out of there as soon as he could.  Then he changed his clothes and set out to find the perpetrators. My source was not angry and realized that in the long run, this would be a funny story to tell, and this is why he decided to share this practical joke with me.

Many instances of practical jokes can be attributed to rites of passage.  The student who first had the idea had waited all year to feel comfortable enough around someone to make them the victim of this practical joke without them having hard feelings.  In this sense, my source had gone from friend to trusted-friend in the eyes of the perpetrator, and this prank was his rite of passage.

Finally…the Blonde Joke to End All Blonde Jokes

Performance Date: April 2007

A blonde calls her boyfriend and says, “Please come over here and help me. I have a killer jigsaw puzzle, and I can’t figure out how to get it started.” Her boyfriend asks, “What is it supposed to be when it’s finished?” The blonde says, “According to the picture on the box, it’s a tiger.”

Her boyfriend decides to go over and help with the puzzle. She lets him in and shows him where she has the puzzle spread all over the table.

He studies the pieces for a moment, then looks at the box, then turns to her and says, “First of all, no matter what we do, we’re not going to be able to assemble these pieces into anything resembling a tiger.”

He takes her hand and says, “Second, I want you to relax. Let’s have a nice cup of tea, and then …” He sighed……..
“Let’s put all the Frosted Flakes back in the box…….”

I heard this joke from my roommate, who in turn received it from his girlfriend in Texas via the Internet.  While I would hesitate to call it the “blond joke to end all blond jokes,” it does exhibit the paradoxical structure that is the backbone of any “good joke.”  Incongruity is created by the girl’s inability to solve her “killer jigsaw puzzle,” and the punchline delivers appropriateness: the puzzle is unsolvable because it is nothing but sugary cereal.  Clearly the implication is that blond females are intellectually under par.
So why is blond hair the butt of so many jokes?  When I asked this of my informant, he offered the possible explanation that the jokes descend from the stereotypical blond girl as portrayed on television.  I would certainly agree that films and TV shows often portray the role of attractive female characters on a superficial level.  Perhaps this depiction came to be associated with blonds in particular during a past trend in fashion that valued blondness.  Thus, blond jokes may represent a societal response toward the entertainment industry’s preoccupation with appearance.  In essence, Hollywood gives society their version of an ideal female, and society rebels by telling jokes that belittle her wits or point out her shallowness.
It is perhaps for this reason that blond jokes seem more “politically correct” than racial and gender jokes.  As they are more of a reaction to a stereotype than to a biological group, they are less likely to be offensive.  I have even heard blonds tell blond jokes (neither my informant nor his girlfriend are blond, however).  Fortunately, the format of such jokes also allows for manipulation of the looney character’s traits, so the jokes can be adapted to various audiences.

Death Joke

Performance Date: April 2007

When I die, I want to go peacefully, like my grandfather.
I do not want to be screaming in terror like the rest of the people in the car.

This death-humor joke, which my informant said he remembers from Saturday Night Live, is a fairly simple one to analyze structurally.  According to folklorist Elliot Oring, the source of humor in jokes is the presence of “appropriate incongruities.”  The joke introduces apparent incongruities – ideas that seem out of place, impossible, obscene, or otherwise wrong in some way – and the punchline delivers appropriateness or creates both appropriateness and incongruity at once.  However, this joke is unique in that it reverses the order of the appearance of appropriateness and incongruity.  Whereas traditionally the incongruity comes first and is justified by the punchline, here the first line (and part of the second) makes sense and the punchline reveals the sad incongruity – the old man fell asleep at the wheel.  If the situation is sad, though, then why is it funny?  Certainly a joke like this would not be funny for someone who has recently lost a loved one in a car accident.  However, humor is a popular outlet in many societies for dealing with the concept of death, particularly societies like America who do not share universal beliefs about death and the afterlife.

Joke – What’s Black and White and Re(a)d All Over?

Nationality: Mexican-American (2nd. Gen)
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Downey, California
Performance Date: January 2007
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

Q: What’s black and white and red all over?

A: A newspaper.

My informant first heard this riddle in third grade during a show and tell in her elementary school in Downey, CA.  Some of her classmates that did not have anything to show could just tell a joke they knew.  One of her classmates gave this riddle, and no one had been able to figure it out in her class.  A newspaper is certainly black and white, and it is “read” all over.  The children persistently thought what object could be the colors black, white, and “red,” so they were stumped.

Riddles like these are handy for entertainment purposes.  I believe that people tell such riddles because they would like to engage a crowd big or small.  When told a riddle, people are naturally inclined to solve it, and if they give up, they are eager to know the answer.  Usually the answer is a very simple one whereas people trying to solve the riddle looked too deeply into it.  That is also very entertaining when the answer turns out to be something that was so obvious, but they never thought it would be that easy.

 

Annotation: This riddle was in the 1995 movie “Batman Forever” in which the villain, the Riddler, played by actor Jim Carey asks this riddle.

Knock-knock Joke – Amy Fisher

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: November 1995
Primary Language: English

A. Knock Knock.
B. Who’s there?
A. Amy Fisher.
A. Amy Fishe…?
B. … BANG!
This was only a couple years after a girl named Amy Fisher went to the door of the house of a man named Joey Buttafuco, whom she was having an affair with. She asked him to leave his wife and when he refused she went to his house and shot his wife in the head. This can be an example of a kind of disaster joke, these are risky because for a certain time after the initial incident, people can find the joke inappropriate.