Tag Archives: Joke

I Can See Clearly Now

CONTEXT: DM is a current USC student who attended a North Carolina Christian sleep-away camp in the summer of 2011. This is a narrative joke that she heard from the head of camp, Jimbo. She heard this during Jimbo’s “Breakfast Club” during which he talked about God and told jokes. DM interprets this as a joke and a pun.

TEXT:
Alright, so one time there was this kid named Jim who lived in the fine, fine city of
Chattanooga, Tennessee. He was just coming up into high school, and in his
sophomore year of high school he’d just started to get a little bit interested in girls. And
there was this one girl in his English class that he really liked, and her name was
Lorraine. And he thought “oh my gosh, what an interesting name.” She was beautiful,
she had, like, beautiful eyes, beautiful hair, she was smart. They start talking. They
eventually start going on dates, and at first, everything’s awesome. Y’know, they’re
going on dates, hanging out all the time, getting to know each other, and then right
around when he says, “I love you,” world stops. Everything changes. And now, she is all
over him all of the time. She does not get off his case, is blowing up his phone while
he’s in class, while he’s at home, while he’s at work. And, like, he cannot get away from
this girl and it starts driving him crazy to the point where he goes “I think I need to break
up with this girl, but I don’t know how.” Same time, about halfway through his school
year, they get a transfer student from abroad. And she’s from some hippy-dippy
European family, whatever… she shows up in school and says that her name is Clearly,
and instantly AH, by-God, Jim is just struck over with love. He is falling head over heels
in a second, and he has forgotten completely about Lorraine. He is all about Clearly. All
he has to do is do it. So, he decides “What do I have to do? How can I sweeten the
deal? How can I make this go over without her actually killing me?” And he decides
“Alright, I’ll take her to the finest site in the city of Chattanooga – the Chattanooga River.”
Which, if you’re familiar, just is laden with the most beautiful., impressive, walls and
walls of concrete and big steel churning dams, and puffs of black smoke, and trash
floating all down the river in beautiful colorful sequence. And he takes her down to the
river, and he starts going “Well, y’know, I don’t… I don’t… I don’t really know how to say
this but I, um, I’ve been feeling…” and she’s going “yes?” As they’re walking, he sees
something cool in the river and he thinks “oh my god, what a great opportunity to
change the subject, ‘cause I cannot do this right now.” And he points in the water, and
he goes “Look!” And she turns around and leans over and falls into the river. And she
floats away and eventually drowns in the river. How sad. Oh my gosh. And he’s thinking
as he starts to call the police “Oh my gosh my girlfriend just fell in the Chattanooga
River. She’s probably suffocating on some plastic right now. How sad is this.” And then,
a thought crosses his mind, and he starts singing to himself as he walks away down the
river, “I can see Clearly now, Lorraine is gone.” (To the tune of I Can See Clearly Now
by Creedence Clearwater Revival)

ANALYSIS: This is a narrative joke in which the punchline is a play on a popular song from the 1970s. It is a play on words of the concept of seeing visually versus “seeing” someone in a romantic sense. The set up uses the names of two of the characters, Clearly and Lorraine, which doesn’t seem to be important until the punchline. It also relies on the similarity in sound between “Lorraine” and “the rain.” The punchline is sung so that the audience recalls the music it is based on. The joke will only work if the audience is familiar with the song. Knowing the storyteller, it is clear to me which parts of the story were added or embellished based on her personal preferences and style. It is a great example of how details are changed through oral tradition, even when the basic premise of the joke remains the same. It is also interesting that the main character of the joke, Jim, shares a name with the person DM heard the joke from
originally. It is the only character whose name has no bearing on the punchline. I wonder if that character has a different name in other versions of this joke, or if his shared name is a coincidence. It is also a “clean” joke, suitable for an audience of children at a Christian summer camp.

A Frog, A Bankteller, and A Loan — Long Joke

Nationality: American
Age: 17
Occupation: Student
Residence: Utah
Performance Date: March 27th
Primary Language: English

Context :

W is my 17 year-old brother. He was born and raised in Utah, like me. Since I was the oldest, W always tried to find ways to one-up me. He still does so. This is a long joke my grandfather told him the other day so he shared it with me.

Text :

“A frog wants to get a loan so he can buy a house. One day, he goes into the bank and approaches the bank teller. She has a name tag that says: Patricia Whack. The frog asks Ms. Whack for a loan, but she refuses him. The frog assures Ms. Whack that he knows the owner of the bank because his father is Mick Jagger, so he will allow the loan. He gives the bank teller a button as collateral. Patricia goes into the bank owner’s office and explains how a frog claiming to be Mick Jagger’s son is asking for a loan. The bank manager asks if he left anything for collateral, and Patricia holds up the button, but she doesn’t know what it is. The bank manager laughs and says, ‘It’s a a knick-knack, Patti Whack. Give the frog a loan. His old man’s a rolling stone.'”

Analysis :

Long jokes take long set-ups, and most of the time, they don’t pay off. For this long joke, it takes a whole extra level of knowledge to understand it. My grandfather enjoys telling long jokes because he gets pleasure out of hitting the punchline right on the nose, so it’s no surprise he told this one to my brother. The end of the joke parodies the “This Old Man” song as well as popular culture. If you weren’t familiar with the song or its lyrics, chances are, you wouldn’t understand the joke. Only a small audience will find the joke amusing. Since I grew up hearing that song, I recognized the ending immediately and it made me laugh. If I showed this to a friend who grew up in a different country where the song wasn’t played and Mick Jagger wasn’t a figure in popular culture, the joke would not have been funny to them. It goes to show how jokes work with certain cultures versus others by bringing in aspects that are unique to that said culture.

“A Plane has 500 Bricks. 1 Falls Out. How Many Are Left?” — Long Joke

Nationality: American
Age: 17
Occupation: Student
Residence: Utah
Performance Date: March 27th
Primary Language: English

Context :

W is my 17 year-old brother. He was born and raised in Utah, like me. Since I was the oldest, W always tried to find ways to one-up me. He still does so, and when I called him the other day, he told me he wanted to share a new joke he heard from a friend (so of course I asked if I could transcribe our call).

Text :

W : “Okay, so there’s a plane and it’s carrying 500 bricks. 1 of the bricks falls out of the plane. How many bricks are left?”

Me : “499?”

W : “Correct.”

Me : “That wasn’t a joke.”

W : “Just listen. Okay. You have a fridge and you need to put an elephant inside. What three steps do you take to put it in the fridge?”

Me : “Um. Open the fridge. Put the elephant inside. Shut the door?”

W : “Correct again. Now what four steps do you take to put a giraffe in the fridge?”

Me : “Open the fridge. Put the body of the giraffe in, then his neck. Shut the fridge door?”

W : “You forgot to take out the elephant.”

Me : “Oh my God.”

W : “So now, the lion king is having a birthday party and all the animals in the jungle are invited. Who didn’t show up?”

Me : “I don’t know.”

W : “The giraffe. Because it was in the fridge.”

Me : “Wow.”

W : “Sally is adventuring through the jungle. She comes across a crocodile infested lake. She gets across without getting eaten by crocodiles. How did she do it?”

Me : “She walked around the lake.”

W : “No. She just walked right through the lake because the crocodiles were all at the lion king’s party.”

Me : “I am so confused.”

W : “Last question. Once Sally gets across the lake, something falls from the sky and hits her on the head, and she dies. What hit her on the head?”

Me : “I DON’T KNOW”

W : “A brick.”

Me : “From the plane……?”

W : “Yes!”

Analysis :

This is a great example of a narrative joke, in my opinion. The way that its told is intended to throw the listener off so they don’t see what’s coming next while simultaneously using specific jokes to make the listener assume they know the answers. The long joke is circular, ending right where it began with the brick falling out of the plane. Jokes are used to make the listener laugh. Some jokes, however, are used to make people think and then laugh at the fact that the joke went right over their head. With the long joke my brother told me, he worded it in a way that would make me feel confused the entire time while also feeling like I outsmarted him, just for him to completely make me feel stupid at the end. He once again succeeded at one-uping me.

“80-6”

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Performance Date: 2/14/23
Primary Language: English

Informant Background:

My informant AL is my classmate from the ANTH 333 course offered at USC.

Text:

“80-6”. E.g. ’80-6 staff’ or ’80-6 nice people

Context:

AL heard this joke through her work as a waitress. ’80-6’ is a term used in the restaurant industry to indicate that something was missing in the kitchen. The waitstaff would often incorporate this job-specific term into jokes throughout the day to alleviate tension and boredom.

Analysis:

I would interpret this joke as a means of building comradery around a communal experience. In this case, the communal experience is the job of the waitstaff. Working as a waitress can often be tedious and strenuous work. The ’80-6’ jokes could be a way of finding enjoyment from their shared job and the fact that other people are going through a similar experience. Furthermore, using terms specific to a particular occupation intensifies the feelings of an ‘in-group’ overall making the experience of working at a restaurant more social and enjoyable.

Juan and the Otter

Nationality: American
Age: 59
Occupation: Electrician
Residence: Palmdale, CA
Performance Date: 4/4/23
Primary Language: English

Context

My father is an avid storyteller with a number of “dad jokes” in his back pocket. An electrician by trade in Southern California, his stories often come from the blue-collar line of work that he finds himself in. This joke story is a memorate whose origins my dad can’t remember. I first heard this joke as a kid while we were swimming in my aunt’s backyard pool. I remember him drawing out the story for as long as possible, maintaining the seriousness until the final punchline at the end, hinged on a play on words that harkens to the phrase “you can’t have one or the other.” He told me this story over dinner at my family home in this particular iteration.

Text

TS: You want to tell the Juan or the otter one?

SS: Yeah. Well, there was once was a man. And he lived on a Caribbean island. And he used to go diving for pearls.

SS: And his name was Juan. And Juan and his wife lived a very simple life. They just lived in their little house and, and he’d get enough pearls to, for them to survive, and they were happy. And one day he was on his boat when he’s eating his lunch. And this otter jumped up on the boat, swam up and came up on the boat and it shocked him. And the otter looked at him and looked at a his food, and so he gave the otter some food. The otter ate his food, and he gave it a little more food, and uh, the otter looked at him and dove off the side of the boat and went away. And pretty soon the otter comes back with big arms full of oysters in his in his flippers, and he dumps them up on the boat.

SS: So Juan opened up the oysters and found many pearls. And he realized that the otter could dive down way farther than all the other pearl divers. So he befriended the otter, and they made a partnership. So they would go out and they would they would get the pearls together, the oysters. So pretty soon it became a thriving business. And they work dad started to have, you know, bigger house and, and lots of nice things because they got so many pearls and so many oysters. And so they started charging a lot of money for the services of this otter because they’ve you know, had enough, right? So one day the, this-this stranger came and he talked to the, to the wife and he wanted to know about hiring the hiring Juan for the day, and the otter and she–and she gave him the price. She said well, it’s $2,000 a day. And he was shocked. He was freaked out. And he said, “Well, that’s crazy.” She says “What?” “Well, how much for just–just Juan?”

SS: She said, “[imitating an accent] Oh no, señor, they are a pair. They only work together, you cannot have Juan without the otter.”

Analysis

This joke falls into the category of a tale that has a final punchline to deliver the pun that it hinges upon. Having heard the story before, I know it follows the oral-formulaic method of storytelling, as he will lengthen or shorten the story depending on how invested the audience is. There are certain key motifs to remember in the story: of course, the phrase “Juan or the otter” is one, Juan as a pearl diver, his wife as his manager, and the stranger who asks for their services. When I first heard the story, I was around 10, and my dad told it with a conviction that made me believe the story is true until the very end. As such, he drew the story out to be much longer than this iteration, but this has every part of the story necessary for it to function. Given that I already know the punchline, I think he was less detailed in his oration.

While my father doesn’t remember where he first heard the joke, I imagine it can be traced back two his Mexican American coworkers, as it is set in the Caribbean and involves using a general Latin American accent to deliver the final punchline. The joke falls into a blanket category of “dad joke,” often garnering groans of disappointment from his audience when the final punchline is delivered.