“Ok so this blonde just got kicked out of her village for being too stupid and blonde, well for being stereotyped that’s it she got kicked out for being blonde, so she got kicked out for being stereotyped, and as she was leaving the town she was walking by a cornfield and she saw, wait are you there, (to me) another blonde who was rowing a boat in a cornfield. So she yells at the other blonde from the road and she says “Gosh, you’re so stupid, why are you rowing a boat in a cornfield?” It’s because of you that I got kicked out of town. If I could swim, I would swim out there and kill you. ”- Collected March 22nd 2013, from a 17-year-old girl from a suburb in Colorado. the joke was in circulation among her friends in the local high school. Ironically, the informant was blonde.
Tag Archives: jokes
“Have you heard about Sally?” an “Anti-Joke”
“Why did Sally fall off the swing? Because she had no arms. Knock Knock? Who’s there? Not Sally.” This joke is popular among middle-schoolers and high-schoolers in Broomfield, Colorado, and was performed for me by a 12-year-old boy and a 17-year-old girl. They refer to it as an “anti-joke” where two jokes are told in series, with the first being “lame” and the second being the punchline.
Muffin Joke
“Two muffins are sitting in an oven. One muffin turns to the other muffin and says, ‘Does it feel hot in here to you?’ And the other muffin says, ‘Whoa, a talking muffin!'”
The informant learned this simple joke two years ago from her little sister. They were taking a road trip with her family, and three of her little sisters were sharing jokes among themselves. This is one she remembers. Telling the joke made the informant giggle, so she clearly still finds it funny. The joke is silly, doesn’t follow classic narrative rules, and the ending is unexpected, making it a successful joke. The informant says this is one of her go-to jokes, because she doesn’t know many good ones. The joke brings back good memories for the informant, because she loves her family and road trips.
I thought the joke was pretty funny, although I have heard it before. Furthermore, it’s not a joke only kids would find funny, but college students and adults as well. The humor in this joke is not age specific, it’s one everyone can appreciate. It relies on surprise and contradiction, two things that often can make people laugh. Someone else was in the room while the interview took place, and he cracked up for two minutes after hearing the joke. I guess he had never heard it before. I don’t think it mirrors any major themes in American culture. Muffins are a tasty and common breakfast snack. They remind me of baking yogurt muffins for a home-sciences class in middle school. I can’t find any other major connections to society other than that. I think it’s mainly just a silly, humorous joke.
“It’s Greeley!” – Folk Saying
“It’s Greeley!”
The informant said that when he and his friends would smell horse manure in Boulder, they would say: “It’s Greeley!” According to my friend, the city of Greeley would always be blamed in some form by Boulder residents when there is a scent of horse manure in the air.
The informant first heard a friend in middle school mention Greeley. He started using the saying himself when the saying’s blaming of Greeley was confirmed – He visited Greeley and it smelled of the same scent as the wind that would occasionally sweep over Boulder.
Greeley is a city that is approximately 50 miles away from Boulder, and has a lot of stables and horses. Sometimes the wind is strong enough to carry the scent of the horses and their manure to cities as far as Boulder.
When the informant started using the joke itself suggests that some knowledge of Greeley is essential to understanding the joke. In fact, the informant did not know what his friend was talking about at first when he mentioned Greeley.
The saying relies on the audience’s knowledge of Colorado’s cities, particularly Greeley, in order to be humorous. While not explicitly used to distinguish Colorado residents from outsiders, understanding of the joke would determine whether or not you live in/know of Colorado, or of the city of Greeley.
According to my friends, other cities in the area know of Greeley’s reputation as well. He does not know if they talk about the city in the same way.
“An American, a Russian, and a Mexican are in a plane…”
“Uh… an American, a Russian, and a Mexican are in a plane… and umm… the plane is about to crash or something that’s the joke.”
[“Uh huh.”]
“So the… the Russian jumps… jumps out and says ‘for my country! And… the American jumps out and says ‘for my flag!’ And then… the Mexican jumps out, and says, ‘for my sandalsss!!!!”
My friend is an animation major at the University of Southern California. She has some Irish relatives and Mexican relatives.
My friend remembers a joke her father told her in Spanish, but since I didn’t understand Spanish she told it to me in English and told the joke as best as she could. The joke is supposed to make fun of some stereotypes that Mexicans are aware of. The “sandals” referred to in the joke are “chancla,” which, as my friend described it, are sandals that Mexican women wear. Chancla are also associated with the image of angry Mexican mothers with chanclas in their hands, possibly beating children who upset them.
I find it interesting that this motif of introducing nationality as a primary piece of exposition finds its way into Mexican humor. I remember a joke that begins with “An Irishman, a Japanese, and an American were all in a hot air balloon” that proceeds to operate off of stereotypes as well. It never occurred to me to think that that particular motif would be in other cultures’ jokes. Since my friend heard this from her father, I’m guessing that more often than not this is a joke Mexicans would tell other Mexicans, since they’d understand why “chancla” are so iconic and so humorous in this context. The stereotyping of the Russian and American also seem to go off of Mexican perceptions of those two nationalities and their fervent nationalism. Since I heard this joke in English and had to have my friend explain the punchline for me, I believe this joke would be far better for someone who understood Spanish and understood Mexican culture. “Sandals” still evoke a pretty silly image, but “chancla” have a particular significance for Mexicans.