Tag Archives: jokes

Ukrainian WW2 Joke

Nationality: Canadian
Age: 70
Occupation: CEO
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 05/2/2021
Primary Language: English

Informant’s Background:

The informant, in this case, is my father, F, who was a first generation immigrant born to an Ukrainian/Scottish family in Canada in 1950. His family was poor and working class, and he lived in Canada for many years before attending schools in England, and eventually moving back to Canada before moving with my mother to Los Angeles, in the United States, so she could take a job as a university professor. My brother and I were born a few years after.

Context:

My father told me this joke at dinner once. He asked me if I wanted to hear a Ukrainian joke and I said sure.

Performance:

F: “You are a Ukrainian soldier in the trenches, the Germans coming from one side, the Russians from the other. Who do you shoot first?
Answer:  The German.  Business before pleasure.”

Thoughts:

I think this is probably considered an offensive joke. It has a certain historical context, I suppose, but my father never provided any of his own thoughts on the joke, so all I can really do is to provide the joke in it’s original form. I do not think my father learned this joke from his father, I think he probably picked it up somewhere later in life. I tried to search online for traces of this joke, and I was able to find it but with the Ukrainian soldier replaced with a Polish one, so I guess it is re-told in that way and adopted by different cultures with a similar wartime history.

“Don’t eat yellow snow”

Nationality: cuban
Age: 54
Occupation: social work
Residence: san diego
Performance Date: may 2 2021
Primary Language: Spanish
Language: english

Context: My informant is a 54 year-old woman from Cuban descent. She grew up in Los Angeles, California and lived there until she moved to San Diego for college. Listed below is an account of one of the first jokes she remembers. She detailed that her parents used to use this joke whenever they were in the snow or mountains. 

Interviewer: “Do you have any tips?”

Informant: “Don’t eat yellow snow, that’s a tip!”

Interviewer: “Where did you learn that?”

Informant: “In Big Bear hahahahaha”

Thoughts:

Big Bear is a popular mountain with lots of snow near Los Angeles, California. The joke is a silly reply to the interviewer inquiring about any recommendations. The idea of “yellow snow” insinuates that someone or something might have peed in it. Obviously a person would want to be advised not to eat the snow because that would be unsanitary. This cheeky reply is something that could be told to a waiter or any other worker that one would tip. I found this joke very funny and did laugh for a long while with the informant. I will be telling this joke to friends when we go to the snow and the joke will continue on! 

The Joke: Boston Crow Story

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Glendale, California
Performance Date: March 19, 20202
Primary Language: English

Informant: have you heard of Boston Crows?” ‘No?’ Okay so, in Boston New York, there has been a recent discovery of these special crows that are smarter than your average crow. They have these white speckles, making them very distinct. They’ve been recorded learning how to talk, do routines, and a lot of other things. People started considering them the local pets, almost, but people then started to find a lot of the same crows dead. The outcry got researchers to look into this, led by avian expert Dr. Roseburg. Rosenburg theorized there were many possible factors: different life spans, specific diseases, or predators. So the team observed the crows, trying to find the cause. They found a very interesting behavioral pattern. These crows mated for life early on and would spend a lot if not all their time with those partners while foraging. The most frequently visited places for these crows were the sides of not very busy roads, where people threw out trash of their windows while driving by. This is when scientists discovered something, a majority of these birds were dying due to being hit by vehicles. But these crows were not stupid, they had a very good system of communicating with one another. One bird would sift through the trash while the other sat on a nearby sign post or something and be look out. When a vehicle came along the look out would alert the one down in the gutter so it could fly out in time. But some birds still got hit, for you see, while it’s very easy for a crow to say ‘cahr’… it is very difficult for them to say ‘truck’.

Background: My informant states that they learned this joke from Reddit but they don’t remember the original name of the person who posted it. They first told the joke close to how it was originally written but quickly developed a game out of it where they’d try to spin the story for as long as they could. Their record was 30 minutes

Context: I asked my informant about the joke specifically because they took pride in making the story longer every time they told it. Over Discord I told them to make the story as long as they wanted, they sent me this version a day later.

Thoughts: This is a wonderful example of a shaggy dog story, and allows a lot of creativity on the half of the teller. As long as the punch line isn’t altered you can make it as local or as distant as you want. It was also a great joke to hear someone tell if you already know the punchline, for then you can simply watch the reactions of others who haven’t heard the joke before. I believe I found the original post my informant was referring to on reddit, please see:
docpepson. ‘The Crow Mystery‘. r/Jokes. Jan 25, 2008. www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1l888r/the_crow_mystery/. Accessed March 22, 2020.

Psychiatrist Light Bulb Joke

Nationality: Canadian/American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: New York City
Performance Date: 02/14/20
Primary Language: English

Piece: 

Informant: How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb?

Collector: I don’t know, how many?

Informant: One, but the light has to want to change. 

Context: The informant was sitting next to me while I was doing homework in his living room. He turned over to me and posed the joke. The collection occurred in the piece’s natural performance setting.

Background: The informant is Canadian born, but has lived the majority of his life in the United States. He is the son of a psychologist and has frequently interacted with psychiatrists. To the informant, the joke is incredibly humorous based on the common principle in therapy and mental health treatment that a patient has to want to change for the treatment to be effective. He is unsure of where he learned the joke, but guessed that he may have heard it in a television show. 

Analysis: The joke is a variation on “How many ___ does it take to change a lightbulb?” jokes that often build upon existing stereotypes. This particular joke  relies on the common principle of mental health treatment that a patient has to want to change for the treatment to be effective. It also plays on two interpretations of the word change. On one hand, it relies on change as literal replacement as in the case of the lightbulb. On the other, it relies on change being understood as a mental transformation. Ultimately, the joke plays upon an understanding of Western psychiatry and the idea that a psychiatrist would approach everyday tasks the same way as he/she/they would approach his/her/their work. 

For another version of this joke, see:

Wikipedia. 2001. “Light-Bulb Joke.” Last Modified May 3, 2020. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lightbulb_joke&dir=prev&action=history

Ole and Lena Joke – Doctors Office

Nationality: American
Age: 52
Occupation: Communications Manager
Residence: Woodinville, WA
Performance Date: 4/29/20
Primary Language: English

Informant: Here’s a typical Ole and Lena joke. 

“Ole wasn’t feeling well, so he went to the doctor. After examining him, the doctor took his wife Lena aside, and said ‘Your husband has a very sensitive heart. I’m afraid he’s not gonna make it if you don’t treat him like a king, which means you are at his beck and call every day, 24 hours a day, and he won’t have to do anything for himself.’ On the way home, Ole asks, with a note of concern, ‘Vell? Vat did da doctor say?’ ‘Vell,’ Lena said. ‘It looks like you’re not gonna make it.’”

There are probably thousands, but at least hundreds that I heard from my dad and aunts and uncles. They had books, and every family gathering, it would dissolve into a session of Ole and Lena and Sven and Lars over time. And of course, the jokes are hysterical, because they were silly, and everyone would do the voices, and it was a very traditional thing that they had a lot of affection for. They weren’t offended by the fact that these jokes implied they were stupid. They thought they were funny.

Background/Thoughts:
The informant is the interviewer’s mother, who grew up in the suburbs of Seattle, Washington. The informant’s family adhered to many Scandinavian and German traditions, some of which have been in our family for generations. Ole and Lena jokes have remained a staple in my family as well, on both sides of my family. I’ve always found Ole and Lena jokes funny, although I know many people who don’t come from Scandinavian backgrounds who are afraid to laugh at them, because they don’t want to offend anyone. However, I’m not offended by the jokes, even though they paint Scandinavians as slow or stupid, and none of my extended family members are either.