This was going to be a comment on the previous post, but got rather out of hand. So here it is, as a FPP:
I was just being a smartass when I linked to the Wikipedia entry on “Joke”, but now I’ve read it. Despite being deeply flawed and in need of serious overhaul, it was profoundly interesting.
In the section on joke “cycles” (as a form of literature), the following is noted: “the Rastus and Liza Joke Cycle, which Dundes describes as ‘the most vicious and widespread white anti-Negro joke cycle.’” Wow. OK. Never heard of that. Exactly what are the bounds of the “most vicious … anti-Negro joke”? Would it qualify as the “most vicious joke” generally? So I did a Google search, and could not find a single page that collected such jokes. Not one. Are the jokes so verboten that they cannot even be discussed historically and academically?
I don’t think this is a very good prohibition. To be sure, I do not want, in any hedonistic fashion, to pollute my brain with hate. But I do think it the responsibility of educated people to understand what the explored limits are, if only to keep them from recurring. This is the way I felt when I read the plot synopses of the “most extreme” horror films at IMDB, or decided to find out what “putrid pornography” really entails, or eventually, although I am not looking forward to it, reading Mein Kampf. It’s all nauseating, but so is visiting Auschwitz and Hiroshima, and I think those are very worthwhile ventures.
To show how unusual this belief seems to be, I guarantee you that the previous paragraph will get this entire site permanently banned by blacklisting and filtering technology, as soon as their spiders appear. Some of you are not going to be able to browse this site at work any longer. Sorry.
Also from the page: “Surrealist or minimalist jokes exploit semantic inconsistency, for example: Q: What’s red and invisible? A: No tomatoes.” This is hilarious. I can’t stop laughing at it. This probably tells a great deal about my psyche and very little about the joke.
Also, don’t miss the entry for the World’s Funniest Joke, which offers four contenders. I find only the first to be wickedly funny. The second is amusing but very predictable, and is not even the funniest Holmes joke, in my opinion. That was, I believe, provided by John Cleese in The Strange Case of the End of Civilization as We Know It (if I’m remembering correctly), in which the entire premise is that Holmes only appears brilliant in Watson’s accounts because Watson is an imbecile. Consider the following (paraphrased):
Holmes: “I am Holmes and this is Watson. He understands very little.”
Watson: (Patting him affectionately on the knee:) “Thank you, Holmes.”
Visitors to my home recalling their first introduction to my cat Sebastian may make a connection: I usually introduce him by saying, “This is Sebastian. (Pause.) He understands very little.” This is funniest when familiar with the original. It is surprising that Holmes should consider Watson feeble-minded. It is not at all surprising that I should have a poor opinion of the semantic insight of my pet cat. But it points to the extreme importances of meta-levels to my sense of humor.
The other two, apparently considered the funniest jokes in Britain and Australia are, curiously, funny only in their cruelty to women and children. I didn’t even chuckle.
Here, for the record, are three of my favorite jokes:
Two lengths of rope walk into a bar. One goes up to the bartender and orders two beers. The bartender replies, “You’re a length of rope, aren’t you?”
The length of rope replies, “Yes, I am.”
The bartender says, “We don’t serve your kind in here.”
The length of rope sulks back to the table. The other length of rope, upon seeing this, irrevocably tangles himself and unravels at his ends. He approaches the bar and orders two beers. The bartender replies, “You’re a length of rope, aren’t you?”
“No, I’m a frayed knot,” comes the reply.
The transcription of the second is listed wholesale from Metafilter:
Jesus is hanging on the cross, when he looks down and weakly calls out, “John…”
Wanting to hear the final words of the lord, John makes his way towards the base of the cross but is stopped by guards who break both of his legs and throw him back down the small hill.
After pulling himself up, John looks to the cross and still hears Jesus saying, “John…John”
Again, he pulls himself up the hill towards the cross, but again the guards beat him, this time until both of his arms are broken and push him back down the small hill.
After regaining consciousness, John looks up to the cross one last time, still hearing his name being called. Slowly, but surely, he crawls up the hill while in constant pain, and this time the guards let him pass, thinking there is no harm he can do in his condition.
Exhausted upon reaching the base of the cross, John looks up to Jesus and utters the words, “Yes, my Lord?”
Jesus looks down and then out across the land and says, “John… I can see your house from here.”
Finally:
Q: What’s the difference between a duck?
A: One leg is both the same.
I would contend the jokes are very different. The first is an effective pun. The second, while it appears cruel at first, is really effective because it subverts some of the most deeply-ingrained melodrama in our culture: the significance of every moment of Jesus Christ on the cross. The third is hilarious because it syntactically mimics a very familiar pattern, but does so in a semantically empty fashion.
So, what are your favorites? And is there a uniting theme to my faves that I am not perceiving? They are maybe united by being vaguely “surreal”. But that’s a rather weak inclusion.
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