For this weeks blog, week 10, I decided to write about "one of life's little frustrations." This little frustration has to do with jokes. I know a lot of the time when there are jokes going on I tend to not understasnd them. Inside jokes, long jokes, story involved jokes, punch lines or anything conplicated is confusing or can be confusing for me. And the worse part is when you have to ask for an explanationbecause by that time it is pointless and the joke is dead. It is never any fun when the joke is done and everybody else is laughing while you have a confused look on your face. The worse thing, well the thing I hate, is when you laugh just because everyone else is laughing.
Have you ever had a moment like that? I know I sre have, I actually have a lot of them. It is not like I am slow or anything I just tend to not pay attention. I don't do it on purpose it just happens. I have the tendency to blank on or during the important parts of jokes and stories. Even if they explain it to me again I still will not understand.
These are some examples of things or jokes that took some time for me to understand:
*this is a taco and burrito conversation, nachos. As not yours. Jokes that involve food just don't make any sense to me. I just don't find it funny to include food into jokes. Oh man and then there are "knock, knock" jokes. These are never entertaining in my book. There is an interesting knock, knock joke that annoys me every single time, actually there are two. The first one is: one person says 'knock knock'. The second person says 'who's there'. The first person responds with 'banana'. The second person says 'banana who'. And the first person says 'banana'. Once again the second person responds 'banana who'. And this cycle continues on for a few more reps. And then finally the first person says 'orange' and the second person responds 'orange who'. The joke finally ends with the great line of 'orange you glad I didn't say banana'. Once again with this joke we see the use of food in an annoying and repetative way. The second joke is another rediculous knock, knock joke. It starts with 'knock, knock' and the person responds with a 'who's there?' And then there is a long pause and you ask who's there again but still no answer. Whenever I hear this joke it bugs me soo much because I reslly want to know who's there. And every time I hear it it bugs me soo much that I literally say fine then don't tell me who's there geeze. And then walk away. another kind of joke that are very interesting are the ones that are used to see if people really think things are funny or if they just laugh to laugh. One like: there are two ducks in a bath tub. And one duck turns and looks at the other duck and asks who brought the bread? Ha ha. I don't get it but I know I have used it on occassion and people really laugh at it. I don't know why but they do.
There are many, many jokes I do not understand but if I continued I would be writing forever. And I don't really have that kind of time or paper. :) I feel that a joke should be a funny, simple and straight to the point kind of thing. I mean jokes are made to be funny and laughed at like almost instantly not made to be thought about and processed before laughing. Seriously people if you take more than a minute or two to tell the joke don't bother. And if you need to explain it, just don't, ot if it doesn't make sense don't bother either.
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This is a very interesting blog. I like your unique perspective on what constitutes a "funny" joke. Your examples such as "orange you glad I didn't say banana" remind us that what is funny to one person may not be to another. In the case of the silly knock-knock joke, it was a harmless misunderstanding of another person's intended humor. However, there could easily have been a more serious misunderstanding or malicious intent behind the joke. Racist jokes would be a good example of malicious intent to slander or undermine another ethnic joke in the guise of a humor.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that if a joke's context needs to be explained or doesn't illicit even the smallest smile, it's just not funny. Dennis Miller jokes are often like that. One has to have a PhD in American History and Politics to understand the allusions to his punch lines!