Joe Toplyn

  • Home
  • About
  • Blog
  • Galleries
    • “Late Night with David Letterman”
    • “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno”
    • “Monk”
  • Events
  • Media Page
  • Contact

Monthly Archives: April 2019

Joke About Russia and N. Korea

Posted on April 29, 2019 by Joe Toplyn

The joke:

For the first time ever, Vladimir Putin will be meeting Kim Jong Un. It’s pretty cool. They’re meeting at a fancy hotel so the reservation will read “Putin Un, the Ritz.”

How I wrote it:

I gravitated toward this news item because the handles “Vladimir Putin” and “Kim Jong Un” both have a good number of associations that might be used to devise a punch line. Plus both of the names seem to lend themselves to wordplay.

I remembered this hilarious wordplay joke that Conan O’Brien once delivered in a monologue: “It’s been reported that in high school, Kim Jong Un starred in a production of the musical ‘Grease.’ That’s also where Kim met his first wife, Olivia Newton Jong.” So I first considered writing my own Kim Jong Un wordplay joke.

But then I noticed that “Putin” sounds like “puttin’,” which I associated with the song title “Puttin’ on the Ritz.” Then I got lucky, realizing that “on” sounds like “Un.”

Linking those two wordplays into a surprising new song title gave me my punch line, thanks to Punch Line Maker #4: Find a play on words in the topic.

My last task was to construct an angle that logically connects the topic to “Putin Un the Ritz.” The Ritz is a fancy hotel, and these summits often seem to take place at fancy hotels, so claiming that the punch line is a reservation for the summit seemed to do the job.

Posted in Joke Writing Workshop | Tags: Kim, North Korea, Putin, Russia, summit | Leave a comment |

Joke About Measles at Google

Posted on April 22, 2019 by Joe Toplyn

The joke:

A worker who visited Google’s headquarters has been diagnosed with measles. And apparently it’s spreading. Now the Google logo has 37 red Os.

How I wrote it:

The original news headline that caught my eye was something like “Measles reported at Google’s Silicon Valley headquarters.”

The two most promising topic handles seemed to be “Google” and “measles,” because each of them has many associations and because “Silicon Valley” didn’t seem to be as distinctive and interesting a place for measles as “Google.”

I left out the unimportant “Silicon Valley” detail to shorten the topic but added the detail about the worker who visited Google. It was factual and I thought it made the topic more vivid and credible, but because it isn’t very important to the joke, I made sure it came at the beginning; Joke Maximizer #3 is “Backload the topic.”

Once I had my two topic handles, I plugged them into Punch Line Maker #1: Link two associations of the topic. One association of “Google” is those two Os in its logo. One association of “measles” is “red spots.”

I linked those two associations with a punch line that created a mental image of the Google logo with red spots instead of Os.

Then I boosted the number of Os to 37 because measles rashes usually have more than two spots and because Joke Maximizer #8 is “Wildly exaggerate.”

Posted in Joke Writing Workshop | Tags: Google, logo, measles | Leave a comment |

Joke About a Spaceplane

Posted on April 15, 2019 by Joe Toplyn

The joke:

Now there’s a ‘spaceplane’ that flies 25 times faster than the speed of sound. Fantastic! So if a baby is crying in the seat behind you, you won’t be able to hear it.

How I wrote it:

I focused on this news item because both of its handles–“spaceplane” and “flies 25 times faster than the speed of sound”–seemed to have lots of associations that could be linked to create punch lines.

But I didn’t use Punch Line Maker #1, “Link two associations of the topic.” Instead, the vivid image that the topic called to mind pointed me to Punch Line Maker #5–Visualize the topic.

I started by visualizing the interior of a futuristic spaceplane flying 25 times faster than the speed of sound: passengers sleeping, passengers reading, flight attendants walking the aisles, a crying baby…

Then I exaggerated an aspect of that mental picture. Because crying babies make sounds, I imagined that the plane was flying so much faster than the speed of sound that it left behind the noise of that baby I envisioned crying in a neighboring seat. And I had the idea for my punch line.

My last step was to add an angle to guide the audience smoothly from the topic to the punch line. “Fantastic!” leads the audience to expect some benefit of flying in that super-fast plane.

And “So if a baby is crying in the seat behind you” makes the logic of the joke clear; if the crying baby were sitting in front of you instead, you’d be able to hear it. As my Joke Maximizer #4 recommends, “Make everything clear.”

Posted in Joke Writing Workshop | Tags: crying baby, spaceplane, speed of sound | Leave a comment |

Joke About the Bezos Divorce

Posted on April 8, 2019 by Joe Toplyn

The joke:

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has finalized his divorce. And this is interesting…Amazon says that customers who liked the Bezos divorce also liked Nicolas Cage’s divorce.

How I wrote it:

The original news item attracted my attention because it had several possible handles with lots of associations, like “Amazon,” “divorce,” “$150 billion,” and “the richest person in the world.”

After I settled on “Amazon” and “divorce” as the handles to base a punch line on, I trimmed away all excess verbiage in the news item to get my topic sentence; that’s because my Joke Maximizer #1 is “Shorten as much as possible.”

The handle “Amazon” is associated with, among many other things, its feature “Customers who bought this item also bought…”

The handle “divorce” is associated with other well-known people who got divorced recently, one of whom is Nicolas Cage (as I was reminded when I googled recent celebrity divorces).

To get my punch line, I blended “Customers who bought this item also bought…” with “Nicolas Cage’s divorce,” modifying as few words as possible so the association with Amazon’s recommendation feature would be clear.

Then I reinforced that association by adding the angle “And this is interesting…Amazon says that…”

I was pleased that “Nicolas Cage,” besides being an amusingly offbeat celebrity, also happens to have two “K” sounds in his name. That let me employ my Joke Maximizer #7, which is “Use stop consonants, alliteration, and assonance.”

Posted in Joke Writing Workshop | Tags: divorce, jeff bezos, Nicolas Cage | Leave a comment |

Joke About Jussie Smollett

Posted on April 1, 2019 by Joe Toplyn

The joke:

Jussie Smollett did not win Best Supporting Actor at the NAACP Image Awards. On the plus side, the story about his attack did win an Imaginary Award.

How I wrote it:

I picked this topic to write a joke about because the mass media are still covering the Jussie Smollett controversy enthusiastically. That’s a good indication that a mass audience would enjoy a joke on the topic; if a topic is uninteresting, people are less likely to pay attention to a joke about it and therefore less likely to laugh.

Once I had the topic, I identified two handles in it: “Jussie Smollett” and “NAACP.” Interesting associations of Jussie Smollett that I thought most people would agree with were things like “hoax” and “scam.”

So I wanted to use Punch Line Maker #1–Link two associations of the topic–by coming up with an alternate meaning for the initials NAACP that says “hoax.” That way I could finish the joke something like this: “But he did win a big award from that other NAACP, the [INSERT HOAXY MEANING HERE].” But after thinking about it for a minute or so I couldn’t come up with a good way to fill in the blank.

Then I turned my attention to a different topic handle, “Image Awards.” It occurred to me that “image” sounds kind of like “imaginary,” which is associated with “hoax.” That insight allowed me to use Punch Line Maker #4–“Find a play on words in the topic”–to link Jussie Smollett to the Image Awards in a surprising way and, I hoped, get a laugh.

Posted in Joke Writing Workshop | Tags: hoax, Image Award, Jussie Smollett, NAACP, scam | 1 Comment |

Sign up to get more tips and offers from Joe.

Joe’s Tweets

Joe Toplyn 16 hours ago

Because egg prices are so high, the discount store Dollar Tree has taken eggs off its shelves. A dozen large Grade A eggs was costing over four dollars, but the good news is, for a dollar you can still buy a dozen hummingbird eggs.

Joe Toplyn 3 days ago

A new report says that the virus that causes Covid-19 may be linked to raccoon dogs that were sold at a wet market in Wuhan, China. Which is bad news for people in Arkansas who like to go to the ballpark and enjoy a cold beer and a foot-long raccoon dog with ketchup and mustard.

Joe Toplyn 4 days ago

It's St. Patrick's Day 2023. To mark the occasion, Silicon Valley Bank revealed that, when it collapsed, over 90% of its liquid assets consisted of Shamrock Shakes.

Joe Toplyn 5 days ago

The Kellogg Company is splitting its snack and cereal products into two different businesses. Apparently the split is pretty traumatic. Rice Krispies had to take Snap, Crackle, and Pop aside and tell them it wasn't their fault.

Joe Toplyn 5 days ago

Yesterday two Russian jets hit a $32 million U.S. drone and it went down in the Black Sea. The good news is, as the drone went down, it popped a Chinese spy balloon.

Joe Toplyn 6 days ago

Former White House press secretary Jen Psaki said that President Biden typically "does nothing at 9:00 a.m." So when somebody says that the President has his finger on the button…it's the snooze button.

Categories

Pages

  • About Joe
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Events
  • Media Page
  • Photo Galleries
    • “Late Night with David Letterman”
    • “Monk”
    • “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno”

Recent Posts

  • Joke About a Tattoo Artist March 13, 2023
  • Joke About Valentine’s Day Doughnuts February 13, 2023
  • Joke About Disney Employees Going Back to the Office January 16, 2023
  • Joke About the Wright Brothers December 19, 2022
  • Joke About the Pine Sol Recall November 21, 2022

Pages

  • About Joe
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Events
  • Media Page
  • Photo Galleries
    • “Late Night with David Letterman”
    • “Monk”
    • “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno”

Archives

  • March 2023
  • February 2023
  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • February 2015
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014

Categories

  • Joke Writing Workshop (358)
  • Late-Night Writing (13)
  • Writing Tips (12)

WordPress

  • Log in
  • WordPress

CyberChimps WordPress Themes

© 2014 Joe Toplyn. All Rights Reserved.