Monthly Archives: September 2019

Joke About the Impeachment Inquiry

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The joke:

Today House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced a formal impeachment inquiry against President Trump. To head it off, Trump now says his call to the Ukrainian president was a butt dial.

How I wrote it:

This was a big story so I wanted to write a joke about it. It’s also a political story, and writing jokes about political stories can be tricky. If you’re not careful, your joke will be rejected by a large segment of your audience.

I started with my Punch Line Maker #3–Ask a question about the topic–asking myself the natural question “How did President Trump react?”

To answer that question, I thought about the topic handle “impeachment inquiry,” which has the association “phone call to the Ukrainian president.” And “phone call” has the association “butt dial.”

So the punch line answers my original question by saying that President Trump reacted by claiming that his controversial phone call was an accidental butt dial. Lucky for me, “butt dial” also has three stop consonants, which makes it even funnier as a laugh trigger.

Notice that even though this is a joke about a political story, it stands a good chance of not alienating a lot of audience members because it’s based on things that pretty much everyone can accept as true: Trump did call the Ukrainian president and he often does offer dubious explanations for his behavior. For more tips on how to write political jokes, read my article “Writing Political Comedy.”

Joke About a Wig Theft

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The joke:

Thieves in Florida stole up to $80,000 in merchandise from a wig warehouse. Police are thoroughly combing through the crime scene because they want the thieves toupee.

How I wrote it:

I thought this news item was worth turning into a joke because it’s attention-getting, an important characteristic for a joke topic. It also has a couple of handles–“thieves” and “wig”–which have a lot of associations that can be used to generate punch lines.

I started by brainstorming associations of “wig,” landing on “toupee.” That sounds like “to pay,” which reminded me of sayings like “crime doesn’t pay,” which are associated with the other handle, “thieves.” That’s how I found myself using Punch Line Maker #4: Find a play on words in the topic.

I wanted to end the joke on the “toupee” wordplay because Joke Maximizer #2 advises “End on the laugh trigger.” To do that, the most logical way to word the punch line would be something like “The police want the thieves toupee.”

But that punch line seemed to need an angle to set it up better. Plus I wanted to be sure that anybody hearing (not just reading) the joke would get the wordplay. And I thought I could work in a second laugh trigger.

So I put some wordplay in the angle too, a second type of wordplay which involves a word with two different meanings. The word, “combing,” is a second link between “thieves” and “wig.”

Some people think wordplay jokes are an inferior type of comedy, but not me. For more on this topic, read my article “Why Do People Not Like Puns?”

Joke About Medicare for All

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The joke:

There was a lot of talk about health care at the Democratic debate last night. Melania Trump was so inspired that she proposed her own health care plan: Manicure for All.

How I wrote it:

I wrote this joke backwards. Usually I start with a news item. This time I started with a punch line and backed into the rest of the joke.

“Medicare for All” has been in the news lately in connection with the Democratic presidential candidates. So I played with the phrase in my head and came up with the wordplay “Manicure for All.” I thought it was surprising enough to be a good punch line.

Then I applied my Punch Line Maker #3: Ask a question about the topic. But instead, I asked a question about the punch line: “Who would propose a policy of Manicure for All?”

To answer that question, I brainstormed celebrities who are thought of as being overly concerned about their appearance, like the Kardashians. Sensing that the joke would be funniest if it related to someone in the world of politics, I landed on Melania Trump.

So now I had my angle: Melania Trump would propose her own health care plan, Manicure for All. All I needed now was a topic sentence, a reason Melania would do that.

I hadn’t watched the Democratic debate the night before, but news coverage told me that health care had been discussed a lot. Perfect. So I made that fact my topic and attached my angle and punch line to it to complete the joke.

Joke About Popeyes Chicken Sandwich

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The joke:

A man pulled out a gun at a Popeyes restaurant when he heard they had no more chicken sandwiches. He also objected to any new laws on bun control.

How I wrote it:

This news item caught my eye because it was weird, so I thought a joke about it might engage an audience.

Possible handles in the topic include “gun,” “Popeyes,” and “chicken sandwiches.” The most unexpected element in the topic is “gun,” so I decided that that had to be one of the handles.

I briefly considered using “Popeyes” as the second handle but concluded that associations like “spinach,” “Bluto,” and “Olive Oyl” would be too unfamiliar to most people.

So my two handles became “gun” and “chicken sandwiches.” The latter has the association “bun,” which rhymes with “gun,” so I realized I could probably construct a punch line using Punch Line Maker #4: Find a play on words in the topic.

“Gun” has the association “gun control,” so I just substituted “bun” into that phrase to make the necessary wordplay link and create the laugh trigger.

To complete the joke, I needed an angle to smoothly guide the audience from the topic sentence to “bun control.”

The angle “He also objected to any new laws on” works because anyone who pulls a gun because of a chicken sandwich shortage would probably also have strong feelings about restrictions on chicken sandwich components. This angle is an example of applying Joke Maximizer #4: Make everything clear.

Joke About the Birthday of the ATM

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The joke:

The inventor of the bank ATM machine is celebrating its 50th birthday. Actually, he celebrated its 20th birthday, then its 20th birthday again, and then its 10th birthday.

How I wrote it:

News items about interesting people who are marking some milestone, like a birthday, tend to attract my attention for joke writing. That’s because those news items lend themselves to a punch line that answers the natural question of how they celebrated.

To create this punch line I used Punch Line Maker #1: Link two associations of the topic. The two handles of the topic are “ATM” and “50th birthday.” The “50” in “50th birthday” reminded me of how ATMs dispense $50 bills but also give you the choice of taking your withdrawal in 10s and 20s.

To link “dispenses 10s and 20s” to the other handle, “50th birthday,” I constructed a punch line stating that the inventor celebrated the 50th birthday the way an ATM might dispense a $50 withdrawal.

I realize that “ATM” stands for “automated teller machine,” so writing “ATM machine” is redundant. But my Joke Maximizer #4 is “Make everything clear,” so I added the words “machine” and “bank” to “ATM” to ensure that my audience would immediately make the connection that my punch line depends on.

I also used Joke Maximizer #6: Make the punch line parallel. I wrote the punch line so that each of the three birthday celebrations sounded similar and repetitive, like bills being rhythmically dispensed by an ATM.