Monthly Archives: October 2019

Joke About Henry Thomas’s DUI

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The joke:

The actor who played the young boy in “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial,” Henry Thomas, was arrested for DUI. H.T. phoned home…for bail money.

How I wrote it:

This news item caught my eye because “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” has the familiar association “E.T. phone home.” And I thought I could probably use my Punch Line Maker #1 to link that catchphrase with a second association of the topic.

For the second association, I might have found an association of “DUI” that I could use to construct a punch line. But the “phone” part of “E.T. phone home” raised the question of why Henry Thomas might make a phone call. That’s how I ended up using an association of “arrested,” which is “phoning somebody from jail.”

I got lucky that Henry Thomas’s initials are close to “E.T.” That let me do a clean substitution of “H.T” for “E.T” in the famous catchphrase.

Then I added “for bail money” at the very end, to make it clear why H.T. would be phoning home. My Joke Maximizer #4 is “Make everything clear,” and that includes the logic of the joke.

In the original news item, “Henry Thomas” came at the beginning. But I used my Joke Maximizer #3–Backload the topic–when I moved the name toward the end of the topic sentence, where it could better remind the audience what “H.T.” stands for.

Joke About a Ouija Board

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The joke:

A New Jersey man broke a Guinness World Record for the largest Ouija board. When he heard about the board, Hunter Biden was like, “How much do they pay and can I be on it?

How I wrote it:

I focused on this news item because “Guinness World Record” and “Ouija board” each seemed to have many associations that might spark a punch line.

At the time, a bigger news story involved Hunter Biden, son of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. Hunter got paid a lot of money to serve as a board member for a Ukrainian gas company, even though his qualifications were, apparently, minimal.

So when I read “Ouija board,” the association “board” reminded me of Hunter Biden and I decided to use my Punch Line Maker #2: Link the topic to pop culture. I wrote a punch line based on Hunter’s mercenary reaction to hearing about the board.

I also used my Joke Maximizer #4–Make everything clear–in two ways. I repeated the word “board,” saying it again right before “Hunter Biden.” That way the audience would be sure to have in their minds the word that the punch line depends on.

And I had Hunter ask two questions about the board, to be sure the audience would know that he’s referring to a corporate board. If the punch line had ended with only one question from Hunter–“Can I be on it?”–the audience might have thought he wanted to physically stand on the Ouija board. And, confused, they wouldn’t have laughed.

Joke About a 101-Year-Old Greeter

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The joke:

A woman working as a greeter at the Texas State Fair is 101 years old. Isn’t that great? She’s so old, the Democrats just invited her to run for president.

How I wrote it:

The news item attracted my attention because it involves old age, which has lots of associations that can be used to create a joke.

The most obvious handle in the topic is “101 years old,” which has the association “really old person.” Another possible handle is “Texas State Fair,” which doesn’t have many associations for me other than maybe “weird fried food.”

So I could have linked the associations “really old person” and “weird fried food” to come up with some laugh trigger like “deep-fried Centrum Silver.” But instead I opened up the joke by turning to Punch Line Maker #2: Link the topic to pop culture.

To do that, I tried to think of something in pop culture suggested by “really old person.” Bernie Sanders had just had a heart attack, which gave me the idea of basing a punch line on the fact that the three leading Democratic candidates for president are 70 or older.

I didn’t strictly need the sentence “Isn’t that great?” But I thought it helped the joke by misleading the audience into expecting that the joke would end on a positive aspect of old age instead of a negative.

This is a political joke, which can be tricky. But I thought a mass audience might enjoy it because the punch line is based on a recognized fact, not an opinion. And I make plenty of jokes about the Republicans, too.

Joke About Expensive Beer

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The joke:

A vendor was arrested at Sunday’s Miami Dolphins game after he charged a fan $724 for two beers. That’s outrageous. $724 is the price for three beers.

How I wrote it:

I gravitated toward this news item because it has two handles–“$724” and “two beers”–that seemed to have a lot of associations that could be used to create a punch line.

Also, I thought my audience would appreciate a joke about how expensive food is at a pro football stadium.

I used my Punch Line Maker #1: Link two associations of the topic. The topic handle “two beers” has as one association “three beers.” My punch line links “three beers” to the other topic handle, “$724,” by stating that $724 is the price for three beers.

The idea of the punch line is obviously that stadium food is really expensive, an idea that most people would agree with. That makes the punch line “true,” which is an important characteristic of any good punch line.

Once I had my punch line, I added the angle “That’s outrageous.” By doing so I mislead the audience about where the joke is going, maximizing the surprise, and funniness, of the punch line.

By contrast, here’s a different angle/punch line combination that also states that stadium food is really expensive but is so on-the-nose that it isn’t funny: “That fan is lucky he wasn’t charged $7,024 for two beers.”

The final version of my joke also takes advantage of my Joke Maximizer #8: Wildly exaggerate. $724 is a ridiculously high price to charge for three beers, even at a sports stadium.