Monthly Archives: November 2019

Joke About an Unsafe Toy

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The joke:

Today a watchdog group released its 2019 list of the toys deemed most unsafe for children. At the top of the list: Tickle Me Epstein.

How I wrote it:

This news item grabbed my interest because it reminded me of the prop pieces we used to do on Dave Letterman’s late-night shows. Writers would write jokes for a segment like “Dave’s Toy Shoppe” and then the prop department would actually build the “wacky props” and Dave would display them as he delivered the jokes. Prop pieces always got big laughs.

To write this joke I turned to my Punch Line Maker #2: Link the topic to pop culture. The handle of the topic is “unsafe toys,” so my first task was to think of someone or something in pop culture that would be unsafe in toy form.

Sex offender Jeffrey Epstein had resurfaced in the news, because of his association with Prince Andrew. And Epstein was known for sexually abusing underage girls. So a Jeffrey Epstein toy would definitely qualify as unsafe.

To create a snappy name for the toy I thought of lots of real-life toys while keeping in mind what Epstein did, including his massages. Tickle Me Elmo came to mind.

Luckily for me, “Elmo” and “Epstein” both have two syllables and begin with “E.” So substituting one for the other to create the name of the toy results in wordplay that is tighter than it could be and therefore more surprising and funnier.

Of course, there’s nothing funny about sex abuse. But the joke works for most people because it doesn’t call to mind any graphic details of Epstein’s crimes.

Plus the joke is really about how some stupid company thinks it can convince people to buy an obviously bad product. And stupid companies make great targets for jokes.

Joke About Apple’s Credit Card

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The joke:

Apple’s credit card is being investigated for discriminating against women. Unbelievable. Apple even changed the name from Mastercard. It’s a Mistercard.

How I wrote it:

This news item got my interest because it raised a question: How could a credit card, especially one from Apple, discriminate against women?

But the two most-promising handles of the topic–“credit card” and “discriminating against women”–didn’t have a lot of obvious associations, a fact that normally prompts me to skip over the news item.

Still, I thought about the handles for a moment and realized that one association of “credit card,” “Mastercard,” has wordplay with “Mistercard.” And “Mistercard” could be a link to the second handle, “discriminating against women.” That’s how I backed into using my Punch Line Maker #4: Find a play on words in the topic.

Now I knew I wanted the joke to end on the laugh trigger “Mistercard.” But I thought that wording the joke like this wouldn’t be clear enough: “Apple’s credit card is being investigated for discriminating against women. They’re calling it a Mistercard.” I thought that some of the audience might not get the play on words.

So, for additional clarity, I wrote an angle that logically connects the topic to the punch line and includes “Mastercard.”

I also added “Unbelievable” so the audience would be expecting to hear how the credit card discriminates against women and therefore get the implication of “Mistercard” a little quicker.

Joke About the Space Station Oven

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The joke:

This just arrived at the International Space Station: a small oven to bake cookies in zero gravity. Hasbro calls it the Difficult-Bake Oven.

How I wrote it:

This news story caught my eye because it was odd and it seemed to have enough associations to build a punch line on.

One handle of the topic is “small oven to bake cookies,” which called to mind the association “Easy-Bake Oven.” To be sure that I wasn’t the only one who makes that association, I confirmed online that the toy was still being sold.

A second topic handle is “International Space Station,” which made me think of an association like “harsh environment.”

Based on those two associations, I decided to use my Punch Line Maker #1: Link two associations of the topic. I linked the two associations, and made a punch line, by substituting “Difficult” for the first word in “Easy-Bake Oven.”

I considered using my Joke Maximizer #8–Wildly exaggerate–and making the punch line something like “Really, Really Difficult-Bake Oven.” But instead I decided that the joke would be stronger if I used my Joke Maximizer #1: Shorten as much as possible.

Finally I turned to the angle. I thought the association with Easy-Bake Oven might not be clear enough if I ended the joke this way: “It’s called the Difficult-Bake Oven.” So I included in the angle the name of the company that makes the Easy-Bake Oven. That way, when the punch line lands, the audience is expecting the name of a toy.

Joke About Halloween Costumes

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The joke:

It’s almost Halloween. Lots of people are rushing out to buy the new costumes. In fact, sales of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi costumes are really blowing up.

How I wrote it:

ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi had just killed himself by detonating a suicide vest. Usually if a news story is about somebody dying, that rules the story out as the topic for a joke. Most people would feel too guilty to laugh.

But in this case, the deceased was a truly heinous terrorist, murderer, and serial rapist. Still, I thought that some people in our politically fractured country might be reluctant to laugh at a joke celebrating his death.

So I decided to write an al-Baghdadi joke that relies on facts, not on opinions. As I brainstormed about the facts of his death, the phrase “blow up” popped into my head. Because that phrase can have different meanings, I decided to use my Punch Line Maker #4: Find a play on words in the topic.

I didn’t have a topic yet, so I had to devise one. I thought about other current events and came up with the topic “It’s almost Halloween. Lots of people are rushing out to buy the new costumes.” With that topic, my handle could be “buy the new costumes,” which has the association “sales” and the sub-association “blow up.” And I had the play on words I was after.

Usually you start with a topic when you write a joke, but this time I backed into a topic from my desired punch line.