Monthly Archives: April 2020

Joke About Ruth’s Chris Steak House

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The joke:

Ruth’s Chris Steak House will return the $20 million small-business loan it received from the government. When asked for comment, steak experts said, “Well done.”

How I wrote it:

To write this joke I used my Punch Line Maker #1–Link two associations of the topic–but in an unconventional way.

The conventional way is to start by identifying two words or short phrases in the topic that stand out and could serve as the handles for creating the punch line. One obvious handle is “Ruth’s Chris Steak House.”

The second topic handle could be “loan,” “small business,” or “$20 million.” But as I thought more about the topic, and about what the restaurant chain had done, phrases like “good job” and “nice work” popped into my head.

Then I realized that “Ruth’s Chris Steak House” has the association “steak,” which has the sub-association “well done.” And I could create a punch line by linking “well done” with the idea that the restaurant chain had done a good thing.

This joke shows that a topic handle doesn’t have to be a word or phrase in the topic; it could also be something that stands out about the topic as a whole.

I considered omitting an angle and just going right from the topic sentence to “well done.” But I decided that the wordplay would be clearer, and the joke funnier, if I included an angle that repeats the word “steak” from the topic without telegraphing the punch line.

Joke About Johnson & Johnson

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The joke:
Today health products maker Johnson & Johnson said it’s racing to develop a coronavirus vaccine. Also, because of social distancing, it changed its name to Johnson…………&…………Johnson.

How I wrote it:
This news item attracted my attention because Johnson & Johnson makes a lot of consumer products that I thought could be linked to some coronavirus association to create a punch line.

But looking at the company’s name led me to consider using my Punch Line Maker #5: Visualize the topic. I adopted a different perspective on “Johnson & Johnson,” imagining each “Johnson” to be a literal human being.

Then I brainstormed associations of the other topic handle, “coronavirus,” which led to “social distancing.” I linked that association to the idea of each “Johnson” being a literal person to create the punch line, which puts social distance between each Johnson in the company’s name.

Finally, I added an angle that explicitly mentions social distancing.  That way the angle would make the punch line clear (Joke Maximizer #4) without telegraphing it (Joke Maximizer #5).

I write my jokes to be spoken, and when I came up with this punch line I imagined that the speaker would deliver it by inserting long pauses between the elements of the laugh trigger.

But as I thought about it more, I realized that I could achieve the same effect in print by using long lines of dots. Sometimes a joke, like a wordplay joke, will only work in print and not when spoken. But this joke isn’t one of them.

Joke About a Bond Girl

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The joke:

Actress Honor Blackman, who played Bond girl Pussy Galore, passed away. Memorial donations may be made to the American Cooter Society.

How I wrote it:

I wanted to turn this news item into a joke because the single entendre “Pussy Galore” was just begging to be mocked.

The other topic handle, “passed away,” has the association “obituary,” which has the sub-association “memorial donations may be made to.” To connect that sub-association to “Pussy,” I needed the name of a charity that I could link to some synonym for female genitalia.

I didn’t want to get too vulgar; “Pussy” was vulgar enough. But I remembered reading that Tina Fey favors the word “cooter.”

To confirm that, I did some research and discovered that Tina used the word to name an episode she wrote for her series “30 Rock.” And in an interview quoted in Wikipedia she explained that she likes the word because “it’s one of the least graphic ways to describe the female genitals.” If the word “cooter” was good enough for Tina Fey, it was good enough for me.

Brainstorming charities turned up the American Cancer Society. The wordplay between “cooter” and “cancer” was strong enough that I was able to substitute one for the other to create my punch line.

Besides not being too graphic, “cooter” has another characteristic Tina didn’t mention that makes it funny: its two stop consonants, “c” and “t.” As my Joke Maximizer #7 advises: “Use stop consonants, alliteration, and assonance.”

For more on using stop consonants, read my article “How Jerry Seinfeld Writes a Joke, Revealed.”

Joke About Squirrels and the Coronavirus

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The joke:

In New York City, there’s a new field hospital for coronavirus patients in Central Park. It has the squirrels so concerned that they’re rubbing Purell on their nuts.

How I wrote it:

This news item caught my eye because it had to do with Central Park. More on that later.

To write the joke I used my Punch Line Maker #1: Link two associations of the topic. One topic handle, “coronavirus,” has the association “Purell.” The other topic handle, “Central Park,” has the association “squirrels.”

My punch line links those two associations by stating that the squirrels are rubbing Purell on either their food or their genitals, depending on how you interpret the wordplay.

This joke is a tribute to the Central Park squirrel jokes that Dave Letterman often told in his “Late Show” monologue. This joke is typical: “It was so hot in Central Park today, I saw a squirrel rubbing sunblock on his nuts.”

For more of Dave’s squirrel jokes, here’s a short video of celebrities retelling some of them:

Part of the fun of Dave’s squirrel jokes is that “nuts,” in the context of the joke, can often only mean “genitals.” For example, nuts such as acorns don’t need sunblock no matter how hot it is.

But I like the fact that in my joke, the wordplay punch line really does have a double meaning. In this pandemic, people are not only rubbing Purell on parts of their body, but also on objects they touch frequently. So in the case of anthropomorphic squirrels, those objects could conceivably include the food they’ve gathered.