Category Archives: Joke Writing Workshop

Joe shows how the writing techniques in his book apply to some jokes about current events.

Joke About Vodka from Chernobyl

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The joke:

Soon you’ll be able to buy vodka made with grain and water from Chernobyl.  Even better, you’ll be able to drink twice as much with your two heads.

How I wrote it:

The original news headline I saw was “Scientists make radioactivity-free vodka from Chernobyl.” That headline has three possible handles–radioactivity-free, vodka, and Chernobyl–so my first task was to pick which two handles to try to base a joke on.

I chose the handles “vodka” and “Chernobyl” because “radioactivity-free” didn’t seem as though it would have as many clear associations.

Then I turned to Punch Line Maker #1: Link two associations of the topic. One association of “vodka” is “drinking it.” One association of “Chernobyl” is “strong radiation,” which has the sub-association “grow extra body parts.” My punch line links two associations by stating that you could drink twice as much if you had an extra head.

Once I had a punch line that worked, I edited the original news headline to arrive at the final version of my joke topic. I trimmed away the distracting element “radioactivity-free” because Joke Maximizer #1 is “Shorten as much as possible.”

But I included the detail “with grain and water,” taken from the body of the news story, to add credibility to the topic, because a good joke topic must strike the audience as factually true.

Would drinking radioactive vodka really make you grow a second head? No, but that’s okay because Joke Maximizer #8 is “Wildly exaggerate.”

Joke About Osama bin Laden’s Son

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The joke:

According to U.S. officials, Osama bin Laden’s son is believed to be dead. Bad timing for him: He had just gotten into USC as an elite rower.

How I wrote it:

Jokes about death can be tricky because the subject can bring out negative emotions in an audience that make it hard for them to laugh. But I figured a joke about the death of the future leader of Al Qaeda wouldn’t summon too many negative emotions.

To create this joke I gravitated toward Punch Line Maker #2: Link the topic to pop culture. I focused on the topic handle “Osama bin Laden’s son” and its association in my mind with “privileged child of somebody infamous.”

Then I thought about other privileged children of infamous people and settled on actress Lori Loughlin’s daughter, who had been admitted to USC after she fraudulently claimed she was an elite rower.

That example of USC’s crooked admissions process seemed like a fun connection to make so it became the basis of my punch line. But I made USC the focus of the punch line instead of Lori Loughlin’s daughter because I felt the audience would feel more comfortable laughing at the former.

The angle for the joke came last. Natural angles to consider for a topic like this are “The good news is…” and “The bad news is…” but neither of those fit logically into the joke. So I avoided any logic problem by adding the angle “Bad timing for him.”

Joke About National Chili Dog Day

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The joke:

Today is National Chili Dog Day. To celebrate, Robert Mueller ate a dozen chili dogs and then accused them of obstruction of rectum.

How I wrote it:

Sometimes if the big news stories of the day don’t inspire me I’ll go online and find out what the day is the National Day of. That’s how I came up with this topic. If you’re curious, that same day was also National Wine and Cheese Day, National Hire a Veteran Day, National Intern Day, and National Hot Fudge Sundae Day.

Once I chose one of those National Days that seemed to have a lot of associations, I brainstormed on the topic handle “chili dog.” “Chili dog” suggested “eating a lot of chili dogs,” which suggested (to me) “constipation,” which led me to…

…Punch Line Maker #2: Link the topic to pop culture. The Robert Mueller hearings were in the news, along with the associated concept of “obstruction of justice.” I realized that with the phrase “obstruction of rectum” I could link National Chili Dog Day to Robert Mueller and thus have the laugh trigger for a joke.

Then I added the angle beginning “To celebrate…”, which guides the audience smoothly and logically from the topic to the laugh trigger.

Why did I write “rectum” instead of “colon” or “bowel”? Because “rectum” has two stop consonants, which is one more than those other words have, and my Joke Maximizer #7 is “Use stop consonants, alliteration, and assonance.” “Rectum” is just a little bit funnier.

Joke About Apollo 11

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The joke:

Tomorrow is the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing. President Trump celebrated by telling Buzz Aldrin to go back to the moon where he came from.

How I wrote it:

One of the big news stories at the time was how President Trump tweeted that four congresswomen should “go back” to the “places from which they came.” The story was so big that I felt compelled to write a joke about it.

But instead of assuming that the Trump story would be the topic of the joke, I started by brainstorming on the phrase “go back” to see where that would take me.

I gravitated toward Punch Line Maker #2–Link the topic to pop culture–asking myself, “Who else in pop culture would President Trump tell to “go back” somewhere?

As it happened, another event that was dominating the news at that time was the Apollo 11 mission, which featured men landing on the moon and then returning to earth. When I realized that the association “going back” could link the Trump story to the Apollo 11 story, I had the basis of my punch line. I made the Apollo 11 story the topic because the wording of the joke seemed more natural that way.

I also checked my facts to be sure the joke would be clear, per Joke Maximizer #4. I confirmed that Buzz Aldrin had walked on the moon in Apollo 11 and was still alive. The internet makes it so easy to confirm information, why run any risk at all of botching a good joke?

Joke About a Cryptocurrency Theft

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The joke:

A Japanese cryptocurrency exchange was hacked and lost 3.5 billion yen worth of virtual money. To put that into perspective, that’s no money.

How I wrote it:

Cryptocurrencies seem to me to be such a sketchy financial vehicle that my first thought on reading this news item was something like, “Is virtual money even real?”

That thought led me to use Punch Line Maker #6: State the obvious about the topic. PLM #6 starts with the writer asking an obvious question suggested by the topic, which I had already done. And I assumed that most other people would have the same question.

The next step in PLM #6 is to write a punch line based on the obvious answer to that obvious question. I thought that most of my audience would agree with the answer that virtual money isn’t real money, so I wrote the punch line “that’s no money.”

Finally, I added the angle “To put that into perspective…” I thought it would mislead the audience into thinking that the rest of the sentence was going to tell them more about the huge size of the sum of stolen money. That mislead would make the punch line more surprising, and therefore funnier.

The original news story reported “the loss of 3.5 billion yen, or $32 million, worth of virtual money.” For my joke I quoted the amount of money in yen instead of dollars because I thought that made the virtual money sound even sketchier.

Joke About That 7.1 Earthquake

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The joke:

Recently Southern California was rocked by a 7.1 magnitude earthquake. The good news is, as a 7.1, it’s unlikely that President Trump would grope it.

How I wrote it:

I focused on this topic because it was a big news story and it had a couple of handles–“Southern California” and “earthquake”–with a lot of associations.

At first I considered using Punch Line Maker #1–Link two associations of the topic. But I had recently used that technique to write a joke about actor Jussie Smollett’s reaction to an earthquake.

So instead I turned to Punch Line Maker #2–Link the topic to pop culture–and to a different topic handle, “7.1.” As I brainstormed associations of “7.1,” it occurred to me that some people rate the physical attractiveness of women on a scale of 1 to 10.

Turning to pop culture, I asked myself who my audience would associate with assigning numerical ratings to women, and President Trump came to mind. He’s made no secret of the fact that a woman’s attractiveness is important to him.

So the basis of my punch line became President Trump treating the earthquake as a fairly attractive woman, i.e., a 7.1.

I could have worded the punch line something like, “A 7.1. Or as President Trump would say, ‘fairly attractive.'” But instead I used Joke Maximizer #8–“Wildly exaggerate.” I implied that our President is so obsessed with attractiveness ratings that he’d even consider groping an earthquake.

Joke About the Democratic Debate

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The joke:

Airing tonight on NBC is the first Democratic presidential debate. Over 20 million people are expected to watch…and those are just the candidates.

How I wrote it:

I picked the debate as a joke topic because it was very much in the news at the time.

I originally worded the topic something like “Tonight is the first Democratic presidential debate.” That topic only has one handle–“Democratic presidential debate”–so I started by brainstorming associations of that.

One fairly obvious association is “there are a lot of Democratic presidential candidates,” which has the sub-association “a lot of people.” To use Punch Line Maker #1–Link two associations of the topic–I also needed a second topic handle which is associated with “a lot of people.”

So I added to the topic a second handle–“airing on NBC”–which has the association “number of viewers” and the sub-association “a lot of people.” Now I could write a punch line based on the shared association “a lot of people.”

I added the angle “Over 20 million people are expected to watch” to guide the joke’s audience smoothly and logically from the topic to the punch line.

I picked the figure “20 million” for the number of candidates because Joke Maximizer #8 advises us to “Wildly exaggerate.” But 20 million also seemed like a plausible size for a debate audience, so using that number would help mislead the audience for the joke into thinking I was referring to TV viewers right up until the surprising laugh trigger, “candidates.”

Joke About a Rat at Buffalo Wild Wings

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The joke:

In California, a live rat fell from the ceiling and landed on a table at Buffalo Wild Wings. The good news is, the rat came with a choice of sixteen dipping sauces.

How I wrote it:

This topic seemed to offer a lot of directions to go in for punch lines.

Maybe Punch Line Maker #1 would work, if I could link an association of “rat” to an association of “Buffalo Wild Wings.”

Or maybe I could use Punch Line Maker #3 and ask a question about the topic like “Why was the rat at Buffalo Wild Wings?” or “What did the Buffalo Wild Wings staff do?”

But I ended up using Punch Line Maker #5: Visualize the topic. I’ve been to Buffalo Wild Wings so it was easy for me to form a mental picture of the rat dropping onto my table among plates of chicken wings, glasses of soda, and little plastic cups of sauce.

The next step in using Punch Line Maker #5 is to exaggerate some aspect of your mental picture. So I imagined that instead of dipping one of the chicken wings into a cup of sauce, I dipped the rat into the sauce. And that different, exaggerated perspective on my mental image of the topic became the basis of my punch line.

The final step was to word the joke in a way that suggested eating the rat without being too on-the-nose. A punch line that talked explicitly about eating the rat would not have been as funny because it would have been less surprising and more disgusting.

Joke About O. J. on Twitter

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The joke:

Released from prison after only nine years, O. J. Simpson has now joined Twitter. That makes sense. O. J. loves short sentences.

How I wrote it:

This topic caught my eye because both handles–“O. J. Simpson” and “Twitter”–seemed to have enough associations that could be linked to form a punch line.

I know well how many associations O. J. Simpson has because I used many of them to write jokes for “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” during O. J.’s “Trial of the Century” 25 years ago. So another reason I latched onto this topic was because I thought it would be fun to take a shot at O. J. again, like old times.

One challenge I had was deciding on an association of O. J. that most people would agree with. Today’s mass audience might not even remember Judge Ito, the white Ford Bronco, and the bloody glove.

So I brainstormed on Twitter instead, and its short sentences came to mind. The words “short sentence” also have a meaning associated with O. J.: I thought most people would accept the idea that he should have done more prison time for the double homicide. So I used Punch Line Maker #4–Find a play on words in the topic–to link “O. J. Simpson” to “Twitter.”

The final steps in writing the joke were to add an efficient angle–“That makes sense. O. J. loves…”–and to mention “only nine years” in the topic, to highlight the second meaning of “short sentence” and make the joke clear.

Joke About Dunkin’ Donuts

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The joke:

In NJ, some Dunkin’ Donuts customers may have been exposed to hepatitis A. It’s all part of the company’s new slogan, “America Runs a Fever on Dunkin’.”

How I wrote it:

I focused on this news item because both of its handles, “Dunkin’ Donuts” and “hepatitis A,” seemed to have a lot of associations. That meant it should be relatively easy to find a surprising link between two associations from which I could construct a punch line. It turned out to be harder than I expected.

First I thought of all the types of donuts and tried to blend a donut name with “hepatitis A” or with one of its associations, like “vaccine.”

Then I thought about what donut-related thing the “A” in “hepatitis A” might stand for. Could a Dunkin’ Donuts customer also get hepatitis C, the chocolate kind of hepatitis?

Finally, to help in brainstorming, I researched hepatitis A online. Among the possible symptoms is “fever.” The phrase “run a fever” popped into my head. Wasn’t “run” also a word in Dunkin’ Donuts’ slogan?

I confirmed that the company’s real slogan is “America Runs on Dunkin’.” Adding “a fever” to the middle of that phrase gave me the surprising linkage of associations for my punch line.

The last step was to add the angle “It’s all part of the company’s new slogan,” which smoothly provides a logical, if crazy, reason why the company would expose its customers to a virus.