Category Archives: Joke Writing Workshop

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

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.

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.

Joke About a Rock on Mars

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The joke:

NASA named a rock on Mars for the legendary band the Rolling Stones. Scientists said they did it because the rock has the same age and density as Keith Richards’s liver.

How I wrote it:

At first I focused on this news item because it was interesting. And if a story interests me, it’s likely to interest many other people, which makes it a top candidate for being a joke topic. The news item also seemed promising because it has a couple of handles with many associations.

So I turned to Punch Line Maker #1: Link two associations of the topic. One topic handle, “rock,” has the association “hard.” The other topic handle, “the Rolling Stones,” has the association “Keith Richards,” who is associated with “alcohol abuse.”

I realized that I could link “rock-hard” to “Keith Richards’s alcohol abuse” with the idea of his rock-hard liver. Is Richards’s liver really as hard as a rock? No, but my Joke Maximizer #8 is “Wildly exaggerate.”

Finally I had to add an angle to the joke. “Scientists said they did it because the rock is as hard as Keith Richards’s liver” would have worked okay, but most rocks are hard, and my Joke Maximizer #9 is “Get specific.”

So I considered the more specific handle “a rock on Mars,” which in addition to being hard is also very old, an association it shares with Keith Richards and his liver.

I combined the ideas of “hard” and “old” in the angle “Scientists said they did it because the rock has the same age and density as…” Because that angle exploits two links between the topic handles instead of just one, it makes the joke a little more surprising and therefore funnier.

Joke About Placido Domingo

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The joke:

Women are leveling charges of sexual harassment against opera superstar Placido Domingo. It looks bad, but to be fair, it ain’t over till the fat lady testifies.

How I wrote it:

This news item attracted my attention because it has a couple of handles with many associations–“sexual harassment” and “opera.”

Because the topic has two good handles, I then turned to Punch Line Maker #1: Link two associations of the topic.

“Sexual harassment” has the association “trial,” which has the sub-association “testify.” And “opera” is associated with the opera-themed proverb “it ain’t over till the fat lady sings.” To link two associations of the topic, I just inserted “testifies” into the proverb.

Once I had my punch line, I reworded the topic using Joke Maximizer #3: Backload the topic. The original news item was “Placido Domingo, Opera Star, to Be Investigated for Sexual Harassment.” I moved Placido Domingo to the end of the topic because I thought it was the information in the topic that was most important to the punch line.

I also added to the topic a reference to women because I thought it would tighten the logical connection between the topic and punch line by hinting that the fat lady is among Domingo’s accusers.

Finally, I added an angle. I included the words “It looks bad, but” so that the joke would be evenhanded when it came to implying whether Domingo is guilty. I wanted to be evenhanded because I didn’t think my audience had made up their minds about the issue.

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.”