Category Archives: Joke Writing Workshop

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

Joke About Hillary Clinton’s Novel

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The joke:

Hillary Clinton is co-writing a mystery novel. She loves mysteries and this one sounds amazing. It’s called, “How the Hell Did Trump Beat Me?”

How I wrote it:

This news item caught my eye because I hadn’t written a Hillary Clinton joke in a while. Plus the other topic handle, “mystery novel,” seemed to have a lot of associations that I might link her to. That is, I thought I could use my Punch Line Maker #1: Link two associations of the topic.

Most associations that Clinton used to have–her pantsuits, her emails, her philandering husband–are now too stale to hang a joke on. But one association is still fresh, years after the presidential election: how she can’t understand why she lost to Trump. So I created a punch line that links that association to an association of “mystery novel,” namely “mystery.”

But writing the joke this way wouldn’t quite work: “Hillary Clinton is co-writing a mystery novel. It’s called, ‘How the Hell Did Trump Beat Me?'” The problem is that the title “How the Hell Did Trump Beat Me” describes a mystery but not the plot of a mystery novel.

To smooth out that bump, I wrote an angle that includes the word “mysteries,” to focus the audience on just the mystery aspect before they arrived at the punch line. But I also added “this one sounds amazing,” to subtly mislead the audience into thinking that I was still describing her novel.

This joke is an example of how to write a political joke that’s unlikely to divide a mass audience. Whether you’re a Clinton fan or not, you’d probably agree that she’s still wondering what went wrong in 2016.

Joke About Woolly Mammoth DNA

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The joke:

Scientists in Siberia have discovered million-year-old woolly mammoth DNA. The scientists were thrilled, and so was a woolly mammoth when Maury Povich told him, “You are NOT the father!”

How I wrote it:

This topic caught my eye because “DNA” has a lot of associations and therefore could result in jokes that go off in several directions.

My Punch Line Maker #1 is “Link two associations of the topic,” so my first task was to decide which other topic handle to link “DNA” to. “Woolly mammoth” was a logical candidate, but I couldn’t think of many associations for it beyond “woolly” and “prehistoric.”

So I thought some more about the rest of the topic. Topic handles are usually nouns, but the verb “discovered” stood out. I asked myself “What did the scientists discover about the DNA?” which prompted me to try my Punch Line Maker #4: Link the topic to pop culture. I thought of Maury Povich revealing the results of paternity tests on his show. And I had the basis of my punch line.

My punch line was relatively long, but I couldn’t figure out how to shorten “Maury Povich told him, ‘You are NOT the father!'” without hurting the joke. All I could do is put the entire punch line at the very end of the joke, as opposed to telegraphing the punch line by wording the joke something like, “Even more surprising was when Maury Povich told the woolly mammoth, ‘You are NOT the father.'”

The woolly mammoth that the scientists discovered was long-dead, of course, which made it tough to connect to the very much alive Maury Povich. So to smoothly connect the topic to the punch line I added an angle based on the idea of living things being thrilled.

Joke About Alex Trebek’s Clothing

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The joke:

Hundreds of articles of clothing that belonged to “Jeopardy” host Alex Trebek are being donated to charity. The charity says if you’re the first one to grab a suit, you can buy it for $200, $400, $600, $800, or $1000.

How I wrote it:

This news item caught my attention because the two topic handles–“clothing” and “Jeopardy”–seemed to have enough associations to link into a good punch line.

One link came to me pretty quickly: “clothing” is associated with “buying clothing,” which has the sub-association “money.” And “money” is also associated with “Jeopardy.” So I thought I could create a punch line based on the dollar amounts of the game categories: $200, $400, $600, $800, and $1000.

But the logic of the joke isn’t completely solid: When you correctly answer a question on “Jeopardy” you get money, but when you buy a suit, you give money.

So to help the audience get past that bump in logic, I added to the angle another link between “buying clothing” and “Jeopardy,” which is “being the first to claim an item.” With that addition, I thought the joke would be clear enough that the slight defect in logic wouldn’t hurt it.

It appears that the real charity to which the clothing was donated won’t actually be selling it. But if I didn’t mention that fact in the joke, I figured the audience wouldn’t know.

Alex Trebek was a beloved figure in entertainment, so I briefly wondered whether using his name in a joke would offend a lot of people. But I decided that this joke was inoffensive because the only thing it says about Trebek is that he’s closely associated with “Jeopardy.” And who could disagree with that?

Joke About Yankee Stadium Vaccinations

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The joke:

Today Yankee Stadium officially opened as a Covid-19 vaccination site. It was exciting. Anthony Fauci threw out the first syringe.

How I wrote it:

I thought this news story might lead to a good joke because both of its handles, “Yankee Stadium” and “Covid-19 vaccination,” have lots of associations.

I turned to my Punch Line Maker #1: Link two associations of the topic. Because some people apparently need encouragement to be vaccinated, I came up with the Yankee Stadium association “promotional giveaway,” which led me to its sub-association “bobblehead doll.”

To link “bobblehead doll” to the other topic handle, I needed a well-known person who is associated with “Covid-19 vaccination.” Of course, Dr. Anthony Fauci came to mind. So I linked those two associations together to get the punch line “bobblehead Anthony Fauci.”

But when I searched for “bobblehead promotion” on Google, to check whether baseball teams refer to it as a “promotion” or a “giveaway,” I somehow stumbled onto a reference to “bobblehead Anthony Fauci.” Aw, heck. If I posted my joke, some people might think I stole the idea from the real product.

That meant I needed another punch line. I liked including Anthony Fauci, so I thought about another way I could link him to “Yankee Stadium.” The official opening of the vaccination site reminded me of baseball’s Opening Day, which suggested throwing out the first pitch.

So I visualized Anthony Fauci throwing out the first pitch (which he did for real on another occasion). Then I put a surprising, vaccination-related twist on that mental image by making the baseball a syringe. Which gave me my punch line.

Joke About the Subway Lawsuit

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The joke:

Two California residents filed a lawsuit claiming that there is no tuna in Subway’s tuna sandwiches. If they win, they’ll get $10 million plus, for an extra $2.60, a Diet Coke and a bag of potato chips.

How I wrote it:

This news item caught my attention because I thought a mass audience could relate to it; I know I could. Plus “Subway” has associations that I thought I could use to create a punch line. So “Subway” became my first topic handle.

But my Punch Line Maker #1–Link two associations of the topic–requires that you pick two handles of the topic. “Tuna” seemed promising as a second handle, but in connection with “Subway” it didn’t seem as interesting as “lawsuit.” So I tried “lawsuit” for the second handle.

I brainstormed associations of “Subway” and landed on “Meal Deal,” which has the association “money.” “Lawsuit” also has the association “money.” So I decided to base my punch line on those two Californians getting the Meal Deal.

But I faced a structural problem: the Meal Deal involves getting something from Subway, whereas the lawsuit involves not getting some something from Subway, namely tuna.

I solved the problem by writing an angle about what the Californians will get if they win, which let me smoothly connect to my punch line about getting the Meal Deal.

I went online to confirm what the Meal Deal includes and how much it costs. Instead of writing “a soft drink and a side,” I used my Joke Maximizer #9–Get specific–and listed specific menu items.

When I named those menu items I also employed my Joke Maximizer #7–Use stop consonants, alliteration, and assonance. “A Diet Coke and a bag of potato chips” includes a whopping eleven stop consonants.

Joke About Long Lines for the Vaccine

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The joke:

People are desperate. They want to know if they’re eligible. They’re trying to get on the list, waiting in long lines, sleeping in their cars. They all want to get one before the supply runs out. Yes, I’m talking about Presidential pardons.

How I wrote it:

I got the idea for this joke while I read the newspaper at breakfast; yes, I get home delivery of a physical paper, to supplement all the news I read online.

On the front page was a story about how states were having problems distributing the Covid-19 vaccine. Right below that was a story about how President Trump was preparing a long list of people to pardon.

And a connection between those two adjacent stories popped into my head: the idea of people lining up to get something valuable. So I had the idea for a punch line.

I could have built out that idea into a shorter joke, something like “People are waiting in long lines to get the Covid-19 vaccine. The bad news is, the lines are even longer to get a pardon from President Trump.”

But I thought the joke would be more surprising, and funnier, if I extended the misdirection of the angle by exaggerating the lengths that desperate people were going to.

The finished joke felt like one that other writers might come up with. So I posted it on Twitter, Facebook, and this website around 9:30 am, hours before I usually post my daily joke.

Sure enough, later that day a Facebook friend alerted me to a New Yorker cartoon that, according to Google, appeared online a few hours after I had posted my joke.

Did that cartoonist swipe my idea? No. All creators of topical comedy see the same news and use the same techniques to write jokes. So it’s no surprise when two writers independently come up with the same one.

For more on that phenomenon, read how Seth Meyers Did Not Steal My Joke.

Joke About Biden’s Inauguration

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The joke:

The schedule is now set for Inauguration Day. And this is interesting: at the exact same time that Chief Justice John Roberts will be swearing in Joe Biden, Donald Trump will be swearing at Joe Biden.

How I wrote it:

I wanted to write a joke about the upcoming inauguration because it was a big story. But many aspects of it seemed unpromising for joke writing: the attack on the Capitol, the increased security, the possibility of additional violence.

So I brainstormed about the inauguration process itself. One of the associations that popped into my head was “swearing in,” and then its wordplay with “swearing at.” And I realized that my punch line could have Trump swearing at Biden.

That is, I only had a general idea of what my joke topic would be when I used my Punch line Maker #4–Find a play on words in the topic. And I still needed to write the topic.

The “swearing in / swearing at” wordplay suggested two events happening at the same time. So I wrote a topic that referred to the schedule for Inauguration Day.

Once I had that topic, I wrote an angle that emphasized the surprising nature of the coincidence I had invented: the two events will happen “at the exact same time.” A more surprising punch line is a funnier punch line.

I also used my Joke Maximizer #6–Make the punch line parallel–when I worded the Roberts/Biden part of the joke as much as possible like the Trump/Biden part. The parallelism would have been closer without the words “Chief Justice,” but I included them for clarity.

Joke About Trump’s Twitter Account

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The joke:

Yesterday Twitter suspended the account of President Trump. He responded by launching his own version of Snapchat–Crapchat.

How I wrote it:

The biggest news story at the time was the storming of the Capitol building, but that didn’t lend itself easily to joke writing. So instead I chose for a topic a related news story that was almost as big.

The topic about Twitter suspending Trump suggested the question “What will he do about that?” That is, I gravitated toward my Punch Line Maker #3: Ask a question about the topic.

To answer that question, and create a punch line, I thought of associations of the two handles of the topic. As I did so, I had in mind the possibility of linking two associations using wordplay.

One handle, “Twitter,” is associated with other popular social media sites. As an aid to brainstorming, I looked up a list of them online.

The other handle, “President Trump,” has as an association “his tweets.” I mentally gauged how a mass audience now feels about those tweets and decided most people would be okay associating them with something like “garbage.”

Then, to get my punch line, I linked my list of social media sites to my list of synonyms for “garbage” by blending “Snapchat” and “crap.”

I debated about whether to include “Snapchat” in the angle. Without it, I thought the wordplay in the punch line might not be clear. With it, I thought the punch line might be too on-the-nose. I opted for clarity.

As a bonus, my Joke Maximizer #7 advises using stop consonants, and “Crapchat” has three of them.

Joke About Hilaria Baldwin

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The joke:

It’s New Year’s Day. Or as Hilaria Baldwin said, “It’s New Year’s Day…No, wait a second, I mean, Es el Día de Año Nuevo.”

How I wrote it:

On Dave Letterman’s late-night shows we used to do a kind of desk piece consisting of jokes about how some topic would affect various celebrities. That’s probably why on New Year’s Day a desk piece idea popped into my head: “How Celebrities Are Celebrating the New Year.”

That led me to consider writing a joke using my Punch Line Maker #2–Link the topic to pop culture. In this case, the topic was “New Year’s Day” and the pop culture element would be some celebrity.

One celebrity who was very much in the news at the time was Alec Baldwin’s wife, Hilaria. She was being widely accused of faking her Spanish heritage and accent.

So to create a punch line, I decided to link “New Year’s Day” to an association of Hilaria Baldwin, namely “pretends to be Spanish.”

I decided that a good way to make that link would be to have Baldwin say “It’s New Year’s Day” in Spanish but be obviously pretending.

I got the Spanish translation from Google Translate. Even if the result isn’t exactly the way a real Spanish person would say it, I figured that’s okay because the whole point of the punch line is that Baldwin is only pretending to be Spanish.

To make it clear that Baldwin is pretending, I wrote the punch line so she would speak English and then awkwardly correct herself. I was tempted to have her flail around more in English, but instead followed the advice of my Joke Maximizer #1 to “Shorten as much as possible.”

Joke About Michael Jackson’s Ranch

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The joke:

Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch was just sold for $22 million. Per his wishes, the sale was handled by the real estate company Century Under-21.

How I wrote it:

I, along with many other comedy writers, wrote a lot of Michael Jackson jokes when he was alive. That’s because he had many vivid associations that could be used to create punch lines, like his sequined glove, his plastic surgery, and Bubbles the chimp.

Plus Jackson was such a huge star that any joking at his expense was acceptable to a mass audience because it was “punching up.”

But writing a joke that connects Jackson to the sex abuse of children is potentially tricky. He’s still beloved by many people, plus he died an untimely death. And were those accusations of sex abuse ever proven? I don’t remember.

But a punch line doesn’t have to be factually true. For a punch line to work, most people just have to accept it as true. And I thought that most people would accept the idea that, at the very least, Jackson really liked young boys.

So I decided it was okay for me to use my Punch Line Maker #1–Link two associations of the topic–and associate the topic handle “Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch” with “underage children.” The other topic handle, “sold,” I associated with “real estate company.” Then I linked those two associations in the phony name “Century Under-21.”

I included the descriptor “the real estate company” to make sure the audience would immediately realize what company I was talking about; “Century 21” was also a fairly well-known department store chain.

I also added the phrase “per his wishes” to the angle of the joke, so the audience would immediately connect “under-21” to Jackson. If they didn’t make that connection, the joke wouldn’t work.