Category Archives: Joke Writing Workshop

Four-time Emmy winner Joe Toplyn shows how the writing techniques in his book apply to some jokes about current events.

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.”

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?