Category Archives: Joke Writing Workshop

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

Joke About the Space Station Oven

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The joke:

This just arrived at the International Space Station: a small oven to bake cookies in zero gravity. Hasbro calls it the Difficult-Bake Oven.

How I wrote it:

This news story caught my eye because it was odd and it seemed to have enough associations to build a punch line on.

One handle of the topic is “small oven to bake cookies,” which called to mind the association “Easy-Bake Oven.” To be sure that I wasn’t the only one who makes that association, I confirmed online that the toy was still being sold.

A second topic handle is “International Space Station,” which made me think of an association like “harsh environment.”

Based on those two associations, I decided to use my Punch Line Maker #1: Link two associations of the topic. I linked the two associations, and made a punch line, by substituting “Difficult” for the first word in “Easy-Bake Oven.”

I considered using my Joke Maximizer #8–Wildly exaggerate–and making the punch line something like “Really, Really Difficult-Bake Oven.” But instead I decided that the joke would be stronger if I used my Joke Maximizer #1: Shorten as much as possible.

Finally I turned to the angle. I thought the association with Easy-Bake Oven might not be clear enough if I ended the joke this way: “It’s called the Difficult-Bake Oven.” So I included in the angle the name of the company that makes the Easy-Bake Oven. That way, when the punch line lands, the audience is expecting the name of a toy.

Joke About Halloween Costumes

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The joke:

It’s almost Halloween. Lots of people are rushing out to buy the new costumes. In fact, sales of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi costumes are really blowing up.

How I wrote it:

ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi had just killed himself by detonating a suicide vest. Usually if a news story is about somebody dying, that rules the story out as the topic for a joke. Most people would feel too guilty to laugh.

But in this case, the deceased was a truly heinous terrorist, murderer, and serial rapist. Still, I thought that some people in our politically fractured country might be reluctant to laugh at a joke celebrating his death.

So I decided to write an al-Baghdadi joke that relies on facts, not on opinions. As I brainstormed about the facts of his death, the phrase “blow up” popped into my head. Because that phrase can have different meanings, I decided to use my Punch Line Maker #4: Find a play on words in the topic.

I didn’t have a topic yet, so I had to devise one. I thought about other current events and came up with the topic “It’s almost Halloween. Lots of people are rushing out to buy the new costumes.” With that topic, my handle could be “buy the new costumes,” which has the association “sales” and the sub-association “blow up.” And I had the play on words I was after.

Usually you start with a topic when you write a joke, but this time I backed into a topic from my desired punch line.

Joke About Henry Thomas’s DUI

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The joke:

The actor who played the young boy in “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial,” Henry Thomas, was arrested for DUI. H.T. phoned home…for bail money.

How I wrote it:

This news item caught my eye because “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” has the familiar association “E.T. phone home.” And I thought I could probably use my Punch Line Maker #1 to link that catchphrase with a second association of the topic.

For the second association, I might have found an association of “DUI” that I could use to construct a punch line. But the “phone” part of “E.T. phone home” raised the question of why Henry Thomas might make a phone call. That’s how I ended up using an association of “arrested,” which is “phoning somebody from jail.”

I got lucky that Henry Thomas’s initials are close to “E.T.” That let me do a clean substitution of “H.T” for “E.T” in the famous catchphrase.

Then I added “for bail money” at the very end, to make it clear why H.T. would be phoning home. My Joke Maximizer #4 is “Make everything clear,” and that includes the logic of the joke.

In the original news item, “Henry Thomas” came at the beginning. But I used my Joke Maximizer #3–Backload the topic–when I moved the name toward the end of the topic sentence, where it could better remind the audience what “H.T.” stands for.

Joke About a Ouija Board

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The joke:

A New Jersey man broke a Guinness World Record for the largest Ouija board. When he heard about the board, Hunter Biden was like, “How much do they pay and can I be on it?

How I wrote it:

I focused on this news item because “Guinness World Record” and “Ouija board” each seemed to have many associations that might spark a punch line.

At the time, a bigger news story involved Hunter Biden, son of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. Hunter got paid a lot of money to serve as a board member for a Ukrainian gas company, even though his qualifications were, apparently, minimal.

So when I read “Ouija board,” the association “board” reminded me of Hunter Biden and I decided to use my Punch Line Maker #2: Link the topic to pop culture. I wrote a punch line based on Hunter’s mercenary reaction to hearing about the board.

I also used my Joke Maximizer #4–Make everything clear–in two ways. I repeated the word “board,” saying it again right before “Hunter Biden.” That way the audience would be sure to have in their minds the word that the punch line depends on.

And I had Hunter ask two questions about the board, to be sure the audience would know that he’s referring to a corporate board. If the punch line had ended with only one question from Hunter–“Can I be on it?”–the audience might have thought he wanted to physically stand on the Ouija board. And, confused, they wouldn’t have laughed.

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.