Category Archives: Joke Writing Workshop

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

Joke About That Ozarks Pool Party

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The joke:

Missouri health officials told the people at that crowded Ozarks pool party to self-quarantine for 14 days. Partiers responded by socially isolating the middle finger of one hand from their other fingers.

How I wrote it:

This news story was covered widely so I thought it would be a good topic for a joke.

Often people don’t like to be told what to do, so I thought I’d try to write a joke using my Punch Line Maker #3, asking this question about the topic: “How did those partiers respond to those health officials?

I answered that question using associations of the topic. One handle of the topic is the partiers, who I associated with concepts like “defiant ” and “contemptuous.”

Another topic handle, “self-quarantine,” has associations like “social distancing” and “isolation.”

To create a punch line, one often finds a verbal link between two topic associations and bases a punch line on that verbal link. But in this case I found a link between the associations that’s a combination of verbal and visual: I formed a mental image of a defiant, contemptuous person giving someone the finger and realized that the finger, stuck up there all by itself, was isolated from its neighboring fingers.

So I described that mental image using language that called to mind the self-quarantine mentioned in the topic, thereby creating the surprising link expressed by my punch line.

The news story usually referred to the “Lake of the Ozarks” pool party but I changed that to just “Ozarks” because it was shorter while also being clear and still technically true.

Joke About Hertz Going Bankrupt

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The joke:

As a result of too much debt and the coronavirus, Hertz filed for bankruptcy. Plus Hertz officials owe an extra billion dollars because they didn’t return the company with a full tank of gas.

How I wrote it:

I focused on this business story because the big news outlets were covering it, which indicated that a mass audience would probably be interested in a joke on the topic.

To create the joke, I started with my Punch Line Maker #1: Link two associations of the topic. One handle of the topic, “Hertz,” has associations like “make a reservation,” “return with a full tank,” and “decline the insurance.”

Another handle of the topic, “bankruptcy,” has associations like “Chapter 11,” “owe money,” and “falling sales.”

After mentally trying out many possible combinations of associations, I decided that the funniest punch line would link “owe money” and “return with a full tank.”

To make that punch line work logically, I had to figure out who would owe the money for not returning the company with a full tank. The company couldn’t logically owe the money to itself, so the angle I wrote said that unspecified “Hertz officials” owed it.

I set the money they owed for the gas at a billion dollars, in line with my Joke Maximizer #8: Wildly exaggerate. A tank of gas doesn’t cost anywhere near that much, even at rental car company prices.

And I mentioned “too much debt” in the topic, to more smoothly connect “bankruptcy” in the topic to the idea of owing lots of money in the angle and punch line.

Joke About a Gym on Lockdown

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The joke:

A Pennsylvania gym reopened during the state’s lockdown and received four citations. Actually the gym received a high-intensity set of two citations, then had a one-minute cool down, then received another set of two citations.

How I wrote it:

This news item drew my attention because it’s about a huge story, the coronavirus pandemic, but only incidentally. It also has a handle, “gym,” with a lot of associations that might be used to create a punch line.

For a second topic handle, “citations” didn’t seem promising because it doesn’t call to mind any strong associations. So I considered “four” for a handle, and quickly realized that I could link it to “gym” by treating it as a number in a workout routine.

But I faced a wording challenge because in a gym you would perform four reps, say, of an exercise; you wouldn’t receive them. And the topic says that the gym received four citations.

I dealt with that challenge by using my Joke Maximizer #6–Make the punch line parallel–and repeating the word “received” that appears in the topic.

But that meant I had to carefully word the rest of the joke so it would be clear that I was referring to a workout routine. For clarity, I repeated the word “gym” at the start of my angle. I also added gym jargon like “high-intensity” and “cool down” that I harvested from Google. Those added details also exploited my Joke Maximizer #9: Get specific.

Listing all those details of the citation workout routine does telegraph the punch line a little bit, which I normally try to avoid. But I thought the details were necessary to make the joke completely clear.

Joke About Concrete Made With Urine

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The joke:

The European Space Agency says that to make concrete on the Moon, one useful ingredient could be human urine. They’re calling the project “One giant leak for mankind.”

How I wrote it:

This was one of those news items that makes you think, “There has to be a joke in there somewhere.” The item has several topic handles, like “concrete” and “urine,” with multiple associations that might be used to create a punch line.

But it took me a few tries to find an approach that worked well. First I used my Punch Line Maker #3 and asked the question “What might you make out of concrete that smells like urine?” Maybe a lunar base that smells like a New York City subway station?

I also asked the question “And what might they make on the Moon out of human excrement?” But that didn’t get me anywhere either.

Then I moved away from “concrete” and focused on the topic handles “Moon” and “urine.” I thought I might link the two by changing the well-known tagline for the movie “Alien” into something like, “In space, no one can smell your urine.”

Thinking of taglines associated with space must have reminded me of Neil Armstrong’s famous words as he first set foot on the Moon, which ended “One giant leap for mankind.” And I realized I could use wordplay, and my Punch Line Maker #1, to link that quotation to an association of “urine”–“leak”–and create my punch line.

So keep trying possible topic handles and Punch Line Makers until you find a combination that unlocks a solid punch line.

Joke About Madonna and the Coronavirus

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The joke:

Singer Madonna revealed that she has coronavirus antibodies. She says she has no idea how she caught the coronavirus, and neither does her latest lover, a Chinese horseshoe bat.

How I wrote it:

When I read that Madonna had said something about having a disease I immediately thought about her having contracted it by having sex with somebody. That’s because I’ve been writing Madonna-is-promiscuous jokes since well before she published her coffee-table book “Sex” in 1992.

So I gravitated toward my Punch Line Maker #3, asking myself this question: “How did Madonna get the coronavirus from sex?”

To answer that question, I brainstormed associations of the topic handle “coronavirus” and arrived at “it came from a bat.” I thought that association provided a sufficiently surprising answer to my question so I made it the basis of my punch line.

But this version of the joke would have been too on-the-nose: “Singer Madonna revealed that she has coronavirus antibodies. She says she got them by having sex with a bat.” To boost the funniness of the punch line, I added an angle implying that the source of Madonna’s infection is a complete mystery. That way when the punch line reveals an obvious source the surprise is heightened.

In editing my laugh trigger, I used my Joke Maximizer #9: Get specific. I researched the specific type of bat that has been found to carry the coronavirus and used that name instead of the generic “bat.”

Adding “Chinese horseshoe” to “bat” makes the joke clearer too, because “bat” could also refer to a baseball bat.

Joke About Ruth’s Chris Steak House

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The joke:

Ruth’s Chris Steak House will return the $20 million small-business loan it received from the government. When asked for comment, steak experts said, “Well done.”

How I wrote it:

To write this joke I used my Punch Line Maker #1–Link two associations of the topic–but in an unconventional way.

The conventional way is to start by identifying two words or short phrases in the topic that stand out and could serve as the handles for creating the punch line. One obvious handle is “Ruth’s Chris Steak House.”

The second topic handle could be “loan,” “small business,” or “$20 million.” But as I thought more about the topic, and about what the restaurant chain had done, phrases like “good job” and “nice work” popped into my head.

Then I realized that “Ruth’s Chris Steak House” has the association “steak,” which has the sub-association “well done.” And I could create a punch line by linking “well done” with the idea that the restaurant chain had done a good thing.

This joke shows that a topic handle doesn’t have to be a word or phrase in the topic; it could also be something that stands out about the topic as a whole.

I considered omitting an angle and just going right from the topic sentence to “well done.” But I decided that the wordplay would be clearer, and the joke funnier, if I included an angle that repeats the word “steak” from the topic without telegraphing the punch line.

Joke About Johnson & Johnson

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The joke:
Today health products maker Johnson & Johnson said it’s racing to develop a coronavirus vaccine. Also, because of social distancing, it changed its name to Johnson…………&…………Johnson.

How I wrote it:
This news item attracted my attention because Johnson & Johnson makes a lot of consumer products that I thought could be linked to some coronavirus association to create a punch line.

But looking at the company’s name led me to consider using my Punch Line Maker #5: Visualize the topic. I adopted a different perspective on “Johnson & Johnson,” imagining each “Johnson” to be a literal human being.

Then I brainstormed associations of the other topic handle, “coronavirus,” which led to “social distancing.” I linked that association to the idea of each “Johnson” being a literal person to create the punch line, which puts social distance between each Johnson in the company’s name.

Finally, I added an angle that explicitly mentions social distancing.  That way the angle would make the punch line clear (Joke Maximizer #4) without telegraphing it (Joke Maximizer #5).

I write my jokes to be spoken, and when I came up with this punch line I imagined that the speaker would deliver it by inserting long pauses between the elements of the laugh trigger.

But as I thought about it more, I realized that I could achieve the same effect in print by using long lines of dots. Sometimes a joke, like a wordplay joke, will only work in print and not when spoken. But this joke isn’t one of them.

Joke About a Bond Girl

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The joke:

Actress Honor Blackman, who played Bond girl Pussy Galore, passed away. Memorial donations may be made to the American Cooter Society.

How I wrote it:

I wanted to turn this news item into a joke because the single entendre “Pussy Galore” was just begging to be mocked.

The other topic handle, “passed away,” has the association “obituary,” which has the sub-association “memorial donations may be made to.” To connect that sub-association to “Pussy,” I needed the name of a charity that I could link to some synonym for female genitalia.

I didn’t want to get too vulgar; “Pussy” was vulgar enough. But I remembered reading that Tina Fey favors the word “cooter.”

To confirm that, I did some research and discovered that Tina used the word to name an episode she wrote for her series “30 Rock.” And in an interview quoted in Wikipedia she explained that she likes the word because “it’s one of the least graphic ways to describe the female genitals.” If the word “cooter” was good enough for Tina Fey, it was good enough for me.

Brainstorming charities turned up the American Cancer Society. The wordplay between “cooter” and “cancer” was strong enough that I was able to substitute one for the other to create my punch line.

Besides not being too graphic, “cooter” has another characteristic Tina didn’t mention that makes it funny: its two stop consonants, “c” and “t.” As my Joke Maximizer #7 advises: “Use stop consonants, alliteration, and assonance.”

For more on using stop consonants, read my article “How Jerry Seinfeld Writes a Joke, Revealed.”

Joke About Squirrels and the Coronavirus

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The joke:

In New York City, there’s a new field hospital for coronavirus patients in Central Park. It has the squirrels so concerned that they’re rubbing Purell on their nuts.

How I wrote it:

This news item caught my eye because it had to do with Central Park. More on that later.

To write the joke I used my Punch Line Maker #1: Link two associations of the topic. One topic handle, “coronavirus,” has the association “Purell.” The other topic handle, “Central Park,” has the association “squirrels.”

My punch line links those two associations by stating that the squirrels are rubbing Purell on either their food or their genitals, depending on how you interpret the wordplay.

This joke is a tribute to the Central Park squirrel jokes that Dave Letterman often told in his “Late Show” monologue. This joke is typical: “It was so hot in Central Park today, I saw a squirrel rubbing sunblock on his nuts.”

For more of Dave’s squirrel jokes, here’s a short video of celebrities retelling some of them:

Part of the fun of Dave’s squirrel jokes is that “nuts,” in the context of the joke, can often only mean “genitals.” For example, nuts such as acorns don’t need sunblock no matter how hot it is.

But I like the fact that in my joke, the wordplay punch line really does have a double meaning. In this pandemic, people are not only rubbing Purell on parts of their body, but also on objects they touch frequently. So in the case of anthropomorphic squirrels, those objects could conceivably include the food they’ve gathered.

Joke About a Toilet Paper Calculator

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The joke:

A new website can calculate how long your supply of toilet paper will last. You just input your height, your weight, and whether you eat at Chipotle.

How I wrote it:

I picked this topic because a joke about calculating toilet paper usage seemed like it could proceed in a lot of different directions.

I turned to my Punch Line Maker #3 and asked this natural question about the topic: “Who might need a lot of toilet paper?”

To answer that question, I brainstormed associations of the topic handle “toilet paper.” One such association is “diarrhea,” which to me is associated with “Chipotle.” To make sure the audience was likely to make the same association, I double-checked online that Chipotle had had outbreaks of E. coli, which causes diarrhea.

After I decided that my laugh trigger would be “Chipotle,” I employed my Joke Maximizer #10–Use the Rule of Three–to write an angle that would smoothly bridge between the topic and that laugh trigger. Doing a list just felt right.

The real toilet paper website doesn’t ask you for your height and weight, but I decided to list those inputs because they’re plausible and short. I always try to obey my Joke Maximizer #1–Shorten as much as possible.

I also kept the joke short by not mentioning the coronavirus in the topic, even though it was the reason for creating the website. I didn’t think that detail was necessary, particularly since it would probably remind the audience of the unfunny pandemic and therefore hurt the joke.