The joke:
Two cardiologists declared that Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders is in good health. But this is odd. The doctors said he has a left ventricle and a far-left ventricle.
How I wrote it:
This news item caught my attention because health care has a lot of potentially useful associations and Bernie has a few solid associations, too.
To write the joke I used my Punch Line Maker #1: Link two associations of the topic. Bernie has the association “left,” which has the sub-association “far-left.” “Cardiologists” has the association “ventricle,” which has the sub-association “left ventricle.” My laugh trigger “far-left ventricle” links the two sub-associations.
To get a laugh, a punch line has to be accepted by most people as true. I thought that most people would accept that Bernie, as one of the farthest-left presidential candidates, would have at least one body part that could be described as “far-left.”
After I created the punch line, I completed the joke by adding the angle “But this is odd. The doctors said…” to connect the punch line logically, clearly, and naturally to the topic.
The original news item stated that Bernie released letters from three doctors, including the two cardiologists. But I didn’t mention the third doctor in my topic sentence in order to shorten the joke as much as possible, as my Joke Maximizer #1 recommends.
I got lucky that I could end the joke on “ventricle.” That word is funnier-than-average, thanks to its two stop consonant sounds, “t” and “k.”