Tag Archives: coronavirus

Joke About AMC Theaters Reopening

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The joke:

Next week the movie theater chain AMC will reopen more than 100 U.S. theaters. But they’re taking precautions for the coronavirus. To make sure the theaters get filled to less than 10% of capacity, they’re only showing Adam Sandler movies.

How I wrote it:

I focused on this news item because the topic handles “movie theater” and “coronavirus” have many associations that might be used to create a punch line.

I started with my Punch Line Maker #1–Link two associations of the topic. I considered linking the association “movie theater popcorn” to the association “virus” to create some kind of punch line about the chemicals in the popcorn butter killing the virus. But the punch line didn’t seem strong enough.

Then I tried my Punch Line Maker #3 and asked this question about the topic: “How will they keep the number of patrons low?” To answer that question, I brainstormed reasons that people might not go to the movies, one of which is that the movies stink.

That seemed like a promising area for a joke, so I needed an actor who is well-known for appearing in lousy movies. A few minutes online took me to this article, “The top 15 actors who make the worst films.”

I didn’t think enough people would recognize the first actor on the list, Rob Schneider. And the second actor has such a strong reputation for appearing in crummy movies that I thought using him might strike my audience as being lazy and hacky. But none of the other names on the list seemed to work as well in the punch line. So Adam Sandler it was.

The news story said that AMC is capping attendance in their theaters at 30% of capacity. But I changed it to 10% in my angle, exaggerating how much Adam Sandler repels audiences, to make the punch line a little clearer and funnier.

Joke About National Lipstick Day

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The joke:

Today is National Lipstick Day. So put on your favorite, sexiest color lipstick, pucker up, and then describe to people what it looks like under your face mask.

How I wrote it:

This news item caught my eye because a holiday can often be a useful handle for a joke. That’s because a holiday usually has many associations, including how people might celebrate it.

That line of thinking led me to my Punch Line Maker #2: Link the topic to pop culture. To find such a link, I started by visualizing an association of the topic handle “lipstick,” namely a woman applying lipstick.

That mental picture suggested an image of something else that people are doing to their mouths during this pandemic, namely covering them with face masks. That link became the basis of my punch line.

Next I needed an angle to guide the audience smoothly and logically from my topic to some punch line involving a face mask. I considered writing an angle about how people are carefully applying lipstick only to have it smeared by their face mask.

But instead I thought it would be funnier to make the angle about how no one can see what’s under your mask. That way I could summon up a sexy image in the angle and make the introduction of the unsexy face mask in the punch line even more surprising.

When I wrote the angle I also employed my Joke Maximizer #10–Use the Rule of Three; two unfunny activities are followed by the punch line activity of describing your lips.

Joke About the Bubonic Plague

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The joke:

Over the weekend, health officials reported a case of possible bubonic plague in Inner Mongolia. So crowds of people from Lake of the Ozarks immediately flew there to have a pool party.

How I wrote it:

This news item drew my attention because I thought there might be a joke that makes a surprising connection between the medieval-sounding “bubonic plague” and the current coronavirus pandemic. That is, I turned to my Punch Line Maker #2: Link the topic to pop culture.

“Coronavirus” has many associations, but one that was top of mind for me when I wrote this joke was “oblivious partiers at Lake of the Ozarks.” For several days in a row I saw on TV and online the same footage of a pool party packed with revelers tossing around beach balls. Because I had seen the story in multiple media outlets, I was fairly confident that my audience would make that association too. So I based my punch line on it.

I thought quite a bit about how to describe those partiers. I wanted the joke to be clear, which pointed me toward a detailed description like “those people in the Midwest who you’ve seen in the news having pool parties even after they’ve been strongly urged to maintain social distance to minimize the spread of the coronavirus.”

But my Joke Maximizer #1 is “Shorten as much as possible.” So, taking into account how familiar I thought my audience was with the story, I trimmed the angle and punch line down to what you see.

My Joke Maximizer #7 is “Use stop consonants, alliteration, and assonance,” and luckily my angle and punch line have lots of stop consonants–three in “pool party” alone.

Joke About Coronavirus TV Shows

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The joke:

The governor of California said TV production can start up again with proper safety measures. So along with “The Masked Singer” you’ll see “The Masked Bachelor,” “The Walking and Hand-Washing Dead,” and “Last Man Standing Six Feet Away.”

How I wrote it:

This news item drew my attention because it has two handles with lots of associations, “TV” and “safety measures” (with the coronavirus part understood).

“TV” in particular has so many associations that I thought I could use my Punch Line Maker #1–Link two associations of the topic–to write a joke with multiple laugh triggers.

The most promising associations of “TV” would be the names of TV shows, so I went online and consulted a list of currently popular TV shows. I wanted to use popular shows so it would be immediately clear to the audience what shows I was referring to.

The other topic handle, “(coronavirus) safety measures,” has associations like “face mask,” “wash hands,” and “keep six feet away.”

To get my three laugh triggers, I just grafted the safety measures onto the names of TV shows with which they seemed to smoothly fit: “The Bachelor,” “The Walking Dead,” and “Last Man Standing.”

I used “The Masked Bachelor” as the first laugh trigger because it’s the least surprising, so putting it first lets the joke build in surprise, and funniness, to the end.

With illustrations, and a half-dozen or so additional fake TV shows, “Coronavirus TV Shows” could have been an art card desk piece on a late-night TV show. For example, a fake print ad for “The Walking and Hand-Washing Dead” might depict a zombie lathering up her hands at a sink, her disemboweled victim at her feet.

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 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 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 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.

Joke About Google and the Coronavirus

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The joke:

Today Google announced a website in the U.S. where you can go to get information about the coronavirus. They’re calling it “Google.”

How I wrote it:

One reason this news item attracted my attention is that both topic handles–“Google” and “coronavirus”–have multiple associations that might be linked to create a punch line.

So first I tried using my Punch Line Maker #1: Link two associations of the topic. I associated “Google” with “lack of privacy” and tried to think of a punch line like “And now the coronavirus is furious because Google stole its credit card numbers.” But I abandoned that approach because I couldn’t get the logic to work.

Instead I thought more about the topic and realized that it lent itself to my Punch Line Maker #6: State the obvious about the topic. To me, an obvious question about the topic is, “Doesn’t Google give you information about everything, not just about the coronavirus?” And the obvious answer is “yes.”

Which means that the punch line should be some way of saying, “Google has always been where you can get information about the coronavirus.” The punch line “They’re calling it ‘Google'” states that very economically, consistent with my Joke Maximizer #1: “Shorten as much as possible.”

I also clarified the logic of my rough draft of the joke by changing “launched a new website” to “announced a website.” The latter wording is true to the facts of the news item but is also consistent with the website turning out to be just Google.

Punch Line Maker #6 doesn’t often fit a topic but I use it whenever I can because its unfamiliar approach results in jokes that are a little extra surprising and therefore a little extra funny.

Joke About the New James Bond Movie

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The joke:

The release of the new James Bond movie has been postponed to November because of the coronavirus. Apparently they’re adding a scene where Q gives Bond a special wristwatch that shoots hand sanitizer.

How I wrote it:

I gravitated toward this news item because it combines two topics that many people are interested in: James Bond and the coronavirus.

The news item also promised to be a fertile topic for joke writing because it has two handles, each of which has lots of associations. Thanks to Punch Line Maker #1–Link two associations of the topic–lots of associations means lots of opportunities to create a punch line.

The first handle, “James Bond,” has as one association “gadget,” which has the sub-association “special wristwatch.”

The second handle, “coronavirus,” has the association “hand sanitizer.” To create the punch line, I linked those associations by stating that Bond’s special wristwatch shoots hand sanitizer.

I made sure to use my Joke Maximizer #4, “Make everything clear,” where “clear” includes “logical.” A wristwatch is a more logical gadget than, say, a pen to shoot hand sanitizer because a watch is near your hand. And the angle of the joke is logical because adding a new scene is a plausible reason to postpone the release of a movie.

I chose the laugh trigger “hand sanitizer” instead of something more specific like “Purell” because I thought it made Bond sound like more of a germaphobe and was therefore more surprising and funnier.