Tag Archives: diarrhea

Joke About Explosive Diarrhea

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The joke:

Reports say that production of the upcoming NBC series “Ultimate Slip ‘N Slide” was halted after an outbreak of “explosive diarrhea” on the set. But why? Isn’t a show called “Ultimate Slip ‘N Slide” the perfect place for explosive diarrhea?

How I wrote it:

This story caught my attention because a number of news outlets covered it. Plus it’s really disgusting.

The phrase “explosive diarrhea” called to my mind a vivid mental picture. So I decided to use my Punch Line Maker #5: Visualize the topic.

My next step was to form a different, exaggerated perspective on that vivid mental picture. I did so by considering the title of that NBC series and imagining people slipping ‘n’ sliding on all that diarrhea.

To turn that exaggerated perspective into a punch line, I took the advice of my Punch Line Maker #6–State the obvious about the topic. If people were slipping ‘n’ sliding around on diarrhea, wouldn’t they obviously fit right into a show called “Ultimate Slip ‘N Slide?” And I had my punch line.

Before sending my joke out into the world, I asked myself whether it was so disgusting that my audience wouldn’t accept it and wouldn’t laugh.

But I figured that if multiple news outlets had decided that their audience would accept a story about “explosive diarrhea,” then most of my audience would probably accept a not-particularly-graphic joke about the story.

And I remembered this advice about doing edgy comedy that writer/director Mel Brooks said he once received from John Calley, then head of production at Warner Bros.: “If you’re going to go up to the bell, ring it.”

I had decided to go up to the bell, which was the news story about diarrhea. So I rang that bell by doing the sort of disgusting joke that the diarrhea story was made for.

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.