The joke:
A Florida man caught a record-setting catfish that weighed almost 70 pounds. Because it was Florida, the catfish was caught while it was running naked out of a meth lab.
How I wrote it:
This news item attracted my attention because the topic handle “record-setting catfish” seemed to have associations that would be useful for creating punch lines. Plus the other handle, “Florida man,” has so many associations that it’s an internet meme.
The news item raised questions in my mind, so I tried using my Punch Line Maker #3 and asked this question: “How did he catch that record-setting catfish?”
To answer that question, I thought of associations of “Florida man,” brainstorming bizarre activities that the media might report a Florida man engaging in. To get a punch line linking “record-setting catfish” to “Florida man,” I planned to have the catfish engaging in one of those bizarre activities.
But what activity? My Joke Maximizer #9 is “Get specific,” so I knew I had to describe the activity in detail.
The first detail I added was something about the catfish’s appearance: Florida man would probably be naked, so I described my catfish as naked, even though, of course, all catfish are naked.
Then, returning to my original question, I decided to describe how the catfish had been caught. “Running naked through a Walmart” seemed like a Florida man activity, but I thought I could do better.
My Joke Maximizer #8 is “Wildly exaggerate,” so I changed Walmart to a meth lab (after double-checking online that meth is a big problem in The Sunshine State).
And I had my punch line.