Tag Archives: impeachment

Joke About the Articles of Impeachment

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The joke:

House Democrats haven’t sent the two articles of impeachment to the Senate yet. They say they’re waiting to add a third article so they can get free shipping.

How I wrote it:

This news item was one of the top stories of the day, so I wanted to write a joke about it. The nature of the story pointed me towards Punch Line Maker #3: Ask a question about the topic.

The obvious question to me was, “Why haven’t they sent the two articles yet?” To create a punch line, I answered that question using associations of handles of the topic.

One topic handle, “sent,” has the association “mailed,” which has the sub-association “free shipping.” That sub-association was particularly top-of-mind when I wrote the joke, during the heart of the Christmas shopping season.

A second topic handle, “two articles,” has the association “three articles.” So I was able to link “free shipping” and “three articles” to create a punch line that answered my original question about why House Democrats are waiting to send the articles.

My experience writing for broadcast network TV shows has instilled in me a desire to entertain as large an audience as possible; ratings are very important. That means crafting political jokes that are unlikely to “split the room.” This joke is a good example of that.

Whatever you feel about President Trump and the Democrats, you’d have to agree with the facts that the joke needs you to accept as true, like the fact that the Democrats delayed sending the articles to the Senate and the fact that they did consider adding more articles of impeachment.

Joke About the House Report on Trump

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The joke:

Next week Random House is publishing the House Intelligence Committee’s report on President Trump. They’ll even have a children’s edition entitled “James and the Giant Impeachment.”

How I wrote it:

The House Intelligence Committee’s report was a top story so I wanted to write a joke about it. And this particular news item about its publication promised to have enough associations that writing a joke wouldn’t be too hard.

I turned to my Punch Line Maker #1: Link two associations of the topic. One handle of the topic, “House Intelligence Committee’s report,” has the association “impeachment.” Another topic handle, “publishing,” has the association “book.”

To link those two associations in a surprising way and come up with a punch line, I brainstormed titles of books that sound like “impeachment.” “Impeachment” sounds kind of like the last word in the title of the children’s book “James and the Giant Peach.” So performing the word substitution gave me my laugh trigger.

Finally, to set up my punch line by getting the audience thinking in the right direction, I wrote an angle that mentioned children’s books.

After I posted this joke on Facebook and Twitter, a friend of mine mentioned that late-night TV’s Stephen Colbert does a comedy segment entitled “Don and the Giant Impeach.” But I’ve never seen it.

Writers of topical jokes often come up with the same or similar jokes independent of one another. Here’s an article I wrote about that phenomenon.

Seth Meyers Did Not Steal My Joke

Joke About the Impeachment Inquiry

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The joke:

Today House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced a formal impeachment inquiry against President Trump. To head it off, Trump now says his call to the Ukrainian president was a butt dial.

How I wrote it:

This was a big story so I wanted to write a joke about it. It’s also a political story, and writing jokes about political stories can be tricky. If you’re not careful, your joke will be rejected by a large segment of your audience.

I started with my Punch Line Maker #3–Ask a question about the topic–asking myself the natural question “How did President Trump react?”

To answer that question, I thought about the topic handle “impeachment inquiry,” which has the association “phone call to the Ukrainian president.” And “phone call” has the association “butt dial.”

So the punch line answers my original question by saying that President Trump reacted by claiming that his controversial phone call was an accidental butt dial. Lucky for me, “butt dial” also has three stop consonants, which makes it even funnier as a laugh trigger.

Notice that even though this is a joke about a political story, it stands a good chance of not alienating a lot of audience members because it’s based on things that pretty much everyone can accept as true: Trump did call the Ukrainian president and he often does offer dubious explanations for his behavior. For more tips on how to write political jokes, read my article “Writing Political Comedy.”

Joke About the Godzilla Movie

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The joke:

Now in theaters, “Godzilla: King of the Monsters.” It’s very exciting. Mothra, Rodan, and the three-headed King Ghidorah decide the only way to stop Godzilla is to impeach him.

How I wrote it:

Newly released movies tend to make good joke topics, especially on slow news days. People are usually interested in movies and their titles often lend themselves to surprising interpretations.

The new Godzilla movie seemed especially promising because Godzilla is a huge monster who causes a lot of chaos and conflict and I thought people would associate it with President Trump. That is, the topic led me quickly to my Punch Line Maker #2: Link the topic to pop culture.

But this wording of the joke, for example, would have been way too direct: “Now in theaters, ‘Godzilla: King of the Monsters.’ In this movie, Godzilla is scarier than ever. He behaves like Trump.” My Joke Maximizer #11 is “Don’t be too on-the-nose,” because on-the-nose jokes aren’t as surprising and therefore aren’t as funny.

So I decided not to mention Trump explicitly in the punch line. I also decided not to rely on the associations “Godzilla” = “monster” = “Trump,” because I thought that equation might split my audience unnecessarily.

Instead I based the punch line on how the monster Godzilla is attacked by his monster adversaries. The surprise is that they use the same technique that some of Trump’s adversaries are considering using on him.

The result is a political joke that’s unlikely to divide a mass audience because it’s based on a fact‑‑impeachment talk‑‑instead of an opinion that may not be universally held.