Tag Archives: James Bond

Joke About Amazon Buying MGM

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The joke:

Amazon is in talks to buy Hollywood studio MGM, home of the James Bond movies. In fact, Amazon is already planning to remake one of them and call it “From Russia with Free Shipping.”

How I wrote it:

The original news headline was something like “Amazon in talks to buy Hollywood studio MGM for $9 billion.” I decided to base a joke on it because its two handles, “Amazon” and “MGM,” each have a lot of associations, particularly the latter. My Punch Line Maker #1 is “Link two associations of the topic,” so the more associations a topic has, the more possible punch lines it can spawn.

The first sentence of the news story mentioned that MGM is the studio behind the James Bond and Rocky franchises. But I thought the Bond association would have more sub-associations that I could use, so I reworded the topic to focus on that.

I also took out the unnecessary mention of the $9 billion because my Joke Maximizer #1 is “Shorten as much as possible.”

Movie titles are often useful in creating punch lines, so I explored the sub-association “James Bond movie titles.” To do that, I looked up a list of Bond movies online. I wanted to somehow link the name of a well-known Bond movie with an association of the other topic handle, “Amazon.”

“Amazon” is associated with “Prime” and “two-day shipping,” but I couldn’t find any Bond titles to link those associations to.

However, transplanting the association “free shipping” into “From Russia with Love” worked well, particularly because Amazon might conceivably ship products from Russia.

Finally, I added the angle “Amazon is already planning to remake one of them.” That’s because I wanted the audience to hear the punch line and immediately connect it to a real Bond movie title. That is, I wrote an angle consistent with my Joke Maximizer #4, “Make everything clear.”

Joke About a Bond Girl

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The joke:

Actress Honor Blackman, who played Bond girl Pussy Galore, passed away. Memorial donations may be made to the American Cooter Society.

How I wrote it:

I wanted to turn this news item into a joke because the single entendre “Pussy Galore” was just begging to be mocked.

The other topic handle, “passed away,” has the association “obituary,” which has the sub-association “memorial donations may be made to.” To connect that sub-association to “Pussy,” I needed the name of a charity that I could link to some synonym for female genitalia.

I didn’t want to get too vulgar; “Pussy” was vulgar enough. But I remembered reading that Tina Fey favors the word “cooter.”

To confirm that, I did some research and discovered that Tina used the word to name an episode she wrote for her series “30 Rock.” And in an interview quoted in Wikipedia she explained that she likes the word because “it’s one of the least graphic ways to describe the female genitals.” If the word “cooter” was good enough for Tina Fey, it was good enough for me.

Brainstorming charities turned up the American Cancer Society. The wordplay between “cooter” and “cancer” was strong enough that I was able to substitute one for the other to create my punch line.

Besides not being too graphic, “cooter” has another characteristic Tina didn’t mention that makes it funny: its two stop consonants, “c” and “t.” As my Joke Maximizer #7 advises: “Use stop consonants, alliteration, and assonance.”

For more on using stop consonants, read my article “How Jerry Seinfeld Writes a Joke, Revealed.”

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.