Tag Archives: Ukraine

Joke About the Sanctions on Russia

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The joke:

According to Reuters, sanctions are really hurting the Russian economy. Things are so bad that to save money commuting to work, some Russian oligarchs are yacht-pooling.

How I wrote it:

I wanted to write a joke that was related in some way to the war in Ukraine because it’s a huge news story. But I didn’t want to call the audience’s attention to the tragic aspects of the war. So I decided to write a joke about a secondary aspect–the sanctions on Russian oligarchs.

I had seen news stories about how the Russian oligarchs travel around in enormous superyachts. I thought that the idea of a superyacht being a mode of transportation was potentially funny. So I brainstormed ways to put a surprising twist on that idea.

To do that, I brainstormed associations of “transportation” and came up with “carpooling.” Then I linked that association to “yacht,” creating the punch line “yacht-pooling.”

Now I had a punch line. But I had to create the rest of the joke, the topic and the angle. Usually I start writing a joke from a topic, but not always, as in this case.

To create a topic I asked myself, who carpools? People often carpool to save money. So I needed a topic that said that Russian oligarchs are under financial pressure. An online search yielded the Reuters story that I pressed into service as my topic.

My Joke Maximizer #4 advises, “Make everything clear,” and the weird expression “yacht-pooling” could potentially confuse an audience. To minimize confusion, I included the phrase “to save money commuting to work” in the angle. That phrase makes it easier for the audience to make the mental connection to carpooling when they hear the punch line.

Joke About McDonald’s in Russia

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The joke:

Today McDonald’s said it’s closing all its restaurants in Russia because of Ukraine. Is that a good idea? If McDonald’s really wants to hurt the Russians it should open up more restaurants, hand out free artery-clogging fries and Big Macs, attack the Russians from the inside.

How I wrote it:

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a huge news story, so I didn’t think I could ignore it. At the same time, it’s a difficult story to write jokes about because large numbers of innocent people are dying and getting displaced. If an audience is thinking about those tragic facts, they won’t laugh.

To write jokes about a high-profile but upsetting topic, a useful technique is to steer clear of the most disturbing aspects of the topic. So if the topic is Russia invading Ukraine, a joke writer wouldn’t remind the audience of all the death and destruction.

Instead, the writer would focus on a secondary, less-upsetting aspect of the topic. In this case, I noticed that McDonald’s is closing all its restaurants in Russia.

Now I had a topic somewhat related to Russia’s invasion that I thought the audience would let me joke about. So I used my Punch Line Maker #1: Link two associations of the topic.

One handle of the topic is “McDonald’s,” which I associate with “unhealthful food.” The other topic handle is “Russia,” which nowadays I associate with “needs to be attacked.” I linked those two associations in a punch line that suggests using McDonald’s food to attack the Russians.

In editing the joke I used my Joke Maximizer #9–Get specific. I did that by listing particular menu items instead of just writing “unhealthful food.”

And when I chose those menu items I employed my Joke Maximizer #7–Use stop consonants, alliteration, and assonance. “Hand out free artery-clogging fries and Big Macs” has nine stop consonants, a lot for only twelve syllables.

Joke About Putin’s Valentine

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The joke:

Monday is Valentine’s Day, and everybody’s getting into the spirit. Even Vladimir Putin sent Ukraine a Valentine reading “Won’t you be mine?”

How I wrote it:

I wanted to write a joke about Valentine’s Day because it’s a well-known cultural phenomenon. It also has lots of associations–cards, candy, flowers, Cupid, and so on–which makes it a fertile topic for joke-writing.

Valentine’s Day is such a fertile topic that when I wrote for “Late Night with David Letterman” we did a Desk Piece called something like “How They’re Celebrating Valentine’s Day.” It consisted of about a dozen jokes linking various associations of Valentine’s Day to associations of various celebrities.

Remembering that Desk Piece, I decided to use my Punch Line Maker #2: Link the topic to pop culture. Because Russia’s possible invasion of Ukraine was also in the news, I decided to link Valentine’s Day to Russian president Vladimir Putin.

To do that, I brainstormed associations of Valentine’s Day, one of which is those little candy hearts with sayings printed on them. The first such saying that popped into my head was “Be Mine.” Luckily for me, “Be Mine” seemed to express how Putin feels about Ukraine. So I had the idea for my punch line.

Mentioning the candy hearts in the actual joke seemed unnecessarily distracting. So I simplified the joke by having Putin just send Ukraine a Valentine with the saying.

But I worded the saying as “Won’t you be mine?” instead of “Be Mine.” Shorter is usually better, but I thought that making the joke clearer was worth adding two words.

If Russia does invade Ukraine, jokes like this will be trickier to pull off. But because the tanks haven’t rolled yet, I decided this joke would be acceptable to the audience.

Joke About a Ouija Board

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The joke:

A New Jersey man broke a Guinness World Record for the largest Ouija board. When he heard about the board, Hunter Biden was like, “How much do they pay and can I be on it?

How I wrote it:

I focused on this news item because “Guinness World Record” and “Ouija board” each seemed to have many associations that might spark a punch line.

At the time, a bigger news story involved Hunter Biden, son of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. Hunter got paid a lot of money to serve as a board member for a Ukrainian gas company, even though his qualifications were, apparently, minimal.

So when I read “Ouija board,” the association “board” reminded me of Hunter Biden and I decided to use my Punch Line Maker #2: Link the topic to pop culture. I wrote a punch line based on Hunter’s mercenary reaction to hearing about the board.

I also used my Joke Maximizer #4–Make everything clear–in two ways. I repeated the word “board,” saying it again right before “Hunter Biden.” That way the audience would be sure to have in their minds the word that the punch line depends on.

And I had Hunter ask two questions about the board, to be sure the audience would know that he’s referring to a corporate board. If the punch line had ended with only one question from Hunter–“Can I be on it?”–the audience might have thought he wanted to physically stand on the Ouija board. And, confused, they wouldn’t have laughed.