The Setup You can probably name a few stock joke characters off the top of your head: the man who walks into a bar, travelers stranded on a desert island, those sorts of guys. You can probably name one or two that stick in your brain despite being long obsolete,
The Setup "The bride is a graduate of Prairie Dog Tech, where she received her degree in underwater basket weaving. Her other pursuits of study were familiar bird calls, Egyptian folk dancing and men." –1952 April Fools' Day article announcing "Chlorophyll I.S. Green Marries Ima
The Setup “In some government offices there are so many coffee breaks that the employees can't sleep at their work.” –Evan Esar, 20,000 Quips & Quotes, 1968 This is, fortunately, not an essay about jokes like “Don’t talk to me until I’ve had my coffee.
The Setup Let’s get it out of the way because you’re probably thinking about it. This is not going to be about Liebeck v. McDonald's Restaurants, the infamous 1994 lawsuit where an elderly woman sued McDonald’s after burning herself with hot coffee. You know that
The Setup “5. Elvis Is Living in My Bunker (Baghdad Enquirer)” – From David Letterman’s “Top 10 Headlines in Today's Baghdad Newspapers,” February 1, 1991 Elvis Presley suffered a ghoulish revival in the late 80s that detached him completely from his career as a musician. The conspiracy that
I Might As Well Explain the Joke is a monthly blog where I write about popular jokes in American history, the kind that seep into the culture at large and get repeated on TV and in the funny pages and by everyday people. Each post will discuss one joke, its