Based on the conclusions we drew in class, I've made a prediction as to which of the new shaggy dog stories would be most popular and which would be least popular. From funniest to unfunniest:
1.) The String Story
The punchlines are the most important part of a joke. In the string story, its punchline was "I'm a frayed knot", a pun that should be easy to understand for most folks. Most people should be familiar with the common phrase, "Afraid not." Although it isn't really an idiom or anything like that, it's commonly used in daily language. An important aspect of a widely successful joke is that the punchline is something that is often reoccurring in daily life.
Furthermore, the absurdity that a string could be humanized to the point of presumably having a job (he's characterized as hard-working), is capable of talking, of being fatigued, and thirsts for a beer after a long day as well as being able to move at all is what is most intriguing. It creates a strange image in your head of a little piece of string hopping on and off the barstool, in and out the bar, down the street, and then asking a passersby to pick it (him? her? up and tying it into a knot so as not to rouse suspicion from all of the bartenders that have already rejected him. It's also funny considering the string seems to think that if it were a bow, that would somehow be more acceptable.
There's an element of magic realism throughout the story, most notably noted in the reactions of the bartenders when a string wants to ask for a beer. And the fact that "they don't serve strings" implies that there's more than one "living" string in this universe and they seem to get strings walking into the bar like that all the time.
There was a repetition that set the joke up as well, and the length is notably long, not too long but long enough and easy enough to read so that the audience doesn't lose interest, and is forced to invest their time into the reading or listening to said joke.
2.) The Gandhi Story
Sometimes short is good! Practically everyone knows about Gandhi and his story as well as what he looked like so even though it was short, the familiarity of the character can draw the attention of the audience more easily. There is no need for a longer story full of details because the backstory of Gandhi is so well-known amongst the general population.
The joke starts out normal enough, it could have even been a normal story, so the punchline was sort of unexpected. And the punchline itself referenced yet another popular "expression" from the film Mary Poppins. There are parodies and remakes of that movie all the time, and even if you don't remember any of the other songs, chances are you most certainly remember "Supercalifragilisticexpialadocious" and how that part of the song goes (I didn't even need to look up the spelling to know that it was spelled right, there was just a general knowledge of it in my head from sounding out the word using the melody-- it's similar to the Alphabet Song in that respect).
So here we have two well-known pieces of knowledge (Gandhi and that song from Mary Poppins) coming together in one joke. It's easy to understand, it's relatable, and you immediately get this image in your head of Gandhi mixed with the comical scenes and tunes from Mary Poppins.
3.) The Plate Story
In the plate story, it was a pun on the phrase "there's no place like home for the holidays". Even though the audience is most likely fully aware of the expression being used, and has to invest almost as much time and effort into the joke as the string story, the reason why I didn't rank it as funny as the first or second joke was because the story itself was rather boring. No absurdity, no strange image in your head, there is nothing in the story that somehow contrasts strangely with our normal daily life. Not to mention, I couldn't really relate much to the story in general. I don't even know what an upper plate is. I had to look it up on the internet. But it was still an alright joke because even if you didn't know what an upper plate was, the name itself gives you a good idea of what it could be, plus for me at least the imagery of that wasn't essential to the punchline. All I needed to know was that this guy had and upper plate and it was eroding. Maybe my lack of knowledge did somehow detract from the hilarity of the joke but I'm not too sure. Maybe this joke will only appeal to a certain crowd.. like people with upper plates. And dentists.
4.) The Bear Story
The reason why I ranked this the least funniest was because it was even more unrelatable than the third story, and at least in the third story I was more familiar with the punchline's expression being used. I had to read the last line a few times to understand what the story was referencing, and even when I DID figure out the reference, I still couldn't relate to the story. "Would you believe a lawyer who told you the check was in the mail" is not something I hear every day. I think it only relates to people who NEED lawyers or deal with lawyers in class, and I and most likely a lot of people in the younger generations don't need one. I feel like this joke better caters to a certain group (much like the chess joke in class). When I read the joke out loud, saying "Czechoslovakian" was a bit of a drag on the flow of the joke as well. This was a very biased conclusion but I just can't see how a majority of a group would find this joke funny considering the unfamiliarity of the punchline's expression.
A good point that I can think of though is that it had that element of absurdity (a bear swallowing a person whole?) but other than that there was no real element of shock that I could find. A person gets eaten by a bear and the sheriff shoots it. That is all.
No comments:
Post a Comment