Two jokes from Dave
Why I am posting this is beyond me, I just had fun with it. In one sense it's useless to describe the essence of a joke, you either get it or you don't. So, maybe these are appreciations of these two jokes, which means they may not have any point for anyone else.
But I was writing these for my own files regardless. Maybe you'll enjoy.
Two of my favorite jokes of all time:
First off, the first joke is more of a litmus test for reception for humorous idiocy. I first came upon it in an Esquire article by Drew Carey, and have since heard it only a few more times. Like the central premise of the ‘Aristocrats’ joke, it’s entirely performance fueled and the improv level is almost wide open. When I read it, I loved it more on a passive joke level, it wasn’t hysterical, but it left me in a funny buzz, as if by a mere joke I had had my mood transformed to an almost post-coital or cannabis bliss.
Anyway the joke follows:
Two knights are traveling in the forests of England. They are dressed in full Knight Garb, sashes, armor, swords, helmet etc. They seem to be unsure of their path when they approached a young handmaiden.
The first Knight asks her, “Have you seen a Knight pass thru here? He was traveling on a chestnut brown horse, he was in garb similar to ours, red with gold sashes, and he most likely was traveling west.”
Her answer was uncertain, yet she pointed further West. The Knights both looked at each other and headed along.
They approached a wealthy man on the edge of his estate. They proceed with caution to make sure the lord of the manor is aware of their respect. He calls to them: “Dear Knights, how may I help you?”
The first Knight speaks up again: “We are looking for a Knight who travels with us. He disappeared three days ago, and he is usually draped in bright red attire around his mail. Gold surrounds the edges of his cape garb as well as that of the crest, a single Lion. He might have passed trough here on his was west to the town.”
The man’s answer was vague. The two Knights continued. Finally they reached the town and rushed to the Governor, and and second knight asked: “My Dear Lord, not three days ago our companion was separated from us in a terrible fight with infidels. I Hope you have seen him, as he likely moved through this town on way to the Castle. While he garments would have undoubtedbly been damaged in his voyage, they were of the Lord Montague, a red shield with the crest of an Lion holding a serpent. I believe on a horse with a purple cloak to honor the lost Queen, and he surely carried a Flagpole with him to put in front of his sleeping grounds!”
The governor was disheartened to tell them no.
The Knights rode on until the one asked the other, “Where the fuck is Frank?!?”
++++
The obvious crux of the joke is the needless buildup to a flat resolution, yet the brilliance of the joke is not in its anti-climax, but in the utter hopelessness. In the case of most longwinded jokes without a definitive punch line(let’s call them Federlines), the mere act of wasting the listener’s time, delivering a finale which harps on the consequence of letdown, via either non-sequitor towards nonsense as comeuppance, or a realistic unraveling of the setup of the joke to call nonsense of the form of a joke itself.
The former joke is something like the “Two men in a shower” joke than ends with one of them asking to pass the “typewriter.” The setup is geared for the storyteller to embarrass to listener by pretending to get the joke by inferring the joke is not only extremely easy to see, but highly hysterical as well.
The latter finale for this is to build the utter realism in the very nature of telling a joke, only to dissolute the potency with a line of unreasonable seriousness. It’s akin to fishing with artificial lures; the process is to lay in waiting for the fish to take the bait, only to capture them with a cheap knock off. One can mock them for taking the bait, or prolong the pain by telling similar jokes.
+++++
Don’t get me wrong, I love either style of joke as infantile as they are, they serve a pure aspect of humor which not only allows for laughter, but self satisfaction as well. Yet these are so sophomoric in terms of technique that they fitter out where the knight joke doesn’t.
The essence of the Federline is to not be funny. It’s to put the joke on the audience and on the joke as well, if nothing works, it’s a train wreck of an outcome, and that’s the point. (You know what; I love the K-Fed analogy so much I am giddy)
It’s meant to be wasteful, and that’s the enjoyment of it.
The Knight joke serves as an IQ test to humor, because it is no doubt working on similar principles or structure in relation to a Federline joke, but its punch line is the difference. Instead of getting its power from the condition of joke telling idioms itself, it gets them from the actual human condition itself.
The joke builds as if it was a mystery not as comical throughline. It‘s about a search, and as the joke goes on, the level of worry seems to escalate, as do the attempts to find the person itself. And the crux of the brilliance is to continually introduce red herrings, as if the complication of the set up will lead to a massive payoff, only to have the joke reduced to common human life. This isn’t a joke about a wild character, about what this wild person may have done, or even why he is missing, it’s all about two people pissed off about having to look for a co worker, and it finally falls out when they realize that for all of their skill, they are probably looking in the wrong place. In the end the joke is not on the teller, the listener, it’s on the knights. You just can’t miss someone dressed like that.
Speaking of dress, it’s certainly why I link it to the other joke on this list, this one being a film example.
I have the rare ability / track record of finding something so funny I slowly divert all attention from any focal point in the room to my laughing. I did this in every year in grade school, and in some cases in multiple classes during the school year, to the point where my laughter became so uncontrollable I was kicked out of class, and in others, I created such a fervor it retrograded the momentum of the teacher two lessons before.
When I find something truly funny, I never forget it, and odds are you won’t forget it either, ask Donnell about the “Photoshop Hall of Fame.”
But the biggest outburst I ever had was in a movie theater, when I was laughing so hard, and the only one who was seeing the joke unfold, I was louder than the soundtrack. I was the only one laughing, and I was the point of attention.
This was during Wayne’s World 2. And I was asked to quiet or leave the theater.
After Wayne believes his girlfriend may be cheating on him, he creates a recon mission to see for himself.
In a comedy such a scene is typical, and it usually allows for a bit of genre stretching, so to hear the Mission Impossible theme is almost a primer for an expected plot point.
But the joke isn’t of playing spy genre, the whole espionage is merely a decoy.
The group is hiding around a local coffee shop undercover. Wayne is pretending to be a maintenance man for the DWP, Garth is street level as a traffic officer, and the other two are hanging at a USO center as a sailor or pretending to be a biker at a bar.
What happens in the next three minutes is a slow morph from a Mission Impossible send-up to the real point of the joke… to make an elaborate (and quite possibly the penultimate) Village People joke.
What’s key is in the beginning how the real meat of the joke is kept in check, before they are spotted by Cassandra, the shot jumps from character to character, jogging the subconscious, and yet the dialogue on top of it is mere patter. Instead of creating aliases or speaking in code, it’s merely “Position 1, or position 2.”
All of this is just filler, because it’s drawing out the laughs, which start to some as soon as they have been made, and all four of them appear at once on screen.
And in that moment, you recognize a Village People joke is coming.
Aside from them being chased by a wonderfully game Christopher Walken (you mean I’m goin-g to bE chaaa-sing for guays, down a sta-reet) and then they are pursued into of, all places, a gay bar (aptly named The Tool Box). And for the moment, they are safe.
When they try to make for the back entrance they are foiled (and I don’t know if this is true or not, but I heard that Village People would occasionally start shows in a similar fashion) and their chase is up.
That is until the fey DJ sees what’s going on and thinks it is part of an act.
Perhaps why I like this joke so much is not because of the sheer lunacy of the outcome, or the irrelevance to anything else in the movie (save a perfect Indian joke), or even sight gag factor. It’s the lack of irony. In our Simpson / South Park / Family Guy world (I list these as the three main sources of parody for pop culture, since SNL is unwatchable now), any satire or parody is done with a smack of sarcasm, regarding the text as obtuse or ridiculous, knocking the iconography of the masses. I have said it before, and I’ll say it again, our culture is more spiteful now that it ever was and won’t let people make a joke on us (or at least we think so)we are not in on.
Don’t get me wrong, these types of jokes often hysterical (or not, see best week ever or Family Guy), but this scene in Wayne’s World 2 is so different, because it has the set up for the satire, and it seems like a parody.
Once the characters realize what’s happening the scene turns to homage, a tribute and recreation of the enjoyment of something both sublimely silly and iconic. The characters on screen and the narrative progress of the movie at this point reach a similar conclusion to simply: Go with it.
The men in contume gamely embrace the uniqueness of the situation somehting
impossibly farfetched, once in a lifetime coincidence (both the band and the joke in the movie).
in design yet splendidly gleeful in execution, it’s a perfect tribute to the Village People, incorporating everything humorous about the band in one short scene. And rather than mock the past, the embrace the singularity, and that sells the joke to another level, becuase if someone had no knowledge of the Villiage People, the end of the scene works because they give it their all to seem like they can dance.
One joke is about convention, the other about capturing lightning in a bottle twice.
Yet all things considered, I’ll laugh anytime someone yells “STOP THE PRESSES!!!” on TV. It’s Pavlovian at this point.
But I was writing these for my own files regardless. Maybe you'll enjoy.
Two of my favorite jokes of all time:
First off, the first joke is more of a litmus test for reception for humorous idiocy. I first came upon it in an Esquire article by Drew Carey, and have since heard it only a few more times. Like the central premise of the ‘Aristocrats’ joke, it’s entirely performance fueled and the improv level is almost wide open. When I read it, I loved it more on a passive joke level, it wasn’t hysterical, but it left me in a funny buzz, as if by a mere joke I had had my mood transformed to an almost post-coital or cannabis bliss.
Anyway the joke follows:
Two knights are traveling in the forests of England. They are dressed in full Knight Garb, sashes, armor, swords, helmet etc. They seem to be unsure of their path when they approached a young handmaiden.
The first Knight asks her, “Have you seen a Knight pass thru here? He was traveling on a chestnut brown horse, he was in garb similar to ours, red with gold sashes, and he most likely was traveling west.”
Her answer was uncertain, yet she pointed further West. The Knights both looked at each other and headed along.
They approached a wealthy man on the edge of his estate. They proceed with caution to make sure the lord of the manor is aware of their respect. He calls to them: “Dear Knights, how may I help you?”
The first Knight speaks up again: “We are looking for a Knight who travels with us. He disappeared three days ago, and he is usually draped in bright red attire around his mail. Gold surrounds the edges of his cape garb as well as that of the crest, a single Lion. He might have passed trough here on his was west to the town.”
The man’s answer was vague. The two Knights continued. Finally they reached the town and rushed to the Governor, and and second knight asked: “My Dear Lord, not three days ago our companion was separated from us in a terrible fight with infidels. I Hope you have seen him, as he likely moved through this town on way to the Castle. While he garments would have undoubtedbly been damaged in his voyage, they were of the Lord Montague, a red shield with the crest of an Lion holding a serpent. I believe on a horse with a purple cloak to honor the lost Queen, and he surely carried a Flagpole with him to put in front of his sleeping grounds!”
The governor was disheartened to tell them no.
The Knights rode on until the one asked the other, “Where the fuck is Frank?!?”
++++
The obvious crux of the joke is the needless buildup to a flat resolution, yet the brilliance of the joke is not in its anti-climax, but in the utter hopelessness. In the case of most longwinded jokes without a definitive punch line(let’s call them Federlines), the mere act of wasting the listener’s time, delivering a finale which harps on the consequence of letdown, via either non-sequitor towards nonsense as comeuppance, or a realistic unraveling of the setup of the joke to call nonsense of the form of a joke itself.
The former joke is something like the “Two men in a shower” joke than ends with one of them asking to pass the “typewriter.” The setup is geared for the storyteller to embarrass to listener by pretending to get the joke by inferring the joke is not only extremely easy to see, but highly hysterical as well.
The latter finale for this is to build the utter realism in the very nature of telling a joke, only to dissolute the potency with a line of unreasonable seriousness. It’s akin to fishing with artificial lures; the process is to lay in waiting for the fish to take the bait, only to capture them with a cheap knock off. One can mock them for taking the bait, or prolong the pain by telling similar jokes.
+++++
Don’t get me wrong, I love either style of joke as infantile as they are, they serve a pure aspect of humor which not only allows for laughter, but self satisfaction as well. Yet these are so sophomoric in terms of technique that they fitter out where the knight joke doesn’t.
The essence of the Federline is to not be funny. It’s to put the joke on the audience and on the joke as well, if nothing works, it’s a train wreck of an outcome, and that’s the point. (You know what; I love the K-Fed analogy so much I am giddy)
It’s meant to be wasteful, and that’s the enjoyment of it.
The Knight joke serves as an IQ test to humor, because it is no doubt working on similar principles or structure in relation to a Federline joke, but its punch line is the difference. Instead of getting its power from the condition of joke telling idioms itself, it gets them from the actual human condition itself.
The joke builds as if it was a mystery not as comical throughline. It‘s about a search, and as the joke goes on, the level of worry seems to escalate, as do the attempts to find the person itself. And the crux of the brilliance is to continually introduce red herrings, as if the complication of the set up will lead to a massive payoff, only to have the joke reduced to common human life. This isn’t a joke about a wild character, about what this wild person may have done, or even why he is missing, it’s all about two people pissed off about having to look for a co worker, and it finally falls out when they realize that for all of their skill, they are probably looking in the wrong place. In the end the joke is not on the teller, the listener, it’s on the knights. You just can’t miss someone dressed like that.
Speaking of dress, it’s certainly why I link it to the other joke on this list, this one being a film example.
I have the rare ability / track record of finding something so funny I slowly divert all attention from any focal point in the room to my laughing. I did this in every year in grade school, and in some cases in multiple classes during the school year, to the point where my laughter became so uncontrollable I was kicked out of class, and in others, I created such a fervor it retrograded the momentum of the teacher two lessons before.
When I find something truly funny, I never forget it, and odds are you won’t forget it either, ask Donnell about the “Photoshop Hall of Fame.”
But the biggest outburst I ever had was in a movie theater, when I was laughing so hard, and the only one who was seeing the joke unfold, I was louder than the soundtrack. I was the only one laughing, and I was the point of attention.
This was during Wayne’s World 2. And I was asked to quiet or leave the theater.
After Wayne believes his girlfriend may be cheating on him, he creates a recon mission to see for himself.
In a comedy such a scene is typical, and it usually allows for a bit of genre stretching, so to hear the Mission Impossible theme is almost a primer for an expected plot point.
But the joke isn’t of playing spy genre, the whole espionage is merely a decoy.
The group is hiding around a local coffee shop undercover. Wayne is pretending to be a maintenance man for the DWP, Garth is street level as a traffic officer, and the other two are hanging at a USO center as a sailor or pretending to be a biker at a bar.
What happens in the next three minutes is a slow morph from a Mission Impossible send-up to the real point of the joke… to make an elaborate (and quite possibly the penultimate) Village People joke.
What’s key is in the beginning how the real meat of the joke is kept in check, before they are spotted by Cassandra, the shot jumps from character to character, jogging the subconscious, and yet the dialogue on top of it is mere patter. Instead of creating aliases or speaking in code, it’s merely “Position 1, or position 2.”
All of this is just filler, because it’s drawing out the laughs, which start to some as soon as they have been made, and all four of them appear at once on screen.
And in that moment, you recognize a Village People joke is coming.
Aside from them being chased by a wonderfully game Christopher Walken (you mean I’m goin-g to bE chaaa-sing for guays, down a sta-reet) and then they are pursued into of, all places, a gay bar (aptly named The Tool Box). And for the moment, they are safe.
When they try to make for the back entrance they are foiled (and I don’t know if this is true or not, but I heard that Village People would occasionally start shows in a similar fashion) and their chase is up.
That is until the fey DJ sees what’s going on and thinks it is part of an act.
Perhaps why I like this joke so much is not because of the sheer lunacy of the outcome, or the irrelevance to anything else in the movie (save a perfect Indian joke), or even sight gag factor. It’s the lack of irony. In our Simpson / South Park / Family Guy world (I list these as the three main sources of parody for pop culture, since SNL is unwatchable now), any satire or parody is done with a smack of sarcasm, regarding the text as obtuse or ridiculous, knocking the iconography of the masses. I have said it before, and I’ll say it again, our culture is more spiteful now that it ever was and won’t let people make a joke on us (or at least we think so)we are not in on.
Don’t get me wrong, these types of jokes often hysterical (or not, see best week ever or Family Guy), but this scene in Wayne’s World 2 is so different, because it has the set up for the satire, and it seems like a parody.
Once the characters realize what’s happening the scene turns to homage, a tribute and recreation of the enjoyment of something both sublimely silly and iconic. The characters on screen and the narrative progress of the movie at this point reach a similar conclusion to simply: Go with it.
The men in contume gamely embrace the uniqueness of the situation somehting
impossibly farfetched, once in a lifetime coincidence (both the band and the joke in the movie).
in design yet splendidly gleeful in execution, it’s a perfect tribute to the Village People, incorporating everything humorous about the band in one short scene. And rather than mock the past, the embrace the singularity, and that sells the joke to another level, becuase if someone had no knowledge of the Villiage People, the end of the scene works because they give it their all to seem like they can dance.
One joke is about convention, the other about capturing lightning in a bottle twice.
Yet all things considered, I’ll laugh anytime someone yells “STOP THE PRESSES!!!” on TV. It’s Pavlovian at this point.
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