Joke thread

Time for a spot of Crosses the Line Twice!

What's the similarity between Michael Jackson and Wal-Mart?

Both have kids' pants at half off!

.....hate to break it to you, but i've been telling that joke for years and no one ever got offended.

plus the man is dead. dead people make everything funny.

So Stephen Hawking walks into a bar....

For those who don't get it; Stephen Hawking is wheelchair-bound.

A bar walks into Einstein...

Okay, that's actually pretty darn clever

I read a great joke about amnesia earlier, but I forgot what it was.

Lol.

Why did the security guard only check his watch after sundown?

Because he was a night watch man.

Here's one for my fellow Torontonians....

A man walks into his living room to find his wife watching television. She's bawling her eyes out, and has thrown wad after wad of tissues onto the floor. The man glances at the television screen, then says to his wife, "Oh come on, honey. The Leafs aren't that bad."

Here's the joke I mentioned in the Odd confessions thread. Or the one I think I should have made, I should say.

When I met Rapunzel at the Magic Kingdom, she cutely asked me if I lived in a tower just like she did, and that she prefers life down here on the ground to living in the tower. :) I should have said she's right about that, because on my way to Orlando, there. Was something on the WING! ;)

Best Of - Nah, only once.

I'd like to propose an SI standard for charting reactions to humour, which will greatly benefit the study of comedy.

• gle (base unit, equivalent to the recognition that something is mildly amusing)
• 
kilogle (a single, sudden exhalation) - kgle

• meggle (silent laughter) - Mgle
• giggle (smallest amount of audible laughter) - Ggle

• &c.

This standard deprecates the Imperial system.

• 1 lol (~1 gles)
• trolol (5 lulz)
• roflol (12 lulz)
• lmao (210 roflulz)
• roflmao (7 lmao)

edited 16th Sep '15 9:35:46 PM by Noaqiyeum

What happens when make you a penis out of Legos?

You get cock blocked!

edited 16th Sep '15 10:10:57 PM by PrincessGwen

Well, it's not just a joke about stupid blondes (which would be offensive enough on its own), but it's also based on the premise that women in general are extremely stupid (compared to men).

There are different types of offensive comedy. Sometimes jokes refer to horrible things but don't actually make any sort of commentary on the subject at all. For instance:

It's referring to the role of black slaves in the cotton industry before the American Civil War, but it's not actually saying anything about whether that was wrong or right - or about anything else, really. It's just a silly concept that is served with a shock. These kind of jokes are basically harmless.

Then there's the kind where the joke appears to be based on some offensive premise, but is actually poking fun at that premise, rather than embracing it. Let's take a look at this one:

That jokes makes fun of the narrator, who doesn't realise that the premise that crime is for black people is itself racist. So that's a joke about racism.

The third type of joke about an offensive subject, of course, is the one that actually does endorse the offensive ideas that are the joke's premise. Here's one:

This, for me, is the least funny comedy there is. The premise is that those three populations are prone to crime, and thus that they'd of course only be in the same car if they had been arrested by the police. Rather than poking fun at prejudice it's just targeting the people against whom that prejudice exists. The only way to do a joke like this and make it funny is if you're delivering it with a dose of irony. If you're in character and the audience laughs at how bigoted and stupid the character is, this sort of joke can be OK. Otherwise it's not; and even then, it's crossing a line.

That's how I read the joke about the three women on that island: it's ridiculously offensive, and meant to shock - like a dead baby joke, essentially. The most likely context I would expect to see that joke would be in a conversation about old stereotypes that used to be OK to joke about.

Here's one which I think is rather clever:

A guy is having a drink in a very dark bar. He leans over to the big woman next to him and says: "Do you want to hear a funny blonde joke?"

The big woman replies: "Well, before you tell me that joke, you should know something. I'm blonde, six feet tall, 210 pounds, and I'm a professional athlete and bodybuilder. Also, the blonde woman sitting next to me is 6'2", weighs 220 pounds and is an ex-professional wrestler. And next to her is a blonde who is 6'5", weighs 245 pounds, and she is a current professional kickboxer. Now, do you still want to tell me that blonde joke?"

The guy thinks about it a second and says, "Nah, not if I'm gonna have to explain it three times."

I'll leave you to imagine the aftermath.

edited 17th Sep '15 6:14:42 AM by hellomoto

When my brother and I were kids, we once pondered what would happen if the comedy styles of Mel Brooks and Monty Python were combined. This is what we came up with.

Professor Littleoldman: Thorndyke, my Richard!
Professor Thorndyke: Professor Little Old Man!
Professor Littleoldman: (instantly goes berserk with anger) It's Littleoldman, you stupid bastard! Littleoldman! You have high anxiety?! I show you why! Get outside!
(He throws Professor Thorndyke over the balcony, where he falls down his imaginary spiral of fear)
(Cut to an old German couple in a cottage. The man is reading from a big book, the lady is knitting. The man is in underpants. There are a pair of lederhosen drying in front of the fire)
Old German Man: Yorkshire... pudding. A type of thick pancake, eaten with large...
(Roof splitting noise. A thump and the house shakes. They both look up)

edited 17th Sep '15 10:27:11 PM by Demetrios

So you don't laugh at my offensive joke, do you? I'LL SHOW YOU HOW MANY OFFENSIVE JOKES 43 CAN MAKE!

Q: What have a nigger and a cannabis cigarette got in common?

A: You know it's going to be a giggle when you light one up!

Q: What have my wife and an alarm clock got in common?

A: I hit them both daily to make them shut up!

Q: What have Manchester Utd. and Elizabeth Fritzl got in common?

A: They both got raped at home!

PRIMA: I heard that they've got Mc Donalds branches in Africa now.

SECUNDA: Do they? The customers must prefer them to tables and chairs!

PRIMA: I heard that Noah has come to Pakistan to help with the rescue efforts.

SECUNDA: I know! He's found a pair of goats, a pair of cows, a pair of sheep and still the search continues!

I hope this makes BestOf butthurt

edited 20th Sep '15 2:20:55 PM by 434411423124222344

how many famous Thomases does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

two, one to steal the idea for one, another to actually screw it in.

Curiously, in my experience people who tell terrible jokes (and use the word "butthurt" unironically) tend to get more "butthurt" about political correctness than PC advocates get about offensive jokes.

I for one don't have a problem with offensive jokes. My favourite comedians include the likes of Tim Minchin, Stewart Lee, Jimmy Carr, George Carlin, Bill Hicks, and Ricky Gervais. The difference between them and the jokes you just told is that they are actually funny because their joke is always more than just "let's come up with something rude".

Calm down. I wasn't being serious, hence the link to The Gadfly. No need to get all Soapbox Sadie over it.

Besides, to be frank I think that someone who uses "political correctness" unironically shouldn't have the right to determine which words can and cannot be used in conversation.

I'm a bit sad to see how the phrase "political correctness" has come to have such negative associations in some circles, considering that it basically just means thinking before you speak and trying to be fair.

How many mice does it take to screw in a light bulb?

Just two, but the trick is getting them both in the light bulb in the first place.

Why do bagpipe players walk while playing ?
They're trying to get away from the noise.

For some reason, I find absurd jokes relying on logic bombs especially hilarious.

edited 22nd Sep '15 2:47:48 PM by Aetol

You heard about the new corduroy pillows? They're making head lines.

So you're allowed to use internet slang ("political correctness"), but I'm not allowed to use "butthurt" which is used everywhere on the internet and is not obnoxiously spammed as a dumb catch-all term (like YOLO), and does not have bigoted/offensive connotations (like "bae").

If violating Rule 2 gives you your kicks, then gladly do so. If other people complain about those jokes, I'll gladly delete them. If you give a logical reason for me to delete them, I'll also delete them.

PS: Just use "considerate language" instead. It doesn't have as many negative connotations and is a far better term in general.

edited 23rd Sep '15 11:42:57 AM by 434411423124222344

I'm not telling you to censor anything. If I was I would've had my Mod Hat on. I didn't ask you to remove any of your jokes, or the term "butthurt" - I merely commented on my personal views regarding them, as a fellow member of this community.

Political Correctness is a much older term than the Internet. It had its peak in the 90s but was already in use before then. Political Correctness is a rather broad term for language and behaviour that reflects a consideration for the social status of each speaker involved in a discussion. In practice it's a shorthand for the "never punch down" rule.

I'll continue to use the term "political correctness" because it's a good term for that little moment one takes before saying or doing something that could be perceived as mocking people of a lower social status (including, but not limited to, minorities).

If I thought your jokes were genuinely racist or something along those lines you would have known, because I would have Thumped them and done a Mod Hat post saying as much. The way I read your jokes they were basically just shock humour, along the lines of dead baby jokes. It's clear from context - or seems so to me, anyway - that you didn't tell those jokes to say that the horrible premises implied by them are actually true.

Finally, I must admit I do take humour too seriously. I'm very passionate about it, as I believe comedy is usually the best form of entertainment - and sometimes art - that there is. I'm also aware of the power that jokes can have - usually, fortunately, for the better.

edited 23rd Sep '15 12:26:20 PM by BestOf

Curiously, in my experience people who tell terrible jokes (and use the word "butthurt" unironically) tend to get more "butthurt" about political correctness than PC advocates get about offensive jokes.

This can only be considered subjectively written from a Exact Words point of view. If I said "In my experience blacks are uneducated bastards who deserve to be slaves", you (i.e whatever person I said that to) would probably get offended, even if I rationalized it by saying "that's just what I think, it's not objective fact".

PC pre-dating the Internet doesn't change the fact that it is largely used by Kankri Vantas Social Justice (KVSJ) advocates who scream "SEXIST!!!" at anything containing a woman feeling uncomfortable, which has resulted in PC becoming a contemptible term on much of the Internet. It's best to use something else.

Anyway, arguing with a mod makes me feel like I have an especially large Damocles Sword hanging over my head and we have little more to settle, so I think we'll finish this here.