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themayorofsimpleton Now a lurker. Thanks for everything. | he/him from Elsewhere (Experienced, Not Yet Jaded) Relationship Status: Abstaining
Now a lurker. Thanks for everything. | he/him
#1: Feb 28th 2023 at 6:31:34 AM

To-do list:

  • Merge with Stock Shticks, including transplanting non-duplicate jokes to the Stock Jokes page and redirecting to that page after everything is accounted for.

    Original post 
NOTE: The following OP was written by badtothebaritone. Please give credit to them.


Stock Shticks is an old page that houses a list of common joke types. It has no on-page examples despite not being No On-Page Examples, as is common among pages this old, and its wicks mainly follow the pattern "a joke of a common type is told", negative reception optional. The name is also a bad snowclone of the "Stock X" variety.

I suggest disambiguating between Pun, Lame Pun Reaction, and possibly other tropes, though I'm open to other options. I think there might be potential for a trope about amateur, unfunny comedians who overuse stock jokes like the ones this trope covers.

Summary of Shtick Check:

  • A joke of a common type exists (32/50)
  • A common joke is received negatively (7/50)
  • A common gag happens (3/50)
  • ZCE (1/50)
  • Other (7/50)

Wick check:

     A joke of a common type exists (32/50) 
  1. Characters.Crash Canyon - Stock Shticks: Tells many jokes at the expense of his non-existent wife, which is a common theme among many comedians.
  2. Characters.Darkest Dungeon Heroes G To L - Stock Shticks: Gives a variation on one with "What's the deal with pineapple… am I right?" We're not even sure if the Hamlet is in a place that had pineapple known to them!
  3. Supernatural S 08 E 13 Everybody Hates Hitler - Stock Shticks:
    Eckart: That reminds me of a story. A Jew, two gentiles and a golem walk into a bar. And it doesn't end with them walking out.
  4. Yu Gi Oh The Abridged Series S 4 E 3 United Sucks - Stock Shticks: Joey voices his approval of airline food-based humor.
  5. Clipboard of Authority: Lampshaded and riffed on in The Rhesus Chart by Charles Stross. A think tank of investment bankers discover they've become vampires, so set about investigating in an organised manner how they'll get blood and what their powers and vulnerabilities are, turning up at hospitals and butcher shops wielding clipboards (even to church mass or nightclubs, where it's completely unnecessary).
  6. Legend (2015) - The Krays are willing to use any form of melee weapons to even the odds against their rivals. However, being teenage boxers, they're equally as prone to rely on their mitts. And during the bar brawl, Ron fools the mooks into thinking he's left Reg to fend for himself. He actually sneaks back in quietly while Reg describes him doing just that ("A paranoid schizophrenic walks into a pub…") as a distraction to cause maximum surprise when they start fighting back.
  7. Halloween Episode: In the 2004 cartoon "Halloween Fairstival", Strong Bad tries to help the Cheat cure a case of the hiccups at the eponymous Halloween event, which features Coach Z's "haunted locker room", Bubs' cliche-ridden comedy act, and Marzipan's "Chorus of Autumnal Vegetables".
  8. Characters.The Red Green Show - Married to the Job: He finds his line of work endlessly fascinating, and will go on at length about it at any opportunity. He was very proud of the time he managed the immensely difficult task of talking to a woman on a plane for the entire flight without mentioning sewage even once.
  9. Victorious S 1 E 19 - Referenced when Cat, who shows up in her role as a standup comedian, mentions to not get her started on airplane food.
  10. Knocking on Heathens' Door: What do you get if you cross a Jehovah's Witness with a Hell's Angel? Someone who knocks on your door and tells you to fuck off!
  11. Trope Breaker - Certain Stock Shticks are rendered broken by technology, such as GPS doing away with the "man never asking for directions" schtick. Commercials for Tom-Tom have put a new spin on it, though, having guys ask "Mom-Mom" or "Doug-Doug" for directions instead of getting a Tom-Tom.
  12. Minstrel Shows - Stock Shticks: Many of the stock minstrel jokes have passed into folklore. "Why did the chicken cross the road?" "Why does a fireman wear red suspenders?" "Who was that lady I saw you with last night?" note 
  13. Preacher S 2 E 3 Damsels - Stock Shticks: When Jesse walks up to a bar and asks for God, the classic "A preacher walks into a bar" joke gets referenced.
  14. Funny.Well Theres Your Problem:
    Justin: A Catholic, a Muslim, and a Jew walk into a podcast. It's us. We're the joke.
  15. Hollywood Cuisine: Southwest: Mexican food, brought in by Mexican-American immigrants. Chipotle and corn as ingredients. Expect to find cilantro (which looks like parsley and tastes, at least to people with a certain gene, like cheap gas station restroom hand soap smells) and green chilies in everything if you don't specifically ask for them to be left out. Commonly the subject of a stock gag that suggests gastrointestinal distress as a result of consumption.
  16. The War Against the Chtorr - Stock Shticks: What does a Chtorran call a liberal? Politically correct lunch. What does a Chtorran call a conservative? Gunpowder-seasoned lunch. Create your own Chtorran joke: What does a Chtorran call _______? Lunch!
  17. Funny.Star Trek The Next Generation - When Data is being a comedian, he parodies one of the Stock Shticks by saying, "Take my Worf, please."
  18. Code MENT - Stock Shticks: Lelouch uses one to break the awkward silence with C.C. Then he says it several more times, becoming increasingly angry at each repetition.
  19. DarkMatter2525 - Stock Shticks: "The Greater Insult" mocks the "walk into a bar" joke when God claims that he brought Sabrina (a Muslim), Marcus (a Christian), and Samuel (an Atheist) to speak with him on a barren planet because he was going to create a bar there and he was curious as to what would happen if the three of them walked in there... only for him to start laughing, elevating the mood before shit gets serious.
  20. Homestar Runner Halloween Fairstival - So Unfunny, It's Funny: Bubs's comedy act at the "Ha-Ha-Halloween Comedy Club" is apparently composed entirely of clichéd jokes, including ones about Women Drivers, airline food, and stuff that used to be popular but is now dated.
  21. Lame Pun Reaction - Comment sections and forums will usually have the punner doing a Stock Shtick that follows the rimshot: "Thank you! I'll be here all week!" (common addends are *Mic Drop*, "try the veal" and "remember to tip your servers")
  22. Buffy The Vampire Slayer S 6 E 20 Villains - Stock Shticks:
    Rack: If I were you, I'd be worried about the witch.
    Warren: Witch? Which witch?
  23. Characters.Injustice The Society - Stock Shticks: In one of his intros with Doctor Fate.
    Captain Cold: Doctor.
    Doctor Fate: Captain.
    Captain Cold: Just need a priest, and we can walk into a bar.
  24. Funny.Rifftrax Film Franchises: When Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli meet the exiled Riders of Rohan:
    Éomer: What business do a man, an elf, and a dwarf have in the Riddermark?
    Mike: And shouldn't you be walking into a bar somewhere?
  25. Expensive Glass of Crap - Angry at a passenger for being rude to her, Carolyn Shappey swaps out the expensive wine that he requests she serve him with the same boxed crap that they serve everyone on the airline, justifying herself with the excuse that everyone's palate is shot at their altitude (Truth in Television; this is, in fact, "the deal with airline food").
  26. PlayingWith.Busmans Vocabulary: Straight: Alice is a standup comedian who says, "Am I right?" even when not performing.
  27. Funny.Fallout 4: Hancock has a real ghoulish joke:
  28. Funny.Proton Jon Fortune Cookie 2017: A donation message was simply the very old joke, "I just flew in from Chicago, and boy are my arms tired!" On it's own? Not funny. Donated by someone with the name "I Masturbate On Planes"? Hilarious.
  29. Fup I Farvandet - Stock Shticks: Often gets invoked and parodied, mainly because the guys know that as comics they have a tendency to word stories in a certain way.
  30. WMG.Diary Of A Wimpy Kid - An obvious one with a Screaming Plane Baby, the Take That! to airline food.
  31. Roomies!, It's Walky!, Joyce and Walky! - Stock Shticks: "I just flew in from New York, an' boy are my arms gonna be tired."
  32. Not the Fall That Kills You…: This is part of the explanation of the infamous "Why can't they make a plane out of the black box material?" joke, besides the obvious that it would be too heavy to fly — even if the plane was indestructible, it would be of no help to the oh-so-breakable people inside of the plane when it crashes.

     A common joke is received negatively (7/50) 
  1. Ed Edd N Eddy S 2 E 11 Home Cooked Eds - Stock Shticks: Lampshaded with the old “give me a hand” gag.
    Eddy: Ed, give me a hand!
    Ed: Found one. [Brings him Edd's hand, giggling at his own joke.]
    Edd: This joke is older than my Mesozoic fossil collection, Ed.
    Ed: Whoops, there it goes. Yep, my brain stopped.
  2. Characters.If The Emperor Had A Text To Speech Device The Eldar - Stock Shticks: The Laughing God's sense of humor was stale thirty-eight millennia ago, but you tell that to, well, The Laughing God. If you're lucky he might just kill you.
  3. Action Bunnies - "No. Just… No" Reaction: "So a blind man and a racist walk into a bar-" "NOPE."
  4. Shatterpoint - Stock Shticks: The Pho Ph'eahian comedian tells a customs agent that "he'd just jumped in from Kashyyyk and boy, were his legs tired". Neither Mace nor the agent find him amusing.
  5. Long Title: David Cross' Stand-Up Comedy album It's Not Funny has long track titles that have absolutely nothing to do with the content of the joke, being just mockeries of Stock Shticks (i.e. "Although Indigent, Rural Families Have Little to Say in the Matter, Third Rate Public Education Has Kept Them Ignorant and Thus, Great Sources of Ridicule!" and "When It Comes to Jews, Behavior One Might Perceive as Obnoxious and Annoying I Present as 'Quirky' but It's Okay to Joke About It Because I, Myself, Am Jewish!").
  6. ImAHumanitarian.Live Action TV - A sketch in the German nonsense series Klimbim has the familiar setting of a plane crashing in the middle of nowhere and the survivors having to feed on the corpses of the unlucky, until they finally get saved. When a reporter comes to interview them about their predicament, they immediately begin to tell horror stories about the inedible airplane food. When that is on the verge of Overly Long Gag, the reporter, becoming impatient, bluntly ask about the cannibalism. "Oh. The people. We ate them first, of course."
  7. Mr. Bill - Stock Shticks: Mr. Bill's stand-up routine in Mr. Bill Does Vegas typically includes a nervous variation of the "I just flew in from ______, and boy, are my arms tired!" joke, to the amusement of no one. Laughter only arises when he is greviously injured, as usual.

     A common gag happens (3/50) 
  1. Funny.Ace Ventura: Ace promptly spills the peanuts when tearing the bag open.
  2. VCR: VCRs included a digital clock, which in many people's homes simply blinked "12:00" because no one could be bothered to figure out (or wanted to figure out) how to program it after hooking it up or after a power failure, because the clock wasn't necessary to watch movies - only to program when to record things. This became a common Stock Shtick for someone who was Hopeless with Tech.
  3. Stopped Clock: VCRs included a digital clock, which in many people's homes simply blinked "12:00" because no one could be bothered to figure out how to program it after hooking it up or after a power failure, because the clock wasn't necessary to watch movies - only to program when to record things. This became a common Stock Shtick for someone who was Hopeless with Tech.

     ZCE (1/50) 
  1. Buttersafe - Stock Shticks: Parodied in "Stand Up". Also discusses the Mattress-Tag Gag.

     Other (7/50) 
  1. Recorded and Stand-Up Comedy - Related trope
  2. HoYay.The Professionals - In "Fugitive", two men walk into a hair salon. Pothole
  3. Stock Room Related trope
  4. [Trope Name] Injokes: Example consisting of something like "a joke about three guys who walk into a bar involves this trope". No further details are given. Pothole
  5. Bottom of the Barrel Joke - Related trope
  6. Festivities and Holidays Mad King Thorn's portfolio
  7. Hitman: Absolution - Stock Shticks: If you initiated a bar fight at Great Balls of Fire, 47 becomes the talk of the town. This leads to some humorous chatter in the courthouse parking lot: Subverted
    Cop #1: So this bald guy walks into a bar, right?
    Cop #2: Hold on now. Is this a joke?
    Cop #1: —? NO!

Edited by GastonRabbit on Mar 5th 2023 at 1:57:02 PM

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GastonRabbit Sounds good on paper (he/him) from Robinson, Illinois, USA (General of TV Troops) Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
#2: Feb 28th 2023 at 6:36:34 AM

Opened and paging ~badtothebaritone to the thread. I think this should be deprecated, but I'm not sure how to do it (I don't know if a full-fledged cut can be done due to inbounds).

Edit: I closed an accidental duplicate thread.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Feb 28th 2023 at 8:36:48 AM

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
Berrenta How sweet it is from Texas Since: Apr, 2015 Relationship Status: Can't buy me love
How sweet it is
#3: Feb 28th 2023 at 6:54:42 AM

I'm okay with a disambiguation.

I'm sure some stock jokes have their own pages, so they can be other possible disambiguation targets. Chicken Joke and White Dude, Black Dude, for example.

Edited by Berrenta on Feb 28th 2023 at 8:56:13 AM

she/her | TRS needs your help! | Contributor of Trope Report
GastonRabbit Sounds good on paper (he/him) from Robinson, Illinois, USA (General of TV Troops) Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
#4: Feb 28th 2023 at 6:59:08 AM

I discovered that this is indexed on Recorded and Stand-Up Comedy. What about redirecting to that page, since it has a list of tropes? Or disambiguating between that and the previously mentioned stock jokes. Maybe disambiguating would be better per what was said about stock jokes.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Feb 28th 2023 at 9:00:00 AM

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
selkies Professional Wick Checker Since: Jan, 2021 Relationship Status: Star-crossed
Professional Wick Checker
#5: Feb 28th 2023 at 7:29:55 AM

Disambiguation sounds good.

BlackMage43 Since: Jun, 2014 Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
#6: Feb 28th 2023 at 7:38:13 AM

I think Stock Jokes is a better redirect target since not all the examples are based on stand-up comedy.

Reading the wick checks, the majority of the examples either fit into a existing Stock Joke tropes or is one we don't have yet. "X walks into a Y" joke and "airplane food is terrible" jokes seem to be most common on the wick check.

GastonRabbit Sounds good on paper (he/him) from Robinson, Illinois, USA (General of TV Troops) Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
#7: Feb 28th 2023 at 7:41:22 AM

In that case, yeah, let's redirect to Stock Jokes.

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
themayorofsimpleton Now a lurker. Thanks for everything. | he/him from Elsewhere (Experienced, Not Yet Jaded) Relationship Status: Abstaining
Amonimus the Retromancer from <<|Wiki Talk|>> (Sergeant) Relationship Status: In another castle
the Retromancer
#9: Feb 28th 2023 at 9:11:50 AM

I wonder if we can merge some parts of Stock Shticks (at least some of the description) to Stock Jokes, as since 2021 it seems to have jokes that don't have own pages

TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup
GastonRabbit Sounds good on paper (he/him) from Robinson, Illinois, USA (General of TV Troops) Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
#10: Feb 28th 2023 at 9:14:00 AM

[up]We can probably do that before redirecting.

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
FernandoLemon Nobody Here from Argentina (Troper Knight) Relationship Status: In season
#11: Feb 28th 2023 at 6:08:49 PM

[up][up] There would be precedent in turning that one into a supertrope instead of an index if it wasn't for the fact that there are no on-page examples to move. But yes, Stock Shticks needs to go since the page is a mess, and merging with Stock Jokes sounds good.

I'll also make an IP thread for the image once consensus is called.

I'd like to apologize for all this.
FernandoLemon Nobody Here from Argentina (Troper Knight) Relationship Status: In season
#12: Mar 2nd 2023 at 7:02:53 AM

(nvm, miscounted the number of days)

Edited by FernandoLemon on Mar 2nd 2023 at 12:03:06 PM

I'd like to apologize for all this.
GastonRabbit Sounds good on paper (he/him) from Robinson, Illinois, USA (General of TV Troops) Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
#13: Mar 2nd 2023 at 8:18:56 AM

[up]Don't worry about it. When I checked the thread earlier this morning, I had to think a bit harder about the timestamp because February doesn't play by the rules when it comes to months usually being at least 30 days long.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Mar 2nd 2023 at 10:19:13 AM

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
themayorofsimpleton Now a lurker. Thanks for everything. | he/him from Elsewhere (Experienced, Not Yet Jaded) Relationship Status: Abstaining
Now a lurker. Thanks for everything. | he/him
GastonRabbit MOD Sounds good on paper (he/him) from Robinson, Illinois, USA (General of TV Troops) Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
#15: Mar 3rd 2023 at 4:07:50 AM

We are ready for one, so hooked.

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
GastonRabbit MOD Sounds good on paper (he/him) from Robinson, Illinois, USA (General of TV Troops) Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
#16: Mar 5th 2023 at 11:54:01 PM

Calling in favor of merging with Stock Jokes.

Remember to move non-duplicate entries to Stock Jokes before redirecting the page.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Mar 5th 2023 at 1:54:23 PM

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
FernandoLemon Nobody Here from Argentina (Troper Knight) Relationship Status: In season
#17: Mar 6th 2023 at 7:50:32 AM

We don't add wicks as examples, right?

Edited by FernandoLemon on Mar 6th 2023 at 12:50:46 PM

I'd like to apologize for all this.
Berrenta How sweet it is from Texas Since: Apr, 2015 Relationship Status: Can't buy me love
How sweet it is
#18: Mar 6th 2023 at 9:06:22 AM

Moved the redirects over.

she/her | TRS needs your help! | Contributor of Trope Report
themayorofsimpleton Now a lurker. Thanks for everything. | he/him from Elsewhere (Experienced, Not Yet Jaded) Relationship Status: Abstaining
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themayorofsimpleton Now a lurker. Thanks for everything. | he/him from Elsewhere (Experienced, Not Yet Jaded) Relationship Status: Abstaining
Now a lurker. Thanks for everything. | he/him
#20: Mar 8th 2023 at 2:49:03 PM

Still working on this—deleting all trope uses because Stock Jokes is an index and we don't use indexes as tropes IIRC. Is that correct?

And another question—do we really need to merge the on-page examples for Stock Shticks? Basically none of them have context.

Edited by themayorofsimpleton on Mar 8th 2023 at 7:28:19 AM

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Berrenta How sweet it is from Texas Since: Apr, 2015 Relationship Status: Can't buy me love
How sweet it is
#21: Mar 9th 2023 at 7:19:55 AM

[up] They're just a list of gags. If there's an associated trope, add to the Stock Jokes index if it's not there, and those that don't go in the other section of the page.

Edited by Berrenta on Mar 9th 2023 at 9:20:47 AM

she/her | TRS needs your help! | Contributor of Trope Report
themayorofsimpleton Now a lurker. Thanks for everything. | he/him from Elsewhere (Experienced, Not Yet Jaded) Relationship Status: Abstaining
Now a lurker. Thanks for everything. | he/him
#22: Mar 10th 2023 at 6:11:54 AM

Off-page wick cleanup is done, minus the Sandbox namespace and a Pantheon link—I let the Pantheon thread know about the latter.

Now we do on-page. Assuming I don't do it first, requesting the to-do list be updated to account for this.

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themayorofsimpleton Now a lurker. Thanks for everything. | he/him from Elsewhere (Experienced, Not Yet Jaded) Relationship Status: Abstaining
Now a lurker. Thanks for everything. | he/him
#23: Mar 10th 2023 at 6:17:06 AM

I've transplanted the joke list. A good chunk of them have no context, but it seems like that's OK?

I'm going to merge anyway. Ping me if there's a problem.

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themayorofsimpleton Now a lurker. Thanks for everything. | he/him from Elsewhere (Experienced, Not Yet Jaded) Relationship Status: Abstaining
Now a lurker. Thanks for everything. | he/him
MacronNotes (she/her) (Captain) Relationship Status: Less than three
(she/her)
#25: Mar 10th 2023 at 6:21:48 AM

Stock Shtick still has some wicks to it but it should take me less than 10 mins to clean them all. Locking as resolved.

Macron's notes
Add Post

Trope Repair Shop: Stock Shticks
3rd Mar '23 4:07:23 AM

Crown Description:

There have been concerns that Stock Shticks is redundant with Stock Jokes. What should be done with Stock Shticks?

Total posts: 25
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