Punchlines

[mrissa]

After a mere nine previews*, markgritter and I saw "Superman Returns" this afternoon.** I have often said that one of my family's primary modes of communication is punchline code -- "You can't eat a good pig like that all at once," that sort of thing. I had cause to deploy one of our local favorites several times during this movie: "Superman, you're an asshole when you're drunk." Only he wasn't drunk. Sigh.

This is also my canonical example of the joke you can never tell because you only think of it when the conversation has telegraphed the general subject, rending the ending unfunny. (Or, y'know, unfunnier.) Happily, making it the canonical example has meant that when the conversation turns to a joke the person can't tell because the conversation has telegraphed the general subject, I can tell that one. So that's a good outcome, I guess.

Anyway, I like Kevin Spacey. I think that's the moral of this story. If this story has to have a moral.

And then I found five bucks.

*I'm not kidding. Nine. Also several of them related to football in some fashion. Signs that a movie is too mainstream, I guess.

**We like to go to matinees, because a) we're cheap and b) we're misanthropes. Some of us more than others. Usually this is not possible, because while markgritter works from home, he does need to be available for IM, the phone, e-mail, etc. for other people he works with. But Sun makes their people take this week off. We may see another movie Friday just because we can.

Comments

[callunav.livejournal.com]

Joke:

A woman takes a friend to eat at her favorite restaurant. In one corner, there's a large group of people who have clearly reserved several tables in order to be all together. The group is boisterous and seems to be having a great time. Periodically, one of them will raise a hand to get attention, and then call out a number, after which everyone in the group laughs heartily. Mystified, the friend asks the woman what on earth is going on.

"Oh, that's a joke-telling club. They come here every Thursday."

"But--"

"Well, they all know all the jokes already, so they just number them for convenience."

Baffled, the friend goes back to eating, and casting glances at the club members. After quite a while of this, someone dings her glass to get quiet, and calls out, "72!" and everyone laughs. One man, however, cannot contain himself. He laughs until he is red in the face and tears are streaming down his cheeks. He pounds weakly on the table and clutches his sides and laughs and laughs and laughs.

"What's with him?" the friend asks, wonderingly.

"I don't know," the woman says, shrugging. "I guess he never heard it before."


----

This has become my code for joke which can be told by reference. Moreover, it is now possible for me to suggest that people are communicating jokes without telling them because of shared history by saying "72!" which is more embedded than any joke I learned from my grandfather and had to have explained to me when I was 7 (I was a singularly humorless child, really) has any right to expect to be.

[brooksmoses]

Heh. I got a version of that joke from my father, though I don't remember the details.

It does have a different punchline, though. In the version I know, which has a different setting (not a joke-telling club and not a restaurant, but something more like a group of Navy cadets at the mess hall), the newcomer decides that he's going to give this a try, and at the next pause in the conversation, calls out a number.

However, everybody just looks at him, and nobody laughs.

Baffled, he asks, "What? What did I do wrong?"

"Well, you know, don't take it personally, but some people just can't tell a joke...."

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

Hah!

BOTH of those jokes are in my college gang's "Joke Code." Along with "and the Italians run the Government," "Nice shot, dad, but can you stop fucking around and play golf?" "GODDAMMIT! I MISSED!" and a dozen others.

Sometimes, late at night at parties, we sit around and just tell the punchlines.

[the-flea-king.livejournal.com]

"Nice shot dad," isn't that the joke about jesus and god playing golf?

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

And Moses.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Hee. Our golf joke reference is, "And from there on out, it was nothing but hit the ball and drag Charlie."

[jmeadows.livejournal.com]

When I saw Superman Returns, we had all animated trailers. So, yanno.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Sigh.

[barondave.livejournal.com]

No soap, radio.

[the-flea-king.livejournal.com]

I agree very much on the subject of ol' Supes.

I don't know what your feelings were on the first one, but Pirates of the Carribean 2 comes out on friday...

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I liked the first one very much -- more than I expected to, in fact. It was one of those, "Why didn't anybody tell me this was -- oh, right, everybody told me. Never mind," experiences. So I'm looking forward to that when we get to see it.