Seriously, the Joke Is Dead
NY Times
IN case you missed its obituary, the joke died recently after a long illness, of, oh, 30 years. Its passing was barely noticed, drowned out, perhaps, by the din of ironic one-liners, snark and detached bons mots that pass for humor these days.
The joke died a lonely death. There was no next of kin to notify, the comedy skit, the hand-buzzer and Bob Newhart’s imaginary telephone monologues having passed on long before. But when people reminisce about it, they always say the same thing: the joke knew how to make an entrance. “Two guys walked into a bar”; “So this lady goes to the doctor”; “Did you hear the one about the talking parrot?” The new humor sneaks by on little cat feet, all punch line and no setup, and if it bombs, you barely notice. The joke insisted on everyone’s attention, and when it bombed - wow.
“A joke is a way to say, ‘I’m going to do something funny now,’ ” said Penn Jillette, the talking half of the comedy and magic duo Penn & Teller and a producer of “The Aristocrats,” a new documentary about an old dirty joke of the same name. “If I don’t get a laugh at the end, I’m a failure.”
It’s a matter of faith among professional comics that jokes - the kind that involve a narrative setup, some ridiculous details and a punch line - have been displaced by observational humor and one-liners. Lisa Lampanelli, who describes herself as the world’s only female insult comic, said that in the business, straight jokes were considered “the kiss of death.”
“You don’t tell joke jokes onstage ever,” she said. “Because then you’re a big hack.”
But out in the real world, the joke hung on for a while, lurking in backwaters of male camaraderie like bachelor parties and trading floors and in monthly installments of Playboy’s “Party Jokes” page. Then jokes practically vanished. To tell a joke at the office or a party these days is to pronounce oneself a cornball, an attention hog, and of course to risk offending someone, a high social crime. “I can’t remember the last time I was sitting around and heard someone tell a good joke,” Ms. Lampanelli said.
