Every community or social/racial group of people has its 'joke butts'. With the English, it's the Irish, with the Irish it's the Kerryman, with the Americans, it's the Polish, with the Polish, it's the Czechs or who ever....

The banjo is not the most loved of instruments over here. I find it strident and obtrusive in sessions and just downright unpleasant as a solo instrument, but that could be because it causes an uncomfortable vibration in my deaf ear. It could also be because it was only fairly recently I met someone who could actually play the thing tunefully.

Just as people who dislike a racial group will joke about that group, so those who dislike the banjo will joke about banjoes.

LTS