Click for the 'PermaThread™: List of all joke threads'

---

Hello gang. Here's something I was discussing with some friends, and I thought maybe you'd have some insights.

What we want to know is where jokes come from - and by jokes I mean short narratives with a punch line ("This guy walks into a bar ..." etc.), or riddles ("What do you get when you cross a...." etc.). The kind of thing you come up with when asked to "tell a joke".

It's my impression that most people, including myself, will spontaneously come up with a funny line now and then that is relevant to the situation/conversation, but wouldn't make sense out of context. But I've never made up a joke in self-contained short story format, or even a riddle as far as I can remember. Have you ever made up a joke? Have your friends? Why are there so many in circulation?

I thought of professional comedy writers - but really, the mainstay of sitcoms, funny movies, and even most stand-up comedy routines are the witty comments relevant only to the situation that I mentioned before. There's just more witty comments per hour than there is in real life.

Marion