[IMG description: screenshot of tags:
#Wow this really works!
#*honks nose* I want a million dollars
#I pull a one dollar bill out of my pocket
#I pull another one dollar bill out of my pocket
#this proceeds for the next 3 hours
end description]
Okay but tags above are incorrect. This is not the funniest way to get a million dollars. It’s too time-consuming to make a good gag.
What actually happens is that you pull like 5 singles out in this way, and then you pull out a note that says “Look up.” You look up. A briefcase full of single dollars falls directly on top of you, the latches opening on impact, sending single dollar bills floating everywhere.
Humor is about establishing and then subverting an expectation, you broken-mug-containing-a-perfectly-mug-shaped-lump-of-bacon-grease. You can get away with subverting a baseline expectation (which the original post attempts to do by subverting the expectation that the million dollars comes in like… a useful, useable form), but only if that’s the like. End point of the joke. If you just keep it going forever it stops being funny. That’s why those stupid long setup kinds of jokes end at the punchline, because you end a joke at the emotional high point.
My counterjoke on the other hand uses that same setup to deliver a second, bigger punchline. It uses not only that setup, but the classical imagery of “heavy object falls on someone after they look up” humor, which is a staple of physical comedy and cartoons. It subverts the expectation set up by the original (which is repeated in the joke’s own setup, so it can be understood without the original joke), while also nodding to the history of jokes, clown jokes in particular.
As a result, my punchline has more impact.
snowghoul
izzy806
blakekathryn
vaporwave
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