I think my favorite jokes are the ones that weren’t even all that funny until I was an adult, and now they’re fucking hilarious. I’m not even talking about the dirty jokes. I’m talking about in Finding Nemo where the sharks are having fucking AA for fish eating. Remember that shit? “I am a nice shark, not a mindless eating machine. If I am to change this image, I must first change myself.” Who ever thought of that? That was brilliant. Or what about that time in Shrek 2 where Shrek and Donkey infiltrate the castle pretending to be union workers? Little me didn’t give a shit about unions but big me is remembering Shrek going “It’s okay buddy, we’re from the union” and the desk worker secretively “we don’t even have dental,” and Shrek just shakes his head and looks at Donkey like he can’t believe this shit and goes, “They don’t even have dental.” What the fuck. I’m dying of laughter. Who comes up with this shit.
Dirty jokes have their place but I kind of wish more “adult” jokes relied on “Things only adults would understand due to lack of life experience,” instead of “Things that are inappropriate for kids,”
Social Studies, High School, US History, 1940s culture
Do Now: (3-5 min)
Read and React.
Read the above posts and ask yourself if you’ve ever experienced this. Discuss with a partner or with yourself on paper.
Main Activity: (10-15 min)
Brief discussion that “adult jokes” will often change with time. We will illustrate this with a famous Merry Melodies cartoon that’s nearly impenetrable for modern audiences.
Instruct students make a T-chart of “I get it” & “I’m too young to get it”. Everyone, including the teacher and as many faculty and staff volunteers as you can find (even parents who wish to participate asynchronously) will keep score of how many jokes and references are made in the cartoon that fall into either category.
Here is a link to the cartoon via archive.org (I think HBO owns it otherwise). Runtime is 7:45
https://archive.org/details/looney-tunes-s-1941e-17-hollywood-steps-out
Higher Order Learning: (30+ min)
Students (and volunteers) work independently or in groups to research the Plot section of this cartoon’s Wikipedia page in order to learn about each of the jokes and references that they marked as “I’m too young”. THIS MAY TAKE A WHILE. Once they discover why each bit was supposed to be funny, they should rate the humor of the bit on a 1-5 scale.
Finish for HW.
Extension Opportunity:
Imagine updating this cartoon for the current day. What 2020s celebrities would you add and what jokes/references would they perform?
I think this wins for “most surreal thing that’s ever happened to this post”
new item for two truths and a lie: I have once had a shitpost turned into a lesson plan
is this what it feels like to get your post embroidered
I think this wins for
“most surreal thing that’s ever
happened to this post”
Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.




















