It's recently occurred to me that there are no new jokes being circulated in my culture. Which is not say that comedy is dead, or that everything has stopped being funny lately. I'm not talking about Chuck Norris jokes or Saturday Night Live. I mean the witty question-and-answer gags or those absurdist anecdotes. I haven't heard a new one in ages.
Two drums and a cymbal fall down the edge of a cliff
Budump-chsh
I'm assuming you've heard this one, probably more than once. Why then has no one invented a single new joke (to my knowledge) in years? I feel like a good number of jokes originated from screenwriters who would put them in their scripts to break up a tense scene or to give a character a different dimensionality, and they would then spread as an oral tradition among the moviegoers' friends and their friends. I have a few suspects for the death of this idea:
1. Joke books. People who were incapable of being funny on their own in social situations would buy these things and study them like textbooks before going to a party or something. "Oooh look how funny you are" the partygoers would say and the joke distributor would get a little boost in self-esteem. These books were super-popular in the seventies and eighties, but then people realized that you can make limited profit selling joke books, so publishers just started compiling a bunch of used jokes instead of writing new ones to make money.
2. Gilbert Gottfried. Most stand-up comedians do not use the joke form I've described in their acts. "Something funny happened inside my brain when I was stoned" (Mitch Hedburg); "Boy the news sure is funny, aint it?" (Jay Leno); or "I can make funny noises with my lips" (Dane Cook). Gilbert Gottfried was always classicist joke-teller though. His forms followed the structure I've described above, but he always pushed the envelope beyond what could be told in general social settings. This is actually not solely Gottfired's fault. Jokes will just not spread as easily when they involve sexual organs or stereotyped demographics. Every time anyone hears a joke like this and says "I find that offensive," the joketeller and all those listening are discouraged from telling that joke again, which I think subconsciously discredits the medium as a whole.
3. Science. Remember in 2002 when scientist made a survey to figure out what the funniest joke in the entire world was? Whose idea was that? Anyway the winner turned out to be that one about Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson and that missing tent. I never thought it was that great, but who am I to argue with science? I think a lot of traditionalist joke writers felt the same way. Why write any new jokes if it's always going to come in second place to that damn Dr. Watson joke? Thanks a lot objectivity.
