Fortnightly Writing Competition: Tell me a Joke!!! (Results)

[Baron]

Feedback:

Spoiler

Mandle - CCC: Well it's a kid diddling joke, i'n't it?  Alas I had to look up who on earth Rolf Harris was.  Not in the running for humour, but I considered this entry for an originality point.

RootBound - Diner Disaster: It was a clever pun, I'll grant you that, so in the running for an originality point, but... water boils at 212F and can't get any hotter.  Wouldn't the sausages actually cook faster in the 300F oven?

Stupot - Coincidences:  I don't know how original this was, but it was new to me.  You got a snort of laughter out of my left nostril, so expect some humour votes.

CaptainD - Dinner for Two or Maybe One: Definitely original vote material.  I sure bet combining the names of Samuel Barber, Elle MacPherson, and jackfruit yields something humorous, but I was unable to make it work on my end.  Hints?

Mandle - Time Works Weird in Heaven:  This reminds me of a book about debating that described a 43 year old recently elected head of state who took over from the Supreme Commander of his nation's forces in the global war that ended 15 years previously (etc. etc.).  It was an American book and you're supposed to think it's JFK but it was actually -gasp!- Hitler.  The idea being preconceived notions can be reinforced with facts or... something.  Anyway, I'm not sure how original that makes your gag, but the stark juxtaposition of Hitler's deeds and god's deeds might be worth a humour point.

Stupot - Neuralink:  Poor, poor Don.  Can't a guy catch a break?  Original perhaps, but more sad than funny.

Mandle - Smash & Grab:  Ha ha fence pun.  I think you gotta pull up your socks a bit if you're going to steal the pun vote from RootBound, though. 

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Votes:

Spoiler

Originality: RootBound Diner Disaster (1 vote), CaptainD Dinner for 2 or 1 (1 vote), Stupot Coincidences (1 vote)

Humour: Stupot Coincidences (2 votes), Mandle Time Works Weird in Heaven (1 vote)

[close]

[Stupot]

Feedback:

Spoiler

Mandle - CCC: Well it's a kid diddling joke, i'n't it?  Alas I had to look up who on earth Rolf Harris was.  Not in the running for humour, but I considered this entry for an originality point.

RootBound - Diner Disaster: It was a clever pun, I'll grant you that, so in the running for an originality point, but... water boils at 212F and can't get any hotter.  Wouldn't the sausages actually cook faster in the 300F oven?

Stupot - Coincidences:  I don't know how original this was, but it was new to me.  You got a snort of laughter out of my left nostril, so expect some humour votes.

CaptainD - Dinner for Two or Maybe One: Definitely original vote material.  I sure bet combining the names of Samuel Barber, Elle MacPherson, and jackfruit yields something humorous, but I was unable to make it work on my end.  Hints?

Mandle - Time Works Weird in Heaven:  This reminds me of a book about debating that described a 43 year old recently elected head of state who took over from the Supreme Commander of his nation's forces in the global war that ended 15 years previously (etc. etc.).  It was an American book and you're supposed to think it's JFK but it was actually -gasp!- Hitler.  The idea being preconceived notions can be reinforced with facts or... something.  Anyway, I'm not sure how original that makes your gag, but the stark juxtaposition of Hitler's deeds and god's deeds might be worth a humour point.

Stupot - Neuralink:  Poor, poor Don.  Can't a guy catch a break?  Original perhaps, but more sad than funny.

Mandle - Smash & Grab:  Ha ha fence pun.  I think you gotta pull up your socks a bit if you're going to steal the pun vote from RootBound, though. 

[close]

Votes:

Spoiler

Originality: RootBound Diner Disaster (1 vote), CaptainD Dinner for 2 or 1 (1 vote), Stupot Coincidences (1 vote)

Humour: Stupot Coincidences (2 votes), Mandle Time Works Weird in Heaven (1 vote)

[close]

Thanks for your votes and feedback, Baron (and everyone else, so far).
You seem to have missed one of my jokes.
Layers
I don't know if it will affect your votes at all, but it's there if you want to read it.

[Mandle]

Cheers, Baron for both your story and your votes/feedback! Always appreciate your take on stuff.

[Sinitrena]

My deepest apology for the delay. I wanted to close this yesterday, then my neighbour asked me to move my car bcause he wanted to cut a tree and I kinda forgot.

Anyway, voting is over and we have a winner, but first, let's look at some (very short) feedback from me:

CCC: Like many others, I didn't know the guy, but I could gather what kind of guy he was from the joke alone. Aparently, people don't like jokes about this topic, as this wntry received 0 points.

Diner Disaster: I don't really think this entry is a joke with a set-up and a punchline. It's a story, and then a charcter jokes (by using puns, or rather play on words) in the end. There's not really a connection. This works well enough as a story, though, one I quite enjoyed. (2 points, overall)

Coincidences: A classical set-up, a classical three-part set-up, and a nice little dry punch-line. I like this one. And it seems I'm not the only one, because this is our second place with 6 points.

Layers: I like this one too. I didn't know where it was going. In the end, I get the joke, but I didn't find it particular humorous, just a bit *groan. It's a fairly original set-up, though, and did win the originality category. ((3rd place overall, with 5 points.)

Dinner for Two, or maybe One: I... gave up on that one. Sorry, I didn't get it, it was too complicated and because I didn't really understand how the logic here worked, the end made no sense to me. I feel like I need an explanation for this joke, and a joke that needs an explanation can't really amuse. As others noticed (with 2 points) though, there's some originality here.

Time works weird in Heaven: That's the one that made me laugh, and others too (5 points for humour alone and the winner in this category.) It's a bit of a sgtandard joke with a surprising finish. Some might find it distacteful, I find it funny and I'm not surprised that this entry one this round with 7 points overall.

Neuralink: This one is interesting for a weird little detail: Don says he wants to communicate telepathically, but in the end he speaks normally. Why specify "telepathically" when it's contrary to the punchline of the joke? It's a tiny detail, but it somehow really bothered me. (3 points)

Smash-and-Grab: I understand what the joke is suppused to be (the double meaning of "fence", obviously) but I dont think it really is a joke. Yes, the reader expects somthing else, but what makes this funny? It's still something logical and in a way expected that happens. It was a good idea and earned 2 points in the originality category, though.

The Magic of Laughter. This is not a joke, this is a series of mini-jokes told or acted out by a character. It's amusing and a good story, but it doesn't feel like a joke, though it aparently amused and surprised people, with 2 points in each category.


All this said, we have an overall tally of:

CCC: 0 (H: 0; O: 0)
Dinner for Two, or maybe One: 1 (H: 0; O: 1)
Diner Disaster: 2 (H: 0; O: 2)
Smash-and-Grab: 2 (H: 0; O: 2)
Neuralink: 3 (H: 3; O: 0)
The Magic of Laughter: 4 (H: 2; O: 2)
Layers: 5 (H: 1; O: 4)
Coincidences: 6 (H: 4; o: 2)
Time works weird in Heaven: 7 (H: 5; O: 2)

Which gives us Layers as the most original entry, Time works weird in Heaven as the funniest and:

Time works weird in Heaven as the overall winner of this Fortnightly Writing Competition.

Congratulations, Mandle, take it away!

[Stupot]

Well done Mandle.
That was a fun round.
See you all on the other side.

[Mandle]

Cheers. What a great round. Thanks for the highly entertaining topic, Sini.
I will have a new round up soon!

[Baron]

Congratulations Mandle!

Thanks for your votes and feedback, Baron (and everyone else, so far).
You seem to have missed one of my jokes.
Layers
I don't know if it will affect your votes at all, but it's there if you want to read it.

D'oh!  Sorry about that, Stupot my good man.  I'm not in the habit of counting all the entries to make sure I haven't missed one out in my responses.  Us old-timers can only juggle so many things in our head at once before stuff starts to sift through the cracks!  I did read it with all the others.  I thought Layers was original but a bit of a groaner when it came to the punchline.  Probably wouldn't have affected the results in the end. 

[cat]

I know a joke doesn't get better when you explain it, but it really bugs me that I don't understand Diner Disaster and Coincidences. Could someone explain it, please?

[RootBound]

@cat There are three puns in a row at the end of my joke, all of which are based on English idioms/adages/cliches.

"Don't judge a cook by his hover" is a (very groan-worthy) play on "Don't judge a book by its cover", meaning "Appearances can be deceiving."
"Fortune favors the boiled" plays on "fortune favors the bold," meaning "no risk means no reward."
"This diner chain is only as strong as its weakest (sausage) link" plays on "A (metal) chain is only as strong as its weakest link (component)." Harder to explain, but it means "a group / team / force will only succeed if every member is strong, because all depend on each other, so if one is weak, the whole thing can fall apart."

Hope that helps. 

It's fascinating to me how idioms are sometimes equivalent in different languages and sometimes entirely different. For example, in English we have "the straw that breaks the camel's back" (a.k.a. "the last straw"), whereas I believe the closest in German is "the drop that overflows the barrel" (I don't know if people actually say that in German, I just remember it from Duolingo).

[cat]

Thanks for the explanation.

We do actually have a saying "the last straw" ("der letzte Strohhalm") in German, but it means something completely different. It means the last straw you can hold on to, like the last ray of hope.
"the drop that overflows the barrel" (der Tropfen, der das Fass zum überlaufen bringt) is quite a normal saying in German.

[heltenjon]

I know a joke doesn't get better when you explain it, but it really bugs me that I don't understand Diner Disaster and Coincidences. Could someone explain it, please?

Coincidences is all about big breasts, and the punchline is that "tit" can also mean "fool" or something, so he's endearingly calling his friends "tits" when we're expecting another tit-related phonecall.

[Sinitrena]

While we're on the topic of explaining jokes; Can anyone explain Dinner for Two, or maybe One to me?

[heltenjon]

While we're on the topic of explaining jokes; Can anyone explain Dinner for Two, or maybe One to me?

I guess it's no fun for the Captain to explain his own joke, so I'll try.

The first merge is Hungarian actress + Gungan + wild pig = Jar Jar Gab Boar (Zsa Zsa Gabor/Jar Jar Binks/Boar). She says "How rude!" like Jar Jar does in Star Wars, then marries and divorces like Zsa Zsa did some times.

The second merge is Samuel Barber + Elle McPherson + Jackfruit = Samuel L. Jackson.

(Hope I got it right.)

[Stupot]

@cat The punchline for Coincidences is based around the phrase "this pair of tits". He is calling Mickey and Seamus a couple of idiots, basically.

The "coincidence" is in the fact that he gets a phone call from them just as he was thinking about boobies (yes, I know, it isn't very mature).

@Sinitrena You'll notice in Neuralink that it does say that the others heard Don's voice "in their heads". This was intended to signify that they had heard it via their own Neuralink devices and not that he was talking physically.

@Baron Layers was a deliberate exercise in me trying to make a 300-word story joke out of a simple pun. Hence all the repetition. I also made this nice simple version:

[Baron]

@Baron Layers was a deliberate exercise in me trying to make a 300-word story joke out of a simple pun. Hence all the repetition. I also made this nice simple version:

To piggy-back on what Rootbound said, it's interesting how idioms and expressions don't necessarily carry across cultures.  I understood the pun in Layers, but for me it was less funny because in North America I've never heard "I've got a lot on" (even though the meaning is clear in context).  We might say "I've got a lot going on," but that isn't nearly as punny (unless someone was in the process of dressing....).       

[Stupot]

@Baron Layers was a deliberate exercise in me trying to make a 300-word story joke out of a simple pun. Hence all the repetition. I also made this nice simple version:

To piggy-back on what Rootbound said, it's interesting how idioms and expressions don't necessarily carry across cultures.  I understood the pun in Layers, but for me it was less funny because in North America I've never heard "I've got a lot on" (even though the meaning is clear in context).  We might say "I've got a lot going on," but that isn't nearly as punny (unless someone was in the process of dressing....).       

That's true. I didn't realise it was all that idiomatic, to be honest, but it makes sense.

As an aside, I have a little rule when I write a joke (which I still break sometimes), that the punchline shouldn't be based on an idiom which already means the same thing. What I mean is, I could have made a similar joke about a guy filling up his plate with more and more food and then the punchline be 'Sorry love, I've got a lot on my plate.' But to me that is crap because that's already the image that the idiom comes from.

[CaptainD]

While we're on the topic of explaining jokes; Can anyone explain Dinner for Two, or maybe One to me?

I guess it's no fun for the Captain to explain his own joke, so I'll try.

The first merge is Hungarian actress + Gungan + wild pig = Jar Jar Gab Boar (Zsa Zsa Gabor/Jar Jar Binks/Boar). She says "How rude!" like Jar Jar does in Star Wars, then marries and divorces like Zsa Zsa did some times.

The second merge is Samuel Barber + Elle McPherson + Jackfruit = Samuel L. Jackson.

(Hope I got it right.)

Yes you got it right  , sorry been so busy at work this week I haven't been keeping track of the forums.

[Mandle]

The meme format of the joke completely works for me, except that the graphic is the awful pillow-shaded uncanny valley stuff that A.I. still produces. It that was an actual person dressed up in ridiculous layers of clothes, instead of a horrifying artificial replication of one, it would be hilarious.

[Baron]

Sorry love, I've got a lot on my plate.

Now that's funny.