In Soviet Russia

Russian reversal is a type of joke popularized by Yakov Smirnoff which frequently appears in many online communities, particularly on Slashdot, Digg, Totse, and Uncyclopedia The general form of the Soviet Russia joke is that the subject and objects of a statement are reversed, and “In Soviet Russia”, or something equivalent, is added. For example:

In the US, you catch a cold.

In Soviet Russia, cold catches you!

All of Smirnoff's original “In Soviet Russia” jokes made use of wordplay that carried Orwellian undertones. For example, one well known joke of this type runs “In the US, you watch television. In Soviet Russia, television watches you!” The first joke alludes to video screens that both reproduce images and monitor the citizenry, as in Nineteen Eighty-Four.

At the peak of Smirnoff's celebrity in the mid-1980s, he did not say “Soviet Russia”—he said simply “Russia”, as the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic had been around since 1917, was still extant, and showed no signs of imminent collapse. Smirnoff added the “Soviet” qualifier after the fall of the USSR, long after his fame had faded, to specify that he was referring to the communist regime and not the present state.

Occurrence of Russian Reversal in popular culture

• On The Simpsons episode “The Old Man and the Key”, Smirnoff introduces himself with the joke when he appears in a stage musical celebrating entertainment industry “has beens”. The chorus sings about all the remnants of 1980s pop culture present, ending with “So sit back, relax and watch our revue,” to which Smirnoff adds “In Soviet Union, revue watches you!” The episode ends with Smirnoff complaining that "In Russia, stage is for performers only."

• In a second-season Family Guy episode entitled "There's Something About Paulie", Peter Griffin plays around with his new car's navigation system and turns it to “Yakov Smirnoff Mode”. The navigation system says, “In Soviet Russia, car drives you!” Later in that episode, it says, “Turn right at fork in road. In Soviet Russia, road forks you!” (at which Peter Griffin remarks, “Boy, is that getting old.”)

• In the eighth season of Mystery Science Theater 3000, Crow T. Robot invited Yakov Smirnoff (played by Patrick Brantseg, an MST3K crew member and puppeteer for the character Gypsy) to lecture on the film Jack Frost, a Russo-Finnish co-production. Predictably, Smirnoff's “lecture” degenerated into a sequence of unrelated “In Soviet Russia” jokes: “In your country, you watch movie The Rock. In our country, we break rock in gulag.”

• In the Futurama episode “That's Lobstertainment!”, Doctor Zoidberg does stand-up on Amateur Night at the Apollo. He makes the joke: “Earth. What a planet. On Earth, you enjoy eating a tasty clam. On my planet, clams enjoy eating a tasty you!” In another episode, “Crimes of the Hot”, Fry, while standing in front of a giant ice crusher, says: “Wow! That ice dispenser is so big, the ice crushes you!...Yakov Smirnoff said it.” (Leela responds, "No, he didn't.")

• When the player drinks a bottle of vodka in the MMORPG Kingdom of Loathing, sometimes the text is accompanied with the phrase "You drink the vodka. In Russia, vodka drinks you!"

• On www.slashdot.org, frequent references to "In Soviet Russia . . ." are made in the comments list as a recurring joke.

• In the June 19th, 2007 strip of the webcomic Achewood, the character Roast Beef is shown through the years enjoying a comedian on television who is obscured in shadows. The teenaged Roast Beef is watching him joke, "In Soviet Russia, Bea Arthur says dyke is YOU!" to which Roast Beef chuckles "Oh hee hee man ain't that the truth." An adult Roast Beef is watching this comedian joke, "In Soviet Russia, busy Japanese model goes to website of YOU!" to which Roast Beef responds, "Oh hee man you can take THAT to the bank."