Anti-humor
Anti-humor is a type of indirect humor that involves the joke-teller delivering something which is deliberately not funny, or lacking in intrinsic meaning. The audience is expecting something humorous, and when this does not happen, the irony itself is of comedic value. Anti-humor is also the basis of various types of pranks and hoaxes.
Common Examples
The most common example of anti-joke is "Why did the chicken cross the road?" with the answer, "To get to the other side." This joke is so common that it has passed into regular humor, but it illustrates that punchlines in anti-jokes can achieve their effect by being mundane. Another example is:
- Q:"What do you get when you cross a muffin with chocolate chips?"
- A:"A chocolate chip muffin."
In writing, it is common to put a full stop after the punchline of the anti-joke rather than an exclamation mark to reflect its dry and superficially non-humorous tone. Anti-jokes may rely on deconstruction of the joke, deriving comedy from the unexpected or inappropriate use of technical or circumlocutional language (crossing into meta-joke):
- "Three blind mice walk into a bar. They are unaware of their surroundings, so to derive humour from their predicament would be exploitative."- Bill Bailey
The no soap radio joke, often used as a prank, is a common example of anti-humor.
Another form of anti-joke is commonly called a shaggy dog story after the joke which exemplifies it. It involves telling an extremely long joke with an intricate (and sometimes horribly grisly) back story and surreal or incredibly repetitive plotline, but ending the story with either a weak spoonerism (e.g.'Better Nate than lever!'), or abruptly stopping with no punchline at all. Versions of these jokes may take up to several minutes to tell. The Aristocrats is a particularly neat and adult version of this formula.
Some anti-jokes are humorous because they involve shock humor or dark humor -- unexpectedly blunt and graphic punchlines which often reference death, infanticide and terminal illness.
- Q. "What did the little boy with no arms or legs get for Christmas?"
- A. "Cancer."
- "Knock, knock."
- "Who's there?"
- "The police. I'm afraid there's been a serious road traffic accident; your partner is in intensive care."
- "Who's there?"
Anti-Humor in Stand up Comedy
Anti-humor jokes are often associated with exaggeratedly bad stand-up comedians. One legitimately successful stand-up comedian, Andy Kaufman, had his own unique brand of anti-humor, quasi-surrealist acts coupled with performance art.
Jimmy Carr is a British comedian noted for his anti-humour style. He typically tells them with a straight face and very precise delivery. Bill Bailey is also noted for his particular brand of anti/meta-humour.
Subversions of traditional jokes
These anti-jokes rely on using widely known jokes which the audience is likely to have heard before. Instead of ending the joke in the usual humorous way, a mundane substitute is used, resulting in an anticlimax.
- Q: Waiter! What's this fly doing in my soup?
- A: Oh, I'm terribly sorry sir, I’ll replace this with a fresh bowl of soup and I’ll have a word with the manager to see if we can deduct a sum from your bills for the inconvenience we have caused you. (Usually 'the backstroke'.)
- Q: What's the difference between a chicken and the Kyoto Protocol?
- A: One is a domestic fowl; the other is an international convention on climate change. (A "what's the difference" joke usually implies a Spoonerism.)
- Q: What's worse than finding a worm in an apple?
- A: The Holocaust. (Usually 'Finding half a worm'.)
Some jokes derive humor from wordplay and puns. They are subverted through substituting the pun with an equivalent phrase with no such linguistic device, creating a cognitive dissonance with the superficial resemblance to the original.
- Q: When is a door not a door?
- A: When it is half-open (usually 'When it is ajar')
- That mushroom is a really charismatic person (usually 'fungi')
Other jokes rely on parts of a joke told in the wrong order or parts of different jokes told together, creating an effect similar to non-sequitur.
- Knock Knock
- Come in.
Nonsense Jokes
Nonsense jokes lack intrinsic meaning, and become funny simply because they are absurd.
- Q: What is the difference between a duck?
- A: One of its legs are both the same.
- Q: What's the difference between an apple?
- A: The more you polish, it gets.