In trying to describe the classic Lightbulb Joke I can do no worse than quote Wikipedia:
"The lightbulb joke is an example of an endless-variations joke and has possibly thousands of versions covering every imaginable culture, belief, occupation and special-interest group. Generally the punchline is not complimentary to the group providing the subject of the joke."
In essence then we are poking fun at a particular group of people by cheekily enquiring as to how many of them would it take to change one lightbulb. Quite why the lightbulb rose to prominence here is not clear, but real life instances of organisations and corporations handling this seemingly simple task with excess regulation and burocracy perhaps contributed to its supremacy above say other key maintenance tasks, such as unblocking a sink or changing one of those curious scented blocks in men’s urinals.
The subjects of this joke, the lightbulb changers themselves, can make or break it as a funny joke depending how well known their particular traits or foibles are. For example:
Q: How many pot growers does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None, they use fluorescent bulbs instead.
Besides being not particularly funny, it deals with an illicit activity that not everyone is going to be familiar with, and the fact that fluorescent light is closer to daylight when it comes to growing pot indoors ( so I’ve heard ) is neither here nor there because it just falls flat as a joke.
There is another way to extract a laugh here and that is to amend the ending from "change a lightbulb" to "screw in a lightbulb" . Now we can play around with the meaning of screw and bring sex into the equation. Thus we find
Q: How many mice does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: Only two, but the hard part is getting them into the light bulb.
In forthcoming posts there will be an inordinate number of lightbulbs that will either require changing or screwing in. My challenge is to isolate the amusing ones from the "nah, don’t get it" ones and try to breathe life into this well worn joke format.
Damn! Sorry, I’ll have to continue this at a later date. The light has just gone out.
"The lightbulb joke is an example of an endless-variations joke and has possibly thousands of versions covering every imaginable culture, belief, occupation and special-interest group. Generally the punchline is not complimentary to the group providing the subject of the joke."
In essence then we are poking fun at a particular group of people by cheekily enquiring as to how many of them would it take to change one lightbulb. Quite why the lightbulb rose to prominence here is not clear, but real life instances of organisations and corporations handling this seemingly simple task with excess regulation and burocracy perhaps contributed to its supremacy above say other key maintenance tasks, such as unblocking a sink or changing one of those curious scented blocks in men’s urinals.
The subjects of this joke, the lightbulb changers themselves, can make or break it as a funny joke depending how well known their particular traits or foibles are. For example:
Q: How many pot growers does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None, they use fluorescent bulbs instead.
Besides being not particularly funny, it deals with an illicit activity that not everyone is going to be familiar with, and the fact that fluorescent light is closer to daylight when it comes to growing pot indoors ( so I’ve heard ) is neither here nor there because it just falls flat as a joke.
There is another way to extract a laugh here and that is to amend the ending from "change a lightbulb" to "screw in a lightbulb" . Now we can play around with the meaning of screw and bring sex into the equation. Thus we find
Q: How many mice does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: Only two, but the hard part is getting them into the light bulb.
In forthcoming posts there will be an inordinate number of lightbulbs that will either require changing or screwing in. My challenge is to isolate the amusing ones from the "nah, don’t get it" ones and try to breathe life into this well worn joke format.
Damn! Sorry, I’ll have to continue this at a later date. The light has just gone out.
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