Constructive Study of An Attempted John McCain Old Joke

I'm going to try to describe a joke-writing process, I'm going to try to play it straight so we might get a sense of what's going on in the formation of the joke. I haven't pre-written it, but I will take you through this process as best as I can. Of course, the presence of this process changes what is being measured. Bear with me - this is hardly a new idea, but I think it's interesting.

Iteration #1 . "John McCain is very old".

A little false in oversimplification of the subject matter for sake of clarity. Usually, there is a sudden touch of the flavor of the joke. But I don't think that the process is primarily serendipitous. Comedy, like art, requires inspiration, but a lot of revision and hard work to make it possible.

It can become easier with practice, and with a lot of attention to the structure of the comedic situation: a good situation, like good soil, produces rich, complex possibilities. Like a lot of creative things, an important irony is that limitations are essential - a game boundary is very helpful. In painting, the canvas, in tennis, the court. In this case, The Joke Must Be About How Old John McCain Is, and attempt to undermine him as a presidential candidate. So in this case, it involves the fall of dignity, and the sudden flash of pattern recognition- a delight that comes with a recognition of what must be true and what cannot be true at the same moment. Another version of the old yes/no response.

And now you know it's coming, which greatly increases the difficulty, except that the expectation of attempting yet another John McCain old joke is in and of itself funny- because, according to the new formal theory (see post below), a pattern recognition has been established that in this case refers to itself: the very definition of the 'in' joke.

#2: "McCain is so old that he might not only be confused by a cellphone, but by a touch-tone phone. "

This isn't funny , aside from the whiff of potential bathos in the attempt at making a unsuccessful McCain old joke. The origin isn't much more than I was hoping for a particular phone call this evening, I suspect. I had just handled my phone recently to see if calls had come in. But there is the kernel of a funny concept in it. I see some potential in the specificity of "touchtone." It is a little bit funny to imagine John McCain being confused by trying to operate a touch tone phone- which suggests a slightly funnier line:

#3: "McCain never uses a cell phone. Or a touch tone phone. Frankly, he's more comfortable if it has a handle and a horn.

Some progress. Now that's a little too unclear but what I was thinking was this: first I needed to drop the "he's so old" construction, and make it a little bit more like a news quote to give it a little bit of a sense of authority, which increases what I would call "dryness." What dryness does is remove the sense of knowing that the joke is funny from the voice telling the joke.

Most importantly, the just plausible hyperbole of touchtone phone turns into real sillyness - the yes and no of introducing the idea of McCain using only a two handed phone. This piling on is something I like to use a lot. For example, your doubts arise at the thought that he doesn't use a cell phone, are increased at doesn't use a touch tone phone, and are completely broken from plausibility at two-handed phone, but the connection holds. McCain oldness manifests as being uncomfortable with technology.


Here the touchtone phone section reinforces the plausible sense of age that the opening part of the joke uses. "Horn" is very unclear. "Frankly" is there as timing.

Timing: my pet theory is that what timing in a joke does is allow the joke to complete the thought at a pace just slightly faster than the person hearing the joke processes the thought. Think of the point of connection to the pattern -- the surprise moment of recognition that is the punchline. As a matter of craft, it seems to me that a good joke introduces the concept that somebody is thinking about, and is working their way toward completing, but beats them to it in a quick dash. The result is a bit of surprise and delight from the suddeness of understanding.

A really great joke just uses this as a starting point: a delightful, rich connectivity begins as the person thinks more about the punchline.

And here's what I worked over in my head after a minute of processing- part of this just occured, part of it was my searching for more precise, and therefore evocative words (the poetic aspect of humor)

# 4. McCain never uses a cell phone. Or a touchtone phone. Frankly, he's not comfortable unless the phone has a handle and a blower and he asks someone named Mabel to connect him.

Now to me, this is marginally funny, and is starting to seem like a joke. The name Mabel is crucial - I was thinking of old style phones- probably some image from Hee Haw, and realized an old fashioned, marmish name would soldify the image with greater specificity. Better still, there is a new substory: a woman to ask help from, AND a whole image store of old style operators with wires, huge headsets, etc. In my mind, I see even see her bun hairstyle and gingham dress.

I'm pleased with "Blower" - not only is from an old phone phrase, but the incidental whiff of double-entendre is good here, especially now with Mabel present, precisely because nothing could be less sexy.

It's not that all these associations are going to come up for every person reading this, but that the more you put in, the more possible connections there are, and if that suddenness of connection is the source of what we find funny, more possible connections creates more chances for any connection.

Shorter is often funnier, but not always.

He's a slight edit:

#5. John McCain never uses a cell phone. Or a touchtone phone. Frankly, he's not comfortable unless it's got a handle and a blower and he can ask someone named Maybelle to connect him.

Here's the craft reasoning. "John" is added for rhythym. "It's" instead of "the phone has" shortens it, with a faster flow. My favorite change is "he asks" to "he can ask" because it creates a new substory: it's a slight dimunition of his status, like he's being allowed to do something. What amazes me is how quickly the brain responds to these nuances without really recognizing them.

This is far from my personal favorite of McCain old jokes I wrote. (That one is: "It's silly to say John McCain is so old he invented Time. What he did was invent our sense of being late.") But I kind of like it, even after running it through this.

#6. Did you know John McCain never uses a cell phone? Or a touchtone phone? Frankly, he's not comfortable unless it's got a handle and a blower and he can ask someone named Maybelle to connect him.

I think this is very slightly better, but not certainly. The question makes it seem just a touch more innocent.

There are some commonalities to humor I happen to like: one is the comedian setting up a predicted structure but removing everything you expect so precisely you are forced to abandon all expectations. Anarchists are instrinsically funnier than fascists for this reason alone. Ever-widening possible meanings are the best. Steven Martin's line "I believe Ronald Reagan can make this country what it once was: an Arctic region, covered in ice," is so rich in possible connections: ancient epochs Reagan presumably saw, nuclear winter, the logic of conservatism, etc, it's like the first line of an unwritten novel.

I am also very fond of pandemonium- like the Muppets running around at the end of every other Sesame Street sketch, or its antecedent, the piling up of people in the Marx Brother's ship cabin in Night at the Opera, which crosses the line of all possibility and keeps going. Related is the harmless thing made harmful (kitten with a sniper rifle) and the powerful enfeebled (Scientists running outside for the ice cream truck.) But that is a personal preference.

But to the larger issues on theories of humor: they are too simple - this long deconstruction during construction process in itself suggests many sources of humor- wordplay to hyperbole to a touch of joy in tearing down the aspirant. The theories of humor which reduce it to violence or inevitable Schadenfreude I disagree with- there is too much pleasure had in simple wordplay and rhythm, absurd juxtapositions, and ever-widening sudden connections. The essential position of sudden pattern recognition is pretty sound, but very incomplete.

A final thought: My dad used to talk about an old sci-fi story he read, where a man gets very curious about the source of jokes, and goes on a world wide search to find where they actually come from. Eventually, he finds out it was a race of space aliens, who were hilarious and liked cheering up different planets, but were shy, and when they were found out they left the earth. And then there were no more jokes.

I'm not sure why he told me that.