Now we usually aim to use International/National days as topics for that specific day, the rational approach to blog posts. However, I feel like despite being marked off on our calendar, “International Joke Day” (1st July) and “Tell a Joke Day” (16th Aug) always get overlooked. I, the best joke teller on the Wingham Wildlife Park team, cannot let this slide. So welcome to my blog all about telling jokes to commemorate this glorious day, I have a funny feeling you may like it!
What is a joke? No, it isn’t the one word summary of West Ham’s average footballing performance. A joke is defined as a thing that someone says to cause amusement or laughter, especially a story with a funny punchline. Plagiarism is rife in the world of jokes and puns, so here is a Randall original joke involving animals. My mate Mr Frog, who is a frog, is really interested in finding out his DNA ancestry history. So, he sent off the relevant samples to a relevant company and he got his results back yesterday. It turns out that he is 50% English, 45% German and just a tad-pole… The best thing about making jokes about metaphorical frogs is that in my head, the metaphorical frogs can eat the crickets that inevitably start chirping after the bad joke is finished.
This shot is of Derek, our male white stork at Wingham Wildlife Park.
Fun fact about Derek, I have a restraining order on him, he was storking me!
When did jokes first appear? Jokes are believed to have originated from ancient oral traditions, making it very hard to pinpoint when jokes first truly started appearing across various human cultures. With the first ancient cultures who actually used a written language and kept records, we can roughly estimate the origin of jokes to around 4000 years ago. The oldest ever recorded joke comes from the ancient civilization of Sumer. This bronze age civilization was located in Mesopotamia, modern day Iraq. An ancient clay tablet was found which was inscribed with ancient Sumerian text, this tablet has the worlds oldest recorded joke. The joke goes, “Something which has never occurred since time immemorial; a young woman did not fart in her husband’s lap.” Ironic that this was a fart joke as that was an absolute stinker! This clay tablet is estimated to be at least from 1900BC, at least people have been making terrible jokes just like me for a really long time. The oldest animal related Sumerian joke is “A dog walks into a bar and says, ‘I cannot see a thing. I’ll open this one.’” Yeah… I cannot see the punchline either. Maybe it is just badly translated.
Just like the animal kingdom, jokes can be separated into different architypes/families. Puns are one of those families. The definition of a pun is “an amusing use of a word or phrase that has several meanings or that sounds like another word”. I absolutely adore doing puns. I love puns partly because if you make your designated target laugh, cringe or groan, technically it is a good pun. As long as it doesn’t make them cry, it was a success. They are quick, easy and annoy my wife, what’s not to love? A 10th century Anglo-Saxon poetry book is widely believed contain the first recorded joke in the English language; this joke is a pun. Now I would love to quote it, however, I can just about get away with quoting an ancient middle-eastern fart joke. This pun’s set up involves misleading you into thinking “18 plus” type things before innocently bringing your mind back to PG land with the punchline simply being “a key”. As a professional pun slinger myself, my best advice for coming up with puns on the spot quickly, I often think of the punchline first, then I adapt the set up accordingly. As I am writing this write now, I have thought of a quick simple animal pun. I went to a humpback’s 21st birthday party yesterday, I had a WHALE of a time! My favourite ever pun I have come up with is so niche that only Tony Robinson from Time Team would truly appreciate it. Why did the stone age arrowhead maker lose his job? He was caught knapping.
A Patagonian mara at the park admararing the view.
Knock knock jokes, another titan among the joke families. We all know how these jokes work, knock knock, who’s there, insert set up (Europe), Set up who? (Europe who?), then punchline (No, you’re a poo). The origin of this style of joke is all thanks to prohibition 1930s America. Due to alcohol becoming banned, secret illegal gatherings called speakeasies became widespread and very popular. Often to gain entry to these parties, you would knock on the door and be asked to say a specific password. Naturally, as with the case involving drunk people, people started to take the mick and started to give jokey answers when knocking on the door. This type of joke quickly spread across the western world and became one of the most iconic joke styles ever created.
Did you know that Troy the tiger hates ties? Every time he sees a tie he goes “grrrr…”
Troy’s favourite thing to do with his fans is a meat and greet!
The most infamous joke family is undoubtedly the Yo’ Mama joke. Naturally I won’t give any examples as I think all of your mothers are lovely, even my own mother-in-law! This joke style was born in the 1960s African American cultural talking game called the Dozens. This game essentially involves two participants taking it in turns to insult each other. This eventually gave rise to modern rap battles. Who would have thought? Eminem ironically owes his career thanks to Yo’ Mama!
The final joke style/family I will mention is the dreaded anti-joke. An anti-joke is essentially a joke but minus the expected punchline. Boar-ring. The most iconic example is “why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the other side.” This famous joke was first published in the New York based magazine called The Knickerbocker, published in 1847.
I will stop there because if this blog post becomes any bigger, it may become a joking hazard! On that note, cheers for reading!
By Ryan, Deputy Head of Birds
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