I was looking through this joke website: http://www.sickipedia.org/ (warning: adult content). People can post their jokes to this site and other people can vote if they think it is funny. One of the latest high scoring jokes is this:
Your Mum’s so fat, when she fell down the stairs I thought EastEnders was ending.
I just don’t get it at all. For all Americans, Eastenders is a British soap opera.
Btw, I don’t watch soaps which is probably why I don’t get the joke.
I used to watch Eastenders. I don’t get it either.
You need to have heard it to get the joke, so here goes.
If you are still puzzled, I give up.
ps. Here’s a clue; stop listening after 3 seconds.
For those of us without video/Youtube access, can you just state it? Is it a thumping theme song or something?
The closing theme begins with a short series of descending drum thumps.
hahahahah, i get it now.
actually quite funny. 
Love it! Now, to integrate this into a conversation…
sorry to hijack, but since this joke seems to have been explained, I’d like to ask about another one.
Gilbert Godfried tells his version of the “dirtiest joke ever told”. I’m sure many of you have seen his stand-up routine, and the punchline of the joke (which is about someone describing a stage act to a talent agent). "The name of the group is “The Aristocrats”.
This joke brings howls of laughter, but I simply didn’t get it. I still don’t. And I have not been able to find anyone that has any sort of a clue as to why the joke is funny either.
Here is a version of the joke **NSFW **!! (turn down your sound or put headphones on).
Yes, it’s gross… he uses a lot of vulgar terms… it’s absurd. This version is just one of many I’ve heard. All disgusting, vulgar, etc. But the punchline is not funny. The joke is not funny. Can anyone shed some light on this one?
It’s not the joke that’s funny, it’s the reactions of people hearing it for the first time.
There’s an entire movie about “The Aristocrats”. It features more than a dozen comedians telling different versions of the joke. (In addition to the Gilbert Gottfried version, the Sarah Silverman and Bob Saget versions are also hilarious.)
The movie explains that the point of the joke isn’t the punchline. It’s the skill the comic displays in describing the obscene behaviors that make up the vaudeville act. Essentially, it’s a virtuoso trick – showing how you can make people laugh purely through delivery alone without any sort of satisfying resolution. It’s a joke you tell to show off for other comedians.
I would disagree with the premise that the aristocrats joke doesn’t have a punch line. The joke is that the act consists of the most vile disgusting things the teller can think of, and that the act ironically has a name that is suppose to conjure an image of class and respectability.
But as the Hamster King says, the point of the joke isn’t the punchline
Okay, it has a punchline. A really lame punchline … .
It has a punchline in the way that all shaggy dog jokes have a punchline. It’s just that the journey is more fun than the destination.
Kid, you seem to be trying to figure out how to integrate it into a conversation. That won’t do. You ramrod a good joke into the conversation. If they ask why you told it, you, or the joke, just weren’t funny.
Glad to be of service,
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The joke is that the build-up is so vile and disgusting and obscene, that at the end when the talent agent says “What do you call yourselves?” you’re expecting something even more extreme and over-the-top… And it’s just simply “The Aristocrats.” Anyway, it’s not supposed to be a funny ha-ha joke that Joe Blow is going to love. It originated as somewhat of a tradition amongst comedians to try and outdo one another.
I disagree with this. There is no irony to the traditional shaggy dog joke punchline. I agree that the punchline isn’t the point, but to me it is funny.
Absolute sense, I realize my error now. Up until this point, I have interjected the phrase, “that’s what she said,” at the most inopportune and verbally ambiguous situations. That juvenile habit, is now corrected by your insightful tip.
Thanks!
That’s what she said.
And to make the analogy even better, for those that can’t see the video, the intervals of the drumbeats diminish, like something bouncing and coming to rest.
I haven’t got sound on this PC, but from memory it goes something like this (imagine two bars, 16 quarter notes):
X - - X - - X - X - X - X X X X