Sorry for the awkward title, but have you ever come up with a joke or other piece of humour that was independentlly created by someone else?
For example, to-day with regards to the events in Southern California, I came up with the quip “Who wants some Dorner kebabs tonight?” which unsurprisingly was arrived at independently by others already.
Back in the 70s nearly everyone in the world thought up “Sunshine on my shoulders makes me sunburn, sunshine in my eyes can make me blind” simultaneously and independently.
I’m failing to think of an example at the moment, but I have encountered the phenomena several times, when there is some well publicized incident or tragedy that gets a ton of attention. A lot of similar 9/11 jokes sprung up. And a lot of jokes about one tragedy can be slightly modified and recycled for another, which also tends to produce similar jokes from different sources.
Monday morning, upon reading the news about the Pope resigning, on Twitter I wrote:
“Holy See? More like Holy See-ya-later!”
That very same night, that joke was used on The Colbert Report.
Way back in high school, I independently came up with “Does the Pope shit in the woods?” (combination of “Is the Pope Catholic”/“Does a bear shit in the woods?”). A few years later I heard it in a movie (don’t remember which movie, but it was before the same line was used in The Big Lebowski) and have heard it through other sources since. When I came up with it it was pre-Twitter, so I have no record of when I first used it- unlike my documented pre-Colbert use of “Holy See-ya-later”.
I was so upset at losing my claim to “Does the Pope shit in the woods?” that I felt compelled to replace it with an even better variation. So far, I have been the only person to use my new variation. I hereby document my genius in IMHO for all posterity:
“Does a Catholic Bear shit in the Pope’s hat?”
Way back when the movie Arachnophobia came out, there were some issues with Iraq (I forget what specifically). Seems like every talk show host used the term Iraq-nophobia in their monologues.
On a personal level, I used the term Gas Station Sushi before it was used on a current insurance commercial…I am so proud.
“Mind like a steel sieve” and “It’s not rocket surgery” were invented by me long before they were invented by everyone else.
“Does the Pope shit in the woods?”
At least no later than the 70s and published in Fabulous furry Freak brothers comic.
I thought of the phrase “Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be.” a short time before it was used by Johnny Carson in his monologue.