I can’t remember the punchline to this joke about a guy attending a comedians convention with a comedian friend of his.
Various people get up to make speeches and every so often members of the audience would shout out random numbers. Every time someone shouted a number the whole audience would laugh. The guy asks his mate what was going on and his friend explained that, since everyone in the audience was a comedian, they all knew all the heckles and jokes so they number them all to save time and just shout out the number.
After a few drinks the guy gets into the groove and starts shouting out random numbers himself, even though he doesn’t know what they mean, and everyone laughs. At first, everything goes well but then he shouts out one number and there is a stunned silence and they are asked to leave.
Outside he asks his comedian mate what it was he said that so offended everyone.
… and this is where I can’t remember the punchline, but I remember it was quite funny. Anyone remember it?
The version I heard takes place in a prison, but that’s not terribly important. But I think you’ve blown the gag (at least in the version I know) with the part about being offended and asked to leave.
The guy tries shouting out a number, and no one laughs. He looks at his friend and says, “What’s happened?”
“Well, some people just don’t know how to tell a joke.”
They give him another chance, so he calls out another number. This time they all burst out laughing and can hardly stop. “What’s so funny?” he asks. His friend says “we hadn’t heard that one before”.
No, see, you can’t have the joke about all jokes having numbers, until all jokes have numbers. So the number for the number joke would have to be assigned before the joke existed.
Come to think of it, though, the comedic Russel’s paradox would have to be about the joke concerning all jokes which do not concern themselves.
You guys left out an important part of the joke (whether comedians, convicts, etc.) Why were the jokes assigned numbers? 'Cause everybody had heard them all so many times before that, to save time, instead of telling the whole joke, they numbered the jokes and then just called out the numbers.
