I’m not quite sure in which section of the board, this post best belongs – am trying MPSIMS.
In a couple of recent threads in different sections, passing mention has been made of the joke – known, I would think, to nearly everyone in the English-speaking world – whose punchline is “The Aristocrats”. Plus, I stumbled by chance on a thread on the board from some five years ago, about jokes which some people don’t get: a poster on there, mentioned that he’d never seen the point of the “Aristocrats” joke. Discussion of the joke, ensued.
With fetching up “zombie” threads being regarded with disfavour on the board – I’m making the first post in what I hope may become a new one, to ask about a matter which that thread raised for me. From my first hearing the joke at the age of seventeen, up until now: I had always taken it, that the teller is looking at things from the point of view of a zealot-in-French-Revolution type – the joke’s point being, that aristocrats are foul, useless, degenerate people who characteristically behave abominably. However, the general consensus of the thread is that the joke’s point is that it hasn’t got a point – it’s just an exercise in comic narrative, and the title of the revolting family doing the act, is simply random: they might as well have said “The Smiths”, or “The wombats”.
Paraphrasing a poster in that thread: “The point of the joke isn’t the punchline – it’s the skill displayed by the comic in describing the obscene behaviours that make up the vaudeville act. It’s a trick which needs a good deal of skill as a comedian. to pull off – making people laugh purely through delivery alone, without any sort of satisfying resolution.” I’d be interested to learn whether people in the main, agree with this, and consider that I had been misunderstanding the thing for all these years.
I think you’re on the right track, but I do think the punchline has a point.
If you think of the rest of the joke as a build up, when it gets to the ‘what are you called’ bit, your brain starts thinking ‘wow, what sort of screwed up name is an act like this going to have?’. Your brain is expecting a name that matches the act in some sort of funny way, which the punchline then fails to deliver. The result is a sort of ‘well I wasn’t expecting that’ record scratch moment, which your brain treats as funny.
That’s my read on it, anyway. You’re right that the title of the act is irrelevant.
The point of the joke is the extreme behaviour referred to…
One point of comedy is the disbelief at the events described, they surely were never be kept secret for long without powers in high places covering them up…
And thats where the name of the act is mentioned.
Also it also fills in the audience to the “you’ve been rick rolled” nature of the running gag… the variations on the story mean that the punch line is not always predicted… or anyway its a joke to repeat a gag…so its a running gag…
Also note that “british politician sex” is probably more well known scandal… and mystery (why are they dying too ?)
It’s a traditional set-up:punchline joke that has been taken over by a shaggy dog story.
The traditional joke is the contrast between the name “Aristocrats” and their obscene performance. You could theoretically tell that joke in a much less elaborate form.
But this traditional joke structure has become the frame for an exercise in one-upmanship—how elaborate and disgusting and long can the joke go and still stay funny?
And the surprise return to a run-of-the-mill, ho-hum punchline is also part of the humor.
Exactly. It’s not that aristocrats are foul and degenerate, it’s that they are supposed to be dignified and refined. The joke would also work if they called themselves “The Saints.”
The punchline is kind of lame, but that’s the point. The humor is mostly in the setup.
I guess I’m in the minority, because I don’t find the stories that lead to the punch line to be funny at all. It strikes me as junior high school locker room “humor” - juvenile and gross for the sake of being gross.
Granted I haven’t heard everyone’s version of the joke, and I can imagine someone coming up with something I’d laugh at, but chances are it’d be more clever than disgusting. And I’m not against blue humor in all cases - I just like something more substantive than foul language or dick jokes.
The joke itself is almost never funny in itself. The humor is, ime, in the context and the telling. Hence I laughed at Gilbert Godfried’s famous telling at a roast, and Bob Sagget’s off hand manner in telling it, and Sarah Silverman’s hilarious meta version.
Of course, you’re not the intended audience. The joke is one that comics tell each other. The humor isn’t in the substance of the joke, it’s in the delivery.
That’s exactly right. Before Gilbert did it at a roast it was unheard of to do it on stage. The joke itself is lame. The set up is an inside joke between comedians. Sort of a rite of passage. Who can out do the other and what does the new guy have. Also remember it comes from a much older crowd of comics who either had to work completely clean (by today’s standards) or worked blue in limited places during specific shows that allowed it. Even those blue shows didn’t go that far. Back stage with other comics was when they could really let loose.
Shades of Ulysses. It’s virtually an anti-joke. The set up is meant to induce laughter by it’s utterly revolting nature. It’s a shaggy dog story with an awful punchline. To make a fool of the listener hearing it for the first time is weak tea for comedy. As already mentioned it is intended to be told and retold to broaden the borders of acceptable comedy.
Much of the humor in his bit is not just the piling of grossness upon grossness to an absurd extent, but his asides along the way. In the middle of the piece he indicates the ritual nature of the joke by comparing it to the recitations at a synagogue: And the father fucked the mother and the mother fucked the son and the son fucked the daughter and the daughter fucked the dog …
“Aristocrats” implies refinement sure, but the stereotype of our social betters being bored degenerate pleasure seekers is ancient. Pretty much every age complains of their elite being decadent.
You hear talk sometimes about restrictions increasing creativity, the most famous being the Hays Code era of Hollywood post 1934, in which writers and directors had to use insinuation and misdirection to get across any notions of sex and violence (not that pre-1934 movies had much of either by modern standards).
The Aristocrats joke comes from that same base. Almost no comedians could get away with “filth” of any kind on a public stage. The Aristocrats evolved as a means to showcase what couldn’t be said elsewhere. It was a simple competition to see who could be most inventive while using words and scenes that were deliberately beyond the pale. It’s not a joke with a punchline. The point was to make the other comedians go "how did he think of that?) (Only much later did it become he or she.) Creativity in the rawest, purest form was its own reward.
They did much the same thing in the Friar’s Club roasts. The jokes were cheerfully obscene because it was insider stuff; even when they became charity events the audience were show business insiders. They sought to top each other, not by having the most original acts but by coming up with the best twist on old topics - Jack Benny’s stinginess, e.g. The Comedy Central roasts follow exactly in that tradition. They may be even more varied than the originals, from what I can tell.
Gilbert Gottfried’s wonderfully twisted mind almost always destroys the competition at these roasts. He can take the oldest of jokes and put new spins on them inconceivable to anyone else.
Think of it as a slam dunk contest rather than a basketball game. You’re taking one small aspect of the whole and making it an event to itself. Whether you want to see them during a game is irrelevant. The spectacle is seeing a man jump over a car - on his way to doing something else entirely. It’s all about the wow.
The structure of the joke is the comedians describes a really disgusting act and then reveals the act is named the Aristocrats, a name which does not reflect the nature of the act. So at its most basic nature it’s a joke with a weak punchline.
But the point of the joke is that comedians tell the joke to other comedians. So not only are they telling a joke with a weak punchline; they’re telling a joke that everyone knows the punchline. They’re basically handicapping the joke by removing what’s usually a joke’s strongest element - a funny and unexpected punchline.
So telling the Aristocrats joke is a form of showing off among professional comedians. They’re saying that they can take a weak joke, deliver it under difficult circumstances, and still make it funny because of their comedic skills. It’s a way of bragging, “I don’t need good jokes. I’m such a great comedian I can make bad jokes funny.”