When performed by a comedic genius like Jim Gaffigan or Brian Regan, squeaky clean humor can be brilliantly funny. But clean street jokes, as written on the page? Not so much.
Exhibit A: Reader’s Digest’s Top 10 Jokes in America. Some of them are mildly clever and made me smile, but none of them merited an actual laugh.
How would dirty jokes compare? They’re better, of course. Just off the top of my head, here’s one that I’m paraphrasing from Daniel Tosh. Compare and contrast with the clean jokes:
Q: How is spinach like anal sex?
A: If you’re forced to have it as a kid, you probably won’t like it as an adult.
See? Short, sweet, and actually funny. Never let anyone tell you that dirty jokes are inferior to clean jokes. After all, a laugh’s a laugh…
UPDATE: Reader’s Digest plans to file for bankrupcy. I’m not saying it’s necessarily the fault of those terrible jokes, but…
Those are terrible jokes.
Clean Vs Dirty is a fun debate.
It’s easier to be Dirty. and it can be a crutch. I’ve seen way too many comics who get laughs but they get a laugh because of the dirty word and not the joke. Try telling a joke without the dirty words first to make sure it’s actually funny.
Andrew J Rivers
August 17th, 2009
I wholeheartedly agree: if you need the curse word to get a laugh, it’s not a good joke.
OTOH, I’m firmly against declaring whole topical areas to be out of bounds. I can understand saying “don’t use the word ‘fuck’,” but saying you can’t make sex jokes is ridiculous. Ditto dropping n-bombs (banning=defensible) versus saying you can’t discuss race at all (indefensible). If you remove every controversial topic then our planet is left with about a dozen funny comedians (Regan, Seinfeld, Gaffigan, etc.) and a bunch of milquetoast pun-fests like the awful RD contest.
CJ
August 17th, 2009
Readers digest files for bankruptcy. THAT is comedy. haha.
Andrew J Rivers
August 18th, 2009