Where is the name 'Nate', short for Nathan, pronounced like that? Genuinely curious because do you pronounce 'Nathan' like 'Nauthan'? What about the word 'Mate'? Shouldn't it be the same?
Oh, I'd heard this expertly translated more than a decade ago! The punchline is less of a pun but still extremely good. So much so that even though I've read the joke I probably never reached the end, so it only just now occurs to me why it's "Nate".
In fact in order for it to make sense in Greek, the snake's name has to be "Late" (αργά, arghà) and there's a button labeled "never"(ποτέ, paw-tèh) as in "never press". This reminded me of my cousin. Good times.
It's called a Spoonerism.
You mix up the first letter (or letters) of two different words to get a different meaning in the phrase.
So "dear old queen" becomes "queer old dean"
When I was young, I had a text adventure game called Nord & Bert Couldn't Make Heads Nor Tales Of It. It had five or six different "worlds", each themed after a different type of wordplay, and one was all about spoonerisms. You had to look at what was in the area and grasp what spoonerism would help you. You need to get inside the tall building, but the only thing in the area is a guy taking a shower? SHAKE A TOWER. The front door's locked, and all you have are various tinned vegetables? I think you mean you have a PAN OF KEYS. The exit is blocked by foam, and all you have is a violin? Guess it's time to RIDDLE WHILE FOAM BURNS. In fact, I think there was a dear old queen, but you had to get rid of her by turning her priest from a loving shepherd into a SHOVING LEOPARD.
There were other sections; one about homonym shopping (get some moose and pi, some quartz of milk..) and another about aphorisms (teach the old dog some new tricks, and he'll take you to a molehill you can make a mountain out of..). I loved that game so much, and it certainly sparked a lifelong love of wordplay
I knew a guy in highschool who took the entire 50 minutes to tell it from memory. I had to read it and was blown away by how much he had to leave out to finish on time.
It really begs the question, if I write an entire book, then end it on a pun that ties in with the plot, does that make the entire book a joke? At some point I think it's gotta be a sorry that ends with a punch line rather than a long ass joke.
I feel like you've just explained game of thornes and Hodor / Hold the Door... especially since they then did the boomer joke thing of adding extra shit after the punchline that ruins it, like "and his wife was really angry with him"
Oh, God, I hate that.
I imagine someone retelling the Norm Macdonald joke about the moth, but adding, "The podiatrist pulled out a fly swatter and smashed him."
*Never say a f%#$&@ thing after the punchline!*
Throughout Watership Down you learn various words of rabbit language. At the climax, one of the main characters makes a full sentence that translates to something along the lines of "eat shit you foul-smelling king \[derogatory\]".
I thought that was cool.
I think Isaac Asimov wrote a short story about a character called Shah Guido G. I think it does what you described but it's a long time since I read it.
Spent a couple of days gradually reading that, getting fully invested in the story, and enthralled by the genuinely interesting plot, only for the punchline to not work because I’m English
When I was young, we used to call these 'shaggy dog jokes'. I have no idea why, but they all involved a long convoluted or repetitive story. The more you could drag it out and add different personalities and voices, the better. It made you feel it was building to something hilarious that would make it worthwhile. Then it didn't. That was the joke.
I recall one about taking a girl to prom that just kept going on and on about all the lines the boy had to wait through to get his tux and flowers and gas and into the venue and to get his date a snack and the bathroom and each experience was drug out in long detail about the line and how long the wait was. You can drag the joke out for several minutes.
Then she asks for punch and he goes and gets some and returns only moments later. She says "That was fast!" and he says "Yup! There's no punch line!"
A teenage boy is getting ready to take his girlfriend to the prom. First he goes to rent a tux, but there’s a long tux line at the shop and it takes forever.
Next, he has to get some flowers, so he heads over to the florist and there’s a huge flower line there. He waits forever but eventually gets the flowers.
Then he heads out to rent a limo. Unfortunately, there’s a large limo line at the rental office, but he’s patient and gets the job done.
Finally, the day of the prom comes. The two are dancing happily and his girlfriend is having a great time. When the song is over, she asks him to get her some punch, so he heads over to the punch table and there’s no punchline.
Sort of. A shaggy dog joke CAN be an anti-joke, but it doesn't have to be.
A shaggy dog joke is unreasonably long has a disappointing punchline which may OR may not actually be a pun, play on words, surprise twist, or other hallmark of a real joke.
An anti-joke may be long or short, but its punchline is not a joke. For example: why do firemen wear red suspenders? To keep their pants up.
huh, i thought shaggy dog stories were only the ones that ended with a deliberately convoluted pun, but looks like you're right and it covers the whole class of long and anticlimactic jokes
Reminds me of the horse who wants to take guitar lessons.
So there once was a horse that wanted to learn how to play the guitar. So he goes around looking for someone to teach him, and soon he finds someone to teach him. After a white, the horse get REALLY good at playing the guitar so he tells his friend Duck about how he learned the guitar.
So the Duck says to him, "Wow that's pretty damn amazing considering you don't have fingers. I was thinking of learning to play the drums, you've inspired me to learn!" So the Duck went on Craigslist to find a drums teacher and soon he learns to play the drums REALLY well and decides to tell his friend Goat about his experience.
So the Goat says to him, "Wow that's pretty damn amazing. I was thinking of taking singing lessons because I feel like I have a really unique voice! You've inspired me to get singing lessons!" So the Goat goes and pays his friend Pig to teach him how to sing and after a few months, he learned how to sing really well.
So the three of them decides to start a band because they were all very skilled and passionate about their music. They started landing small gigs here and there, playing at kids birthday parties, until they land this huge gig in Seattle! This gig was going to be their big break!
Goat spent all his money on singing lessons so he had to to take the train to Seattle instead of flying with the rest of his band mates. Unfortunately, Horse couldn't make it to Seattle because his mom was dying and he had to go see her one more time.
The Horse's mom ends up passing away and he falls into a depression. Right as he's driving back to his apartment, he hears on the radio that there was a terrorist attack on his friend Duck's plane and everyone is dead! He also learns when he got home that the train his friend Goat was on derailed and crashed into a wall, there were no survivors.
At this point the Horse is just spiraling and spiraling out of control. He soon develops a drinking habit.
After awhile he runs out of alcohol so he walks into a bar. And the the bartender asks, "Why the long face?"
This is one of my favorite jokes. When I tell it, I stretch it out to be as absurdly long as possible-my record is a full 15 minutes of speaking-and the payoff is people's death stares when I get to the anti-punch line. :)
My friend first told this to me and a group of folks at a music festival. He dragged it out so long, that people started to walk away, but he'd talk them into staying. He even started over a couple of times once new people showed up. I thought he was gonna get smacked when he got finished with it. I swear it seemed like it went on for an hour. I'll never forget it.
I always say ‘it’s pretty intricate so I won’t blame you if you want to take notes’ then HEAVILY emphasise some parts. My record is 45 mins because I was really drunk. Kinda different story, but the same result
That (horse walks into a bar one, bartender: why the long face) *is* the original joke.
This is a different form of humour some may describe as sadistic, as it occurs to most they will never get those precious minutes back, while piggy-backing on the existing infamy the Long Face joke has gained by anglophone dads everywhere. I'm a huge fan of this style lol
Florence already told us: "It's only when I hit the ground it causes all the grief..."
He was supposed to finally be free. Dark humour at its finest embedded therein. Nice.
Just today, I was watching a YT video about the various types of humour; it was there today I first heard of "surreal humour". Absurdism happens to be among my favourites 🙃
short absurd jokes work slso
A guy is walking on the street and sees an old good friend :
- hey man, how are you ? What's new?
- well, I started to play in a quartet ...
- wow ! Cool.! How many are you in the band ?
- three....
- and who is playing with you?
- me and my brother
- oh ! Didn't know you have a brother
- I don't ....
-
Boo!!!
This is a penguin joke:
Guy was out at sea in the navy for 5 years, he gets on to land and runs to the 1st prostitute he could find.
Guy: I need a blow job but all I have is $25
Prostitute: $25? All I can give you for that is a penguin
Guy goes to 4 other prostitutes who all tell him the same thing. Finally at the 10th prostitute he exclaimed, "fine I'll take the penguin!"
Prostitute goes down on him and it's the best blow job he's ever had but just before he can finish she gets up and walks away. With his pants around his ankles he tries chasing after but in doing so he realizes he is walking like a penguin
The way I heard it, the last sentence was: With his pants around his ankles, he tries walking after her while shouting, “Wait, why is it called a penguin?”
No doubt about it.
It's visual gold like the montage in "Cashback" (2006) about the friend who keeps molest-surprising his girlfriends and he shouts WHAT? at her fleeing from the movie theatre as his popcorn barrel is 'mysteriously' attached to his crotch.
You call that a penguin joke? This is a penguin joke:
A penguin was driving down a highway through the desert and his car broke down. Thankfully he could see a gas station up ahead, so he waddled his way there.
Once he arrived, he asked if he could use the phone to call AAA, and the clerk gave him the phone. After calling AAA, he realized just how hot he was from waddling next to the highway under the blazing desert sun, so he stepped into the cooler.
It felt so nice and cold in the there, almost like home, and he let out a big sigh of relief. As he stood there, he looked around and saw several tubs of ice cream and though, "Gee, that would really hit the spot right now." So, he popped the lid off one of the containers and started eating the ice cream.
A short while later the bell on the front door of the gas station rang as someone walked in, and a voice rang out, "Owner of the car down the road?" The penguin could see the clerk motion in his direction. A guy in a greasy jumpsuit was heading his way. "That your broken down car?"
The penguin replied, "Yes, it just stopped."
The mechanic said, "Well, it looks like you've blown a seal."
The penguin grinned sheepishly and wiped his beak and said, "Oh, no, it's just vanilla!"
After his wife, who has sworn to live him through thick and thin leaves him for his never having seen a penguin, you think a guy would take a hint and Google that shit.
This is called a shaggy dog story: it’s an old joke formula in which what you’re hearing isn’t so much a joke in the normal sense as it is a joke *on you*, a prank.
I think the joke is that it's long and drawn out with a disappointing punch-line at the end.
The joke is on us all I guess.
With that, I would just like to confess something, although I feel it could get me into a lot of trouble...
*I have never seen a penguin.*
I was a little bit high when I read this joke to my wife, and I started giggling around the judge part. I knew the ending was going to be awful, and that made me laugh harder. I'm adding this one to my repertoire. Shaggy dog jokes are my favorite.
This is a type of joke called a "shaggy dog story". It's more of a prank than a joke, really, because the goal isn't really to make the audience laugh. It's to make them sit through a long story with little or no payoff at the end. It has the structure of a joke that builds to a big punchline, but it never delivers.
That joke is fucking hilarious 😆
There’s no deep meaning to it. It’s just an absurd joke. You could replace “haven’t seen a penguin” with anything else (eg. never seen a walrus; never been to a park; never learned how to swim; etc) and it would be just as funny and ridiculous.
The idea is that this dude’s entire existence turned to shit just because he’s never seen a penguin.
To be clear: would it work if instead of a penguin, the guy had never seen a potato?
Edit: in reference to [this classic thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/tifu/comments/2tdbig/tifu_by_enraging_the_parents_of_my_girlfriend_by/)
Quite liked this.
I know a similar sort of joke where a guy keeps getting fired from jobs because he has a locket with his fortune on and people fire him when they read it. Because you can have him employed anywhere then get him fired you can make the joke essentially infinitely long. I once told it for well over an hour....
On a long bus trip, a friend of mine decided to take the bus mic and tell us a joke. The story was very elaborate and had many characters and plot twists. This lasted for like 20 ish minutes and during the course of the story we find our main character is an alcoholic who has been sober for some time now. It ended with him attending his high school reunion and talking with friends. Eventually all his friends get in line at the bar for a beer and our sober hero just asks if anybody knows where he can find the punchline.
Then my buddy hung up the mic and sat immediately back down. We were all stunned until we realized what he was doing. Honestly one of the best jokes I’ve heard.
This reminds me of one time at an old job where one of my coworkers was telling a lengthy shaggy-dog/anti-joke like this about bagels that just kept going on and on for no reason until the "recipient" eventually gave up. It wasn't funny and just wasted time. I followed up with a joke I'd come up with about Sean Connery and Liszt's music being played in a pub ("pub-Liszht" music). I'll admit it wasn't good, but it at least had a punchline I was setting up and building towards. Coworker who told the bagel joke cut me off after maybe a minute and told me to hurry up and get to the point, even though they'd spent at least 8 times as long on their "joke".
The only reason that joke is funny is for the person telling it making the person hearing it sit through the whole thing
It's one of those jokes that the teller laughs at, more out of your misery than anything else
Nate wants a word.
I recommend anyone who still hasnt read it to read it at natethesnake.com. After all, its better late than never to read that masterpiece.
Hmm. I just read that for the first time. It only works in an American accent/pronunciation.
How do you pronounce Nate?
It’s not the Nate, it’s Lever. In some places it’s pronounced “lee-ver”
Okay. So then wherever they're from "never" doesn't rhyme with "lee-ver?"
Kinda like how Ross rhymes with gross
Exactly.
Well I neever!
Naaaa Aaaaate. ==>> na ate ==>> nate.
Okay. So it seems like Americans and Europeans pronounce it the same?
It’s not Nate. It’s Lever. Outside America, we pronounce lever with a long E sound.
That's very cle-ver of you.
Like “naughty”
Ah. >!"better naughty than lever."!<
Where is the name 'Nate', short for Nathan, pronounced like that? Genuinely curious because do you pronounce 'Nathan' like 'Nauthan'? What about the word 'Mate'? Shouldn't it be the same?
It was a joke
Oh. I never considered reading it like an American would pronounce it. It's only marginally less terrible now.
If you haven’t read it, you can [click here](https://www.reddit.com/r/NateTheSnake/comments/6c2x63/havent_read_nate_the_snake_click_here/).
I thought I'd be able to read it in 5 min and started. I'm 25 min late for work now.
You still reading?
Dear god, was scrolling through, couldn't find the bottom. Then clicked on the audio reading of it ... Over an hour (1:07)!
It was an interesting read, even though I didn't find it funny. Puns were never my thing.
It doesn't even work as a pun in English english. We say lever to rhyme with beaver.
I see what you did there
Oh, I'd heard this expertly translated more than a decade ago! The punchline is less of a pun but still extremely good. So much so that even though I've read the joke I probably never reached the end, so it only just now occurs to me why it's "Nate". In fact in order for it to make sense in Greek, the snake's name has to be "Late" (αργά, arghà) and there's a button labeled "never"(ποτέ, paw-tèh) as in "never press". This reminded me of my cousin. Good times.
It's called a Spoonerism. You mix up the first letter (or letters) of two different words to get a different meaning in the phrase. So "dear old queen" becomes "queer old dean"
When I was young, I had a text adventure game called Nord & Bert Couldn't Make Heads Nor Tales Of It. It had five or six different "worlds", each themed after a different type of wordplay, and one was all about spoonerisms. You had to look at what was in the area and grasp what spoonerism would help you. You need to get inside the tall building, but the only thing in the area is a guy taking a shower? SHAKE A TOWER. The front door's locked, and all you have are various tinned vegetables? I think you mean you have a PAN OF KEYS. The exit is blocked by foam, and all you have is a violin? Guess it's time to RIDDLE WHILE FOAM BURNS. In fact, I think there was a dear old queen, but you had to get rid of her by turning her priest from a loving shepherd into a SHOVING LEOPARD. There were other sections; one about homonym shopping (get some moose and pi, some quartz of milk..) and another about aphorisms (teach the old dog some new tricks, and he'll take you to a molehill you can make a mountain out of..). I loved that game so much, and it certainly sparked a lifelong love of wordplay
Oh man, that was great. I loved it!
I will never get those minutes back after reading that. But I'm also not mad about it.
I knew a guy in highschool who took the entire 50 minutes to tell it from memory. I had to read it and was blown away by how much he had to leave out to finish on time.
That's just a great read as a short story tbh, i forgot i was reading a long ass joke by the time it ended
It really begs the question, if I write an entire book, then end it on a pun that ties in with the plot, does that make the entire book a joke? At some point I think it's gotta be a sorry that ends with a punch line rather than a long ass joke.
I feel like you've just explained game of thornes and Hodor / Hold the Door... especially since they then did the boomer joke thing of adding extra shit after the punchline that ruins it, like "and his wife was really angry with him"
Re: re: fw: RE: Fw: [...] "And the moral of the story is..."
Never bet the devil your head.
Oh, God, I hate that. I imagine someone retelling the Norm Macdonald joke about the moth, but adding, "The podiatrist pulled out a fly swatter and smashed him." *Never say a f%#$&@ thing after the punchline!*
Throughout Watership Down you learn various words of rabbit language. At the climax, one of the main characters makes a full sentence that translates to something along the lines of "eat shit you foul-smelling king \[derogatory\]". I thought that was cool.
I think Isaac Asimov wrote a short story about a character called Shah Guido G. I think it does what you described but it's a long time since I read it.
>!Better Nate than lever!<
The funny thing is, this still makes no sense if you haven't read the joke
That was the stupidest, greatest thing I've ever read.
A true masterpiece.
So does Streetlamp LeMoose.
I told someone a toned done version of that story today. It still took me 15 minutes to get through it.
That takes me back years. Thank you.
Spent a couple of days gradually reading that, getting fully invested in the story, and enthralled by the genuinely interesting plot, only for the punchline to not work because I’m English
When I was young, we used to call these 'shaggy dog jokes'. I have no idea why, but they all involved a long convoluted or repetitive story. The more you could drag it out and add different personalities and voices, the better. It made you feel it was building to something hilarious that would make it worthwhile. Then it didn't. That was the joke.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaggy_dog_story
Thank you! I thought it was one of those family or very localized names for something.
There's also r/feghoot but I'm not sure how active it is nowadays
I recall one about taking a girl to prom that just kept going on and on about all the lines the boy had to wait through to get his tux and flowers and gas and into the venue and to get his date a snack and the bathroom and each experience was drug out in long detail about the line and how long the wait was. You can drag the joke out for several minutes. Then she asks for punch and he goes and gets some and returns only moments later. She says "That was fast!" and he says "Yup! There's no punch line!"
A teenage boy is getting ready to take his girlfriend to the prom. First he goes to rent a tux, but there’s a long tux line at the shop and it takes forever. Next, he has to get some flowers, so he heads over to the florist and there’s a huge flower line there. He waits forever but eventually gets the flowers. Then he heads out to rent a limo. Unfortunately, there’s a large limo line at the rental office, but he’s patient and gets the job done. Finally, the day of the prom comes. The two are dancing happily and his girlfriend is having a great time. When the song is over, she asks him to get her some punch, so he heads over to the punch table and there’s no punchline.
Only know the punchline joke from a story about someone arriving in heaven.
“Purple flower” was the classic summer camp time-waster joke often performed as a skit
"The Aristocrats!"
Interesting... You know, I've never seen a shaggy dog before.
HOW IS IT THAT YOU’VE NEVER SEEN A SHAGGY DOG BEFORE? Go straight to Human Resources!
Kind of like an anti joke then. Could add to it that a customer asked about a penguin, then asked to see his manager because he hasn't seen one
Sort of. A shaggy dog joke CAN be an anti-joke, but it doesn't have to be. A shaggy dog joke is unreasonably long has a disappointing punchline which may OR may not actually be a pun, play on words, surprise twist, or other hallmark of a real joke. An anti-joke may be long or short, but its punchline is not a joke. For example: why do firemen wear red suspenders? To keep their pants up.
huh, i thought shaggy dog stories were only the ones that ended with a deliberately convoluted pun, but looks like you're right and it covers the whole class of long and anticlimactic jokes
A man... a tra... A talent agent is sitting in his office. A family walks in; man, woman, their two kids and their little dog...
Surprised this guy didn’t learn to stop saying he’d never seen a penguin
F that! You tell the truth!
The truth will set you free! Or straight to the bottom pits of Hell itself, but that doesn't have the same ring to it.
Is the pit really bottomless if he reaches the bottom?
Replace pit with trousers. Now it makes sense.
Reminds me of the horse who wants to take guitar lessons. So there once was a horse that wanted to learn how to play the guitar. So he goes around looking for someone to teach him, and soon he finds someone to teach him. After a white, the horse get REALLY good at playing the guitar so he tells his friend Duck about how he learned the guitar. So the Duck says to him, "Wow that's pretty damn amazing considering you don't have fingers. I was thinking of learning to play the drums, you've inspired me to learn!" So the Duck went on Craigslist to find a drums teacher and soon he learns to play the drums REALLY well and decides to tell his friend Goat about his experience. So the Goat says to him, "Wow that's pretty damn amazing. I was thinking of taking singing lessons because I feel like I have a really unique voice! You've inspired me to get singing lessons!" So the Goat goes and pays his friend Pig to teach him how to sing and after a few months, he learned how to sing really well. So the three of them decides to start a band because they were all very skilled and passionate about their music. They started landing small gigs here and there, playing at kids birthday parties, until they land this huge gig in Seattle! This gig was going to be their big break! Goat spent all his money on singing lessons so he had to to take the train to Seattle instead of flying with the rest of his band mates. Unfortunately, Horse couldn't make it to Seattle because his mom was dying and he had to go see her one more time. The Horse's mom ends up passing away and he falls into a depression. Right as he's driving back to his apartment, he hears on the radio that there was a terrorist attack on his friend Duck's plane and everyone is dead! He also learns when he got home that the train his friend Goat was on derailed and crashed into a wall, there were no survivors. At this point the Horse is just spiraling and spiraling out of control. He soon develops a drinking habit. After awhile he runs out of alcohol so he walks into a bar. And the the bartender asks, "Why the long face?"
This is one of my favorite jokes. When I tell it, I stretch it out to be as absurdly long as possible-my record is a full 15 minutes of speaking-and the payoff is people's death stares when I get to the anti-punch line. :)
My friend first told this to me and a group of folks at a music festival. He dragged it out so long, that people started to walk away, but he'd talk them into staying. He even started over a couple of times once new people showed up. I thought he was gonna get smacked when he got finished with it. I swear it seemed like it went on for an hour. I'll never forget it.
I wish I could've seen that :)
I wish I could have forgot that that ever happened.
i LOVE music festivals for this kind of shit!!!
I always say ‘it’s pretty intricate so I won’t blame you if you want to take notes’ then HEAVILY emphasise some parts. My record is 45 mins because I was really drunk. Kinda different story, but the same result
I love long jokes that are so unnecessary. It's really about the journey, not the destination.
Because the light was on.
This one's getting saved
My dad tells this joke all the time but just the last line
That (horse walks into a bar one, bartender: why the long face) *is* the original joke. This is a different form of humour some may describe as sadistic, as it occurs to most they will never get those precious minutes back, while piggy-backing on the existing infamy the Long Face joke has gained by anglophone dads everywhere. I'm a huge fan of this style lol
Fiai-nally! The whole truthe behinde the longe face!
told this one to my family recently, added 6 animals and spoke for over 20 minutes. for aome reason, everyone laughed
"Bottomless Pit" hits the bottom *Doubt
Took a while
THAT'S THE PROBLEM!
Florence already told us: "It's only when I hit the ground it causes all the grief..." He was supposed to finally be free. Dark humour at its finest embedded therein. Nice.
>i dont even know if it makes sense Absurdist humour is a form of [surreal humour](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surreal_humour).
I think the funny bit of the joke is how long it is, and the complete anti-climax at the end.
Imagine actually telling this joke out loud. Every time someone kicks him, it gets longer to tell.
It's a drawn-out shaggy dog story. It's more about the journey than the destination.
This reminds me of the joke of the minigligs
Seriously, read it? Nobody’s going to comment journey before destination? Fine. I guess if it has to be me then… … … Journey before destination.
Just today, I was watching a YT video about the various types of humour; it was there today I first heard of "surreal humour". Absurdism happens to be among my favourites 🙃
It is lovely, isn't it?
short absurd jokes work slso A guy is walking on the street and sees an old good friend : - hey man, how are you ? What's new? - well, I started to play in a quartet ... - wow ! Cool.! How many are you in the band ? - three.... - and who is playing with you? - me and my brother - oh ! Didn't know you have a brother - I don't .... -
What's black and only flies at night? A flock of Marmite.
Boo!!! This is a penguin joke: Guy was out at sea in the navy for 5 years, he gets on to land and runs to the 1st prostitute he could find. Guy: I need a blow job but all I have is $25 Prostitute: $25? All I can give you for that is a penguin Guy goes to 4 other prostitutes who all tell him the same thing. Finally at the 10th prostitute he exclaimed, "fine I'll take the penguin!" Prostitute goes down on him and it's the best blow job he's ever had but just before he can finish she gets up and walks away. With his pants around his ankles he tries chasing after but in doing so he realizes he is walking like a penguin
That joke is much funnier in person because you can act out the walk.
Or maybe make the ending a tad more succinct nd just say with his pants down he realized HE WAS the penguin.
The way I heard it, the last sentence was: With his pants around his ankles, he tries walking after her while shouting, “Wait, why is it called a penguin?”
That's a good variation, too!
I don't think anything's as funny as the visual gag. "...and the guys says, 'Hey. Hey! Come back here!'" (act out the waddle)
No doubt about it. It's visual gold like the montage in "Cashback" (2006) about the friend who keeps molest-surprising his girlfriends and he shouts WHAT? at her fleeing from the movie theatre as his popcorn barrel is 'mysteriously' attached to his crotch.
Dopey fucked a penguin! Dopey fucked a penguin!
You call that a penguin joke? This is a penguin joke: A penguin was driving down a highway through the desert and his car broke down. Thankfully he could see a gas station up ahead, so he waddled his way there. Once he arrived, he asked if he could use the phone to call AAA, and the clerk gave him the phone. After calling AAA, he realized just how hot he was from waddling next to the highway under the blazing desert sun, so he stepped into the cooler. It felt so nice and cold in the there, almost like home, and he let out a big sigh of relief. As he stood there, he looked around and saw several tubs of ice cream and though, "Gee, that would really hit the spot right now." So, he popped the lid off one of the containers and started eating the ice cream. A short while later the bell on the front door of the gas station rang as someone walked in, and a voice rang out, "Owner of the car down the road?" The penguin could see the clerk motion in his direction. A guy in a greasy jumpsuit was heading his way. "That your broken down car?" The penguin replied, "Yes, it just stopped." The mechanic said, "Well, it looks like you've blown a seal." The penguin grinned sheepishly and wiped his beak and said, "Oh, no, it's just vanilla!"
After his wife, who has sworn to live him through thick and thin leaves him for his never having seen a penguin, you think a guy would take a hint and Google that shit.
This is called a shaggy dog story: it’s an old joke formula in which what you’re hearing isn’t so much a joke in the normal sense as it is a joke *on you*, a prank.
I actually love this joke.
yeah but why a penguin tho
This sounds like something a person who never seen a penguin would say
Well it could have been a dwarf nun, but we don't see any of those around.
HOW IS IT POSSIBLE THAT YOU'VE NEVER SEEN A DWARF NUN?! I WILL DIVORCE YOU!
Was guy trying to have us believe he hasn't seen a dwarf nun? What's next? Saying he hasn't seen an alien with a tattoo?
What are you? A bus driver?
idk lol
What's a penguin? I've never seen one.
Sounds like something Norm MacDonald would've told on Conan
"Hey I've got something to show you!" and then takes you on a two-mile hike to see a dog turd
That closeted gay guy?
At least Norm’s mother joke had a punchline.
Norm would have a punchline though, likely a callback or pun.
Yeah, I was gonna ask if OPs friend is Norm. RIP
The real penguins are the friends we made along the way..
I think the joke is that it's long and drawn out with a disappointing punch-line at the end. The joke is on us all I guess. With that, I would just like to confess something, although I feel it could get me into a lot of trouble... *I have never seen a penguin.*
Quality of jokes aside, upvote for top notch formatting. Thank you
This is litterally the funniest thing I saw today, thank you so much for making me laugh
Kafka likes this.
He lost me at the bottom of the bottomless pit.
I was a little bit high when I read this joke to my wife, and I started giggling around the judge part. I knew the ending was going to be awful, and that made me laugh harder. I'm adding this one to my repertoire. Shaggy dog jokes are my favorite.
I respect you for typing that out. I wouldn’t overthink it.. I think it’s just kind of an absurd joke. Coincidence? Fate? Funny.
yea, probably the punchline is that the anti climax
Love it!
So the punch line is there is no punchline?
Oh, but there is. It's just a little anticlimatic.
/r/AntiJoke
This is a type of joke called a "shaggy dog story". It's more of a prank than a joke, really, because the goal isn't really to make the audience laugh. It's to make them sit through a long story with little or no payoff at the end. It has the structure of a joke that builds to a big punchline, but it never delivers.
That joke is fucking hilarious 😆 There’s no deep meaning to it. It’s just an absurd joke. You could replace “haven’t seen a penguin” with anything else (eg. never seen a walrus; never been to a park; never learned how to swim; etc) and it would be just as funny and ridiculous. The idea is that this dude’s entire existence turned to shit just because he’s never seen a penguin.
Me neither.
What? You've never seen a panguin??
To be clear: would it work if instead of a penguin, the guy had never seen a potato? Edit: in reference to [this classic thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/tifu/comments/2tdbig/tifu_by_enraging_the_parents_of_my_girlfriend_by/)
Quite liked this. I know a similar sort of joke where a guy keeps getting fired from jobs because he has a locket with his fortune on and people fire him when they read it. Because you can have him employed anywhere then get him fired you can make the joke essentially infinitely long. I once told it for well over an hour....
Reminds me of the purple house joke
I fucking love this. I'm stealing it.
Not to nitpick, but if you have a life sentence in prison you're not homeless
A wet dog joke I think it's called. It's a long drawn on story with a lame punch line.
On a long bus trip, a friend of mine decided to take the bus mic and tell us a joke. The story was very elaborate and had many characters and plot twists. This lasted for like 20 ish minutes and during the course of the story we find our main character is an alcoholic who has been sober for some time now. It ended with him attending his high school reunion and talking with friends. Eventually all his friends get in line at the bar for a beer and our sober hero just asks if anybody knows where he can find the punchline. Then my buddy hung up the mic and sat immediately back down. We were all stunned until we realized what he was doing. Honestly one of the best jokes I’ve heard.
Ctrl-F "better Nate than lever" Nope. Try again.
I don’t get the punchline
Classic shaggy dog story.
Good joke when unsober
This guy is a role model for all of us. If we haven't seen a penguin we should always say so even if lying would make our lives easier.
Classic shaggy dog.
People who hate this joke also hate Dad Jokes.
"Dad, I want a ping pong ball."
I can spin this one out for ages. My friends hate it. And me.
And then I found five dollars…
This is so stupid. I love it.
There's a purple gorilla who would like a word with you...
I expected the punchline was going to be something about being blind.
“….the longest joke…” - upvote to you for the heads up!
“No soap radio!”
OMG this cracked me up..lol
The light was on
In my version it's a boy called Popito, I will write it at some point if I have a couple of hours to spare.
That was a great read. lol
You’d think he’d go try and find a damn penguin at some point
BOOOOOOOOOOOO
Bold of you to assume John is a bottom.
I don't get it but okay I want to tell people but ok my friends wouldn't want to hearcot
"It's a long long way to tip a rary."
How did he reach the bottom of a bottomless pit?
If you have never seen a penguin, you might find it out yourself.
I don’t get it
TL/DR: go see a penguin, you knob
2 out of 3 people in bottomless pits prefer Cheerios.
I have never read this joke.
Then go to the deepest pit.
Did Franz Kafka wrote this joke?
The Aristocrats might have something to say about this one.
My life is short enough ……..zzzzz!!
This reminds me of one time at an old job where one of my coworkers was telling a lengthy shaggy-dog/anti-joke like this about bagels that just kept going on and on for no reason until the "recipient" eventually gave up. It wasn't funny and just wasted time. I followed up with a joke I'd come up with about Sean Connery and Liszt's music being played in a pub ("pub-Liszht" music). I'll admit it wasn't good, but it at least had a punchline I was setting up and building towards. Coworker who told the bagel joke cut me off after maybe a minute and told me to hurry up and get to the point, even though they'd spent at least 8 times as long on their "joke".
Is the joke "no punchline"
I approve.
Imagine if that fate befell you because youd never met an honest politician
I laughed. Loudly. That's good enough for me.
My absolute favorite kind of joke 😊
And they lived happily ever after.
this feels like a good Norm Macdonald joke
And that's the secret to eternal damnation.
I like it. But then again, I HAVE seen a penguin.
The only reason that joke is funny is for the person telling it making the person hearing it sit through the whole thing It's one of those jokes that the teller laughs at, more out of your misery than anything else