Lightbulb joke
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The lightbulb joke is an example of an endless-variations joke and has possibly thousands of versions covering every imaginable culture, belief, occupation and special-interest group. Generally the punchline is not complimentary to the group providing the subject of the joke.
The generally acknowledged "original" goes as follows: [citation needed]
- Q: How many [insert chosen group here] does it take to change a lightbulb?
- A: Ten — one to hold the lightbulb and nine to turn the ladder around.
[edit] Basic variations
Even the original is subject to variation, the most common involving more people turning the entire house around.
Once the subject is chosen, variations on the joke tend to achieve their comedic effect by highlighting features of the cultural or social group based on altering variables such as the quantity (ten, three, two, none, millions) of light bulb changers, which can be adjusted in unexpected ways in the punchline; the duration can be introduced as a variable, usually if the answer is "one" (e.g. How many Dragon Ball Z characters does it take to change a light bulb? One, but it'll take him five episodes to do it); "screw in" can be substituted for "change", allowing for puns implying sexual intercourse; other variations exist that achieve their effect through dramatic alteration of the joke paradigm itself, by not having a punch-line, or by simply making it nonsensical (e.g. How many surrealists does it take to change a light bulb? Fish.) The common pattern for a light bulb joke could be formulated as follows:
- Q: How many members of a (given demographic group) does it take to change a lightbulb?
- A: 'N+1 (where N is a positive whole number)' — one to hold the lightbulb and N to behave in a fashion generally associated with a negative stereotype of that group.[citation needed]
There is no uniformity as to the target of derision: in America it has been the Polish people (in Texas, Aggies – students of Texas A&M University – are often the target), while Poles poke fun at Russians and Americans. In Great Britain it is the Irish who are lampooned (in Wales it is the "Cardis"). The Australians and New Zealanders make fun of each other. The Canadians target their own Newfoundlanders, or "newfies". The jokes are by no means limited to English-speaking countries. For example, the Russians tell the same joke about the Moldovans, Chukchi and Ukrainians. The Ukrainians, in turn, tell it about Russians; the Spanish make fun of the inhabitants of Lepe, while the Colombians make fun of the inhabitants of Nariño, and the rest of the Spanish-speaking population laugh at the Galicians; the Brazilians mock the Portuguese; the Portuguese mock the Brazilians; the Norwegians laugh at their Swedish neighbours, and conversely, the Swedes tell the same joke about Norwegians; the Germans target the East Frisians or the Austrians; The Dutch and French target their Belgian neighbours, the Costa Ricans joke about foreigners from Nicaragua, and the Indians target the Pakistanis. The Finns target everyone, including themselves.[citation needed] Light bulb jokes are sometimes also used as passive revenge to poke fun at those who have become socially prominent, especially if the possibility of under-handed means exist.[citation needed]
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Canonical List of Lightbulb Jokes
- Light bulb joke list — Probably the first such list on the Web, since about 1994. Even got mention in Time magazine in 1996.
- Peter Anspach's Star Trek Parody Pages — contains scripts for Star Trek Episodes of every flavour, each revolving solely around the business of changing a light bulb.
- Quickies about Light Bulbs
- Astrojokes — The Inevitable Lightbulb Jokes — Contains lightbulb jokes revolving around star signs and their personalities.
- A Prairie Home Companion
