Hungarian jokes
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Like Russian jokes, the majority of jokes in Hungary have fixed characters who everyone is familiar with:
Móricka (little Maurice): A 10 to 12 year old Jewish boy, who is preoccupied with sex and saying obscenities. (His being a Jew is totally unimportant in the large majority of these jokes, and many people are actually unaware of the fact that he is supposed to be Jewish.) Móricka is easily the most popular imaginary person in Hungarian humour. His analogs are Vovochka and Little Johnny.
Pistike (little Steve): An 8 to 10 year old very stupid boy. The adults who communicate with him are also acting silly and many of the jokes are absurd in nature.
Kohn and Grün: Two elderly Jewish people who are in constant fear of the future (And, during the times of Communist Hungary, the often fluid past).
Arisztid and Tasziló: Two old-fashioned Hungarian aristocrats whose time period is shortly after World War II.
Jean: Arisztid or Tasziló French butler interacting in short question and answer jokes. Usually absurd or word-plays.
Mother-in-law jokes: Mothers-in-law are gist for humor in Hungary and Hungarian, as in many other lands and languages.
Politics: In communist era Hungary, political jokes were extremely popular and were often tolerated as a means of letting off steam. Both international and domestic issues were ridiculed and jokes often required good understanding of what was in the news to make any sense. These jokes often say more of their age than long pages of historical description. Political jokes are still popular in the now democratic Hungary, but the public now feels all politicians are so hopelessly corrupt, greedy and incompetent that it's not worth making jokes about them.
Police: As one consequence of the letting off steam aspect noted in the politics jokes above, ever since the communist era most Hungarian people are not fond of the institution of law enforcement and try to avoid contact with officers. Policemen are generally regarded as primitive, uneducated and totally corrupt in Hungarian public opinion. Some of these police jokes belong to the absurd genre.
Gypsy: The large Roma (cigány) ethnic minority in Hungary are regularly parodied. Recurring themes are stealing, refusing to work, fathering too many children, sex abuses - essentially all the negative stereotypes about Roma people in Hungary.
Vállalkozós (entrepreneur-related jokes): The newly formed entrepreneur class in post-communist Hungary (Compare ""New Russians") are quickly-got-rich people and are usually described as a bunch of uneducated, arrogant and plain stupid criminals in the jokes. Their primitive clothing style is often made fun of.
Blonde girls: As in English blonde jokes are common, portraying their subjects as silly sex addicts, attracted to money and fashion and only slightly more advanced than the police and others (See above).
Scotsmen: Similar to the old English stereotype, Scots are described as kilt-wearing skulks who invariably violate common sense in order to save a few pennies in the short run.
Asylum inmates: Mental patients in the asylum frequently end up out-smarting doctors and the general public. Again, see the similar category under Russian jokes. The asylum is often dubbed the "sárgaház" (yellow house) in the Hungarian language, referring to the building of the National Asylum (1868-2007) – similar to Bedlam in English.
Animals: Such jokes are usually featuring the bear and the wolf who are always keen about bullying the rabbit, who may be smart but gets beaten up regularly, and the Evil Piglet, who is a verbally aggressive personality, often even to his own expense (due to his stupidity). Animal jokes are often political allegories. Again, see Russian joke#Animals.
Stirlitz: These are really absurd jokes: see some in the Stirlitz and the Russian joke pages.
