Unpopular opinion: People keep messing up the setup to their puns

I've been hanging around this workshop for maybe 6 months now, and I keep seeing the same mistake over and over. Folks will drop a punchline without giving enough context first, so nobody gets the groan. Like, I saw one yesterday that just said "I'm reading a book on anti-gravity" and then waited for laughs. You gotta do the full setup, like "I'm reading a book on anti-gravity, it's impossible to put down" because that's where the work happens. My dad would spend a whole minute building up a joke about his truck before he'd hit us with the silly part. I remember him timing it out while we were driving to the grocery store last summer. Anybody else notice newer jokes are skipping the setup too fast?

2 comments

2 Comments

lane.drew22d ago

Whoa, my neighbor once spent ten minutes setting up a joke about his mailbox.

the_gavin22d ago

Oh man, you're totally right about that! I've definitely caught myself starting to groan at a setup only to realize the punchline was already gone before I even knew what we were joking about. Takes me back to my grandpa telling knock-knock jokes at family dinners, he'd make sure everyone was paying attention before he'd even start.