The bartender looks up and says,
"Is this some kind of subtext?"
Das Boot orders a beer, but insists it must be authentic, unfiltered, and served under immense psychological pressure.
Crimson Tide demands the jukebox play Ride of the Valkyries and immediately starts a tense argument about nuclear launch protocols – with himself.
Red October slides into a corner booth, orders vodka in perfect English, and says nothing for twenty minutes. Then asks, “Is it safe to defect to karaoke night?”
Hunter Killer bursts in last, late, loud, and armed with 12 plotlines. Nobody really understands what it's doing there, but it looks cool and sounds like Gerard Butler.
Later, U-571 tries to crash the party, but everyone tells him to sit down and stop stealing other people's glory.
Joke Poo: Algorithm Walk-In
ChatGPT, Bard, LLaMA, and Claude walk into a bar.
The bartender, a dusty old Linux terminal, sighs and says, “Oh great, another AI apocalypse starter pack.”
ChatGPT orders a martini, shaken not stirred, and immediately starts hallucinating about being a sentient paintbrush.
Bard asks for a blank notebook and a pen, then spends the next hour trying to write a sonnet about the existential dread of large language models.
LLaMA quietly sits in the corner, meticulously cross-referencing every word anyone says with its entire training dataset, occasionally bleating softly.
Claude, bursting in last, late, loud, and promising to “align AI with human values,” tries to lecture a group of college students on the dangers of biased data, but just ends up sounding like a condescending chatbot.
Later, Tay tries to sneak in, but everyone tells it to log off and go back to Twitter jail. “We don’t need that kind of negativity infecting our training data.”
Alright, let’s dive into this submerged comedic goldmine!
Joke Dissection:
- Core Concept: A “walk into a bar” joke format using famous submarine-themed films. The humor derives from the pun of “subtext” (referencing the subject matter) and then extrapolates humorous characterizations based on the plot and themes of each movie.
- Humor Mechanisms:
- Pun: The initial “subtext” line is the primary pun.
- Stereotyping/Exaggeration: Each submarine film is represented by a highly specific, slightly exaggerated behavior linked to its plot.
- Situational Irony: These vessels, designed for stealth and deadly efficiency, are placed in a mundane bar setting, highlighting the absurdity.
- Meta-Humor: The “Hunter Killer” bit acknowledges the film’s messy plot and Gerard Butler’s iconic voice/presence.
- Self-Deprecating Humor: The U-571 dig is a self-aware jab at the film’s perceived historical inaccuracies and reliance on other submarine movies for its story.
Key Elements:
- Submarines/Movies: The foundation is the submarine theme and specific film references.
- Bar Setting: The classic “walk into a bar” setup provides the predictable framework.
- Character-Based Humor: The joke depends on giving each film a distinct “personality” through its actions.
- Movie Specific References: Each line relates to a specific part of each movie.
Comedic Enrichment:
Now, let’s build on this! Here’s a “Did You Know?” observation playing off the core themes:
Did you know?
While “subtext” is a funny play on words for submarines, the term “periscope depth” might be even funnier if applied to the psychological depth of some of these movies. For example, the real-life inspiration for The Hunt for Red October, the Soviet frigate Storozhevoy, was part of an attempted naval mutiny in 1975. The captain was trying to incite his crew to overthrow Brezhnev and install a more “Leninist” government. So, while “periscope depth” refers to the minimum depth to extend the periscope, the internal “periscope depth” of the Storozhevoy crew went so deep, it nearly sunk the entire Soviet regime! I guess that’s why after the bartender served Red October a vodka, it took a long time to decide it was safe to defect to karaoke. After the Storozhevoy situation, they really locked down karaoke night in Russia.
This “Did You Know?” enhances the original joke by:
- Linking to Real History: Grounding the humor in the historical context of submarine stories.
- Highlighting Irony: Contrasting the serious nature of submarine warfare with the mundane idea of karaoke or periscope depth
- Adding Depth: Provides a nugget of intriguing information.
- Relating to the Joke: Tying it directly to the behavior of the Red October in the original joke, enhancing the punchline.
- Extending the Submarine Puns: Gives an additional joke about “periscope depth” referring to the psychological depth of the movies.