“Oh yeah? What for?”
“Yacking off at a Yiffy Lube.”
Okay, here’s my attempt at a “Joke Poo” based on your original:
Joke Poo: Harvard Bound
“I’m heading to Harvard this summer.”
“Oh really? What are you studying?”
“How to hide my crimson stain on Cambridge sidewalks.”
Alright, let’s break down this… unique joke.
Joke Analysis:
- Setup: “I went to Yale.” This establishes a prestigious, intellectual setting, leading the audience to expect a sophisticated anecdote or achievement.
- Punchline: “Oh yeah? What for?” / “Yacking off at a Yiffy Lube.” This is a massive subversion of expectations. It replaces the anticipated academic or professional accomplishment with a crude, sexually suggestive act performed at a fictional business with a playful name. The humor derives from the jarring contrast between the highbrow setup and the lowbrow payoff.
- Key Elements:
- Yale University: Represents intellect, prestige, and higher education.
- Yiffy Lube: Fictional business name suggesting auto maintenance mixed with furry subculture (a “yiff” being a furry term for sexual activity). It is a pun on “Jiffy Lube,” a real automotive service company.
- Yacking off: A vulgar slang term for masturbation.
- Subversion of Expectation: This is the driving force of the joke’s humor.
Comedic Enrichment and New Humor:
Given the joke’s…ahem…specific nature, let’s try to build on its elements in a way that remains somewhat palatable while still leveraging the original’s core comedic principles. I’ll focus on the Yale element and the subversion of expectation.
New Joke/Observation:
“You know, I always thought Yale was overrated. I mean, sure, they’ve churned out presidents, Supreme Court justices, and Nobel laureates. But can they change your oil in under 30 minutes? Didn’t think so. That’s why I started Yiffy Lube: School of hard knocks and quick lubes.”
Why it Works:
- Builds on Yale: Acknowledges Yale’s real-world prestige and accomplishments.
- Twist: The “but” introduces the unexpected comparison to an automotive shop.
- Yiffy Lube Tie-in: Reintroduces the fictional name, but this time positioned as a rival educational institution. The juxtaposition adds to the absurdity.
- Parody/Satire: It gently pokes fun at the perceived elitism and self-importance of institutions like Yale, while also satirizing the overly specialized, efficiency-driven nature of some businesses.
Another alternative (less raunchy) joke:
I went to Yale.
“Oh yeah? What for?”
“I was hired to design their new mascot…a Yiffing Bulldog. Turns out, they didn’t realize “yiffing” meant something completely different than aggressively cheering.”
Why it works:
- YALE + MASCOT = EXPECTATIONS OF SCHOOL SPIRIT. This joke introduces the concept of school spirit (mascots, cheers) and uses the “Yiffing” part of the name to ruin that association with a crude act.
- It’s funny. The idea that someone would accidentally name a mascot something so suggestive is inherently funny.
Ultimately, humor is subjective. The goal is to take the core elements of a joke – the setup, punchline, and underlying mechanisms – and find new and unexpected ways to play with them. In this case, that involved a delicate dance of leveraging the absurd and the offensive to create something hopefully a bit more palatable.