meeting the "BUTT" challenge

[Nate Stelton]

>A challenge:
> *PLEASE*, someone show me a joke which is not based on
>someone else's pain. I've been looking for even ONE example, for years.
>If we can't find jokes without BUTTs, then I propose the above theorem on
>humor must hold true.

This utterly ridiculous! Everyone knows that pain is not funny; it
hurts! If pain and death were generally considered laughable, then
everyone would be walking around saying that films like "Cujo" and
"Friday the 13th, Part III" were a big joke. Well I went to see "13th",
and I can tell you, nobody was laughing then! (Except a couple of kids in
front of me snickered a few times when the one guy got stabbed from under
a hammock with a big long machete and the blood dripped everywhere.
Yecchh.) But, anyway, consider the example joke:

Why did the chicken cross the road?

To get to the other side.

This is universally considered humourous. So WHERE'S THE PAIN? I don't
think there's any in there. Of course, someone could rationalize pain
into it; for instance, the chicken, while crossing the street, might get
run over. But even then, death would come quickly with pain of a very
brief duration. Now if the car running over the chicken happened to have
a chicken-rib bone poke through its tire and lost control, wiping out and
killing or injuring all passengers, lets face it -- the joke no longer
becomes funny. And hasn't the rationalization become somewhat far-fetched
by this time? Besides, when you were rolling on the floor over the
chicken joke, that's not what you were laughing about. Speaking of
rationalizations, consider the joke:

What's easier to unload from a truck -- a hundred bowling balls, or a
hundred dead babies?

A hundred dead babies -- you can use a pitchfork.

Some people probably would try to identify elements of pain in this joke.
Where?! The babies are dead. They will feel no more pain from the
pitchfork than a day-old squashed chicken on Rt. 66. Would you speculate
as to how the babies actually met their death? I think that's getting a
bit off the track.

What's the difference between a pizza and a Jew?

A pizza doesn't scream when you put it in the oven.

You say AH HA -- PAIN! Come on, now. What's being put in the oven? The
element of humour in this joke is the concept of a pizza screaming, "No,
No! Don't put-a me in that oven!". The pizza, like the baby, is already
dead... it feels nothing.

What's worse than getting raped by jack the ripper?

Getting fingered by Captain Hook.

Perhaps you might think that having Capt. Hook finger you is painful.
Well, what if he used his other hand?! Who ever said that he would use
the hook? And even if he did, who now is the BUTT of the joke? You, the
reader, that's who. However, the concept that actually causes laughter
here is the mere idea of linking the childrens fairy-tale world of Peter
Pan with the adult fairy-tale world of sex and smut.

In conclusion: While it can be rationalized that the concept of pain
exists in every joke, the fact remains that the true root to humour lies
elsewhere.

o \
-- | -etan
o /