Cheap laughs. They’re called cheap because they can be gotten for very little effort. Cheap comes with a notoriously bad connotation because you think of a miserly old man sitting in the dark counting his precious pennies and clipping coupons. Why can’t it be something more positive like, oh I don’t know, economical laughs?

An economically effecient way to get more laughs out of joke, good or bad, is to introduce articles and plurals. Bonus points are earned if there’s a referential synonym in the form of a pun or social norm, but that’s a bit advanced for today’s lesson.

Let’s take something simple: Underwear. You could take the intuitive approach and simply use slang or slurs like tighty-whiteys, or skivvies, or simply BVDs. That last one technically doesn’t count anymore as Hanes and Fruit of the Loom are the big players underwear making game anymore. You could go that route, but before I divert, they’re already taking advantage of one of the rules: plurals. The rule they break though is being negative. I don’t care if you call me a hippie, but would you rather be wearing something called underwear or tighty-whiteys? Good comedy isn’t supposed to make someone feel bad, it’s supposed to make everyone laugh including the target.

So plurals enhance, but “Underwears” isn’t grammatically correct in any context, and in some cases can help, but since there is a correct equivalent we choose “underpants” instead. Instantly, “Underwear” has gotten funnier, and it’s not going to make anyone feel bad either. The next step is easy. Add an article and you get “the underpants!”

Now, I’ve gone around my elbow to get to my asshole on this one, but the formula is simple: Plurals and articles. If no equivalent plural is found, then just add an ’s’ and run with it! Even unfunny things can be made funny and if the plural changes the spelling too much, stick with the more ridiculous one. If the plural isn’t sticking, stand by the article addition.

• “I went outside to the orchard to pick the fruits.”
• “Coffee is good with the cremes.”
• “The birds are attacking me with the beaks!”

That last example shows the value of replacing the proper identifier with an improper one, namely from “their” to “the.”

I’ve just sucked all the fun out of comedy. You’re welcomes.

Yes, you read that right. It’s a sitcom idea I’ve had for years. It’s all about Charles Lindbergh and his adventures with his pet pig. The title capitalizes on the success of Mork and Mindy. Of course it’s a joke! It makes me laugh every time though, and the only person I make suffer through it is Bobby. That poor guy.

This “that’d be a great name for a sitcom” personal joke of mine isn’t nearly as prolific as “that’d be a great name for a band,” but it’s still fun. I don’t have many other ideas and sometimes I work a little too hard at it. Case in point:

The Pilgrims founded Plymouth Colony in the 1600s. Sure they were God-fearing, but all folk have a dark side. Sometimes murders take place, and the crimes have to be solved. One of the Pilgrims that made the famous crossing on the Mayflower was a converted Jew, and he also has a knack for detective work. This is a dark drama, and shot in black & white to really show the grit of the grim situations. Also, this detective is played by Bruce Campell, B-actor extraordinaire. I call it Bristol County Jew Noir.

First things first: Definition of meme. I only put this here ’cause it’s a relatively new word to English, so I’ll be generous and educate those who don’t know.

I’ve got some memes that, well, let’s be honest here… I guess they’re more inside jokes in the vein of “You had to be there.” I’m just blogging about it and waving my dick in your face while I talk about how awesome I am at brandishing my genitals. But what else is blogging about or for, I ask? What, indeed?

But I digress far, far too much. Here’s the list and some explanations. Enjoy it or die in a lightning fire made of cars.

• Cocket Snatch
  Bam! Cocket Snatch! It sounds dirty, doesn’t it? Really, it’s just a derivative of a brainstorming session to title a game modification for Unreal Tournament 200X. We were taking an original, licensed game, Rocket Jockey (a totally killer game, by the way), taking the core gameplay, and making it our own. We couldn’t name our game Rocket Jockey of course, so we came up with a list of titles. Rocket Grab was one of them, but that just seemed gay. Enter: Cocket Snatch. It’s like Rocket Snatch, but this one is intensely funnier. Ever since this brainstorming session, Cocket Snatch is on the list almost every time for sake of tradition.
• Dollar Cakes
  When I was but a lad wandering through the nudity of the Internet, I saw a word. I couldn’t pronounce the word. I knew I didn’t like what I saw alongside the word. It was a label. But I didn’t know if pronouncing it “Buck Cake” was correct. I later learned it was Bukkake, but I just tucked this nugget away for later.Coworker Steve and I were talking, and as conversations go, teenage masturbation is a roundhouse subject. You can always follow the train of thought and logic back to it. I decided to dig up my “Buck Cake” story for him, and he remembered thinking the same thing too! Over the course of the week, we would mutter “buck cake” to one another, and burst into laughter. It eventually evolved into cakes costing one dollar (a buck). Hence, “Dollar Cakes.”
• Baggadix
  Once again, this one has to do with coworker Steve. He was being especially pissy, for who knows what reason. I kept telling him to eat things like “bags of hell” and “dicks.” It continued until I told him to “Eat a bag of dicks.” Apparently the possibilities here were endless. “Eat 10 bags of 20 dicks” was just one of the phrases uttered. Eventually I grew weary and simply said “bag o’ dicks.” It’s not a huge mental leap from here to get to Baggadix. It sounds like a breakfast cereal though, like Trix, so it stuck.
• Liquid Bees
  You know, sometimes I don’t even know. Just – liquid fucking bees, okay?
• Lemonade from the ass well!
  Kyle Naziaxier (hehe, another inside joke), Allison, and I were driving someplace. Kyle had a habit of lingering the ’s’ of “as well,” making it sound like he was saying “ass well.” I, being the goofball that I am, had to do something with it, so in a strange voice, I crooned,”Ass well? You can drink lemonade from the ass well!”

So there you have it. A strange look into why I say what I say. There’ll probably be another entry similar to this sometime in the near future as I recall more weird shit I say.