Our current task, as Serious Bloggers, is to pass judgment upon whether the Muffin Joke is funny. Here is the joke itself:
So there are these two muffins baking in an oven. One of them yells, “Wow, it’s hot in here!”
And the other muffin replies: “Holy cow! A talking muffin!”
John Tierney (New York Times) thinks the Muffin Joke is not funny. Brad DeLong (Berkeley) disagrees, claiming that the Muffin Joke is, in fact, funny, although he offers no argument to support his conclusion. Jack Balkin (Yale) also finds the Muffin Joke funny, and does offer a rationale:
The muffin joke is funny because it is self-undermining. The punch line undermines the suspension of disbelief that the joke’s narrative presumes. It is kind of like breaching the fourth wall in drama. It’s like the line in Dr.Strangelove “You can’t fight in here. This is the War Room!” or the Atheist Hymn we came up with in high school: “There is no God, there is no God, He told me so himself.”
He admits, however, that by offering this explanation, he has thereby wrung all of the funniness out of the Muffin Joke. That’s as may be.
I come down on the pro-Muffin-Joke side of the debate. To me, it’s quite funny. Is this some sort of Ivory-Tower Academics vs. Hard-Nosed Journalists thing?
Muffin Joke is def funny.
Re: Charles T #65:
Q: What do you get when you cross a rat and a mountain climber?
A: You can’t. A mountain climber is a scaler
(sorry…)
Also, I can’t help but bring up “The Funniest Joke in the World” Monty Python skit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjbYNgIi5ss
Muffins are funny.
Cows are funny. The Universe is funny. This has both:
So the Zen Master says to his hot dog vendor: “Make me one with everything”.
@adam S
better version:
Q: What do you get if you cross a mosquito with a mountain climber.
A: You can’t cross a vector with a scalar.
another geek joke (these are never funny, and there’s never anyone to tell them too, but…):
Q: Why did the chicken cross the Moebius strip?
A: To get to the other … oh wait…
Also, I seem to remember a phase of “fridge jokes” in my childhood somewhere.
Q: How do you get an elephant out of a tree?
A: You throw a fridge at it!
Q: How do you stop a turtle from running away?
A: You put a fridge on its head.
#77 ‘So the Zen Master says to his hot dog vendor: “Make me one with everything”.’
A Zen master eats hotdog!? That’s an eye popping news.
What fills a Zen master most other than mahhins?
#77 – On second thought, since I laughed with the thought of Zen master ordering a hotdog and wanting ‘everything’, I should have gotten your profound joke. Please ignore the above post. Thanks.
The “funniest” thing about this joke is reading all the responses to it all over the Internet. #15 was the most amusing (and I thought people who have pets are good people…lol). It cracks me up to see 80 responses in this thread, and some of the comments are definitely funnier than the joke itself. :-))
The point of my post #45 was that I hope the worst argument Sean and Jennifer have is over something like the muffin joke. I agree with John Baez’s #69 comment; you can overanalyze any joke and it will cease to be funny. Perhaps when you’re debating something as subjective as a joke that’s going nowhere, eat a muffin, or we should be reminded to…or as someone pointed out, offer something funnier. :-/
Again, the muffin joke sucks.
As far as one or two-liners go, most of what Steven Wright says is usually clever…and funny. 🙂
“Julianne, the joke with thesmalles target audience of all surely has to be the one invariably told among 1st Year students struggling, hour for hour, day for day, through the proves of analysis ”
Clearly you’ve never had a structured finance pun competition.
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I’ve seen better punchlines to “What did one spambot say to the other?” than the ones listed above, I must say! Disappionting, really. Whatever happened to high-quality spam*?
This has been a great topic to follow – on a scale of one to fish, this would rank solidly as “amusing.” As for my own tastes, I take much guilty pleasure from a good** pun.
*I’ll even settle for spam that tries to make sense, or at least pretends not to be garbage.
**The actual existance of which may be debatable…?
After telling this joke i’d go up to people and point and yell “Look a talking muffin!!!”
this joke is REALLY funny… especially when “someone” says it!!! LOL
It’s funny but not “laugh out loud” funny, just “smile and nod” funny.
So a minister, a priest, and a rabbi walk into a bar.
And the bartender says, “What is this? Some kind of a joke?”
Read all the comments and thought, why is that muffin joke so funny? After thinking about muffins and relating muffins to their slang meaning, the joke can be sorta funny. when you picture two “muffins” talking. perfect joke to tell in a bar or a gentlemen’s club. and a joke to tell to guys, or people who like women. in my opinion. 🙂
my spin on the muffin joke.
“there are two muffins basking in the sun. first muffin says holy sh#t its hot out here. the second muffin say, holy sh@t a talking muffin.” hahaha. :p
I’ve never heard this joke before. I think it’s funny because it’s simple. I’m suprised no one said my favorite joke yet:
Two peanuts are walking down the street and one was a salted.
See? Simple. And hilarious.
can somebody explain these jokes please!!!!!
Q: Why did the mathematician name his dog “Cauchy”?
A: Because he left a residue at every pole.
Q: What do you get when you cross an elephant and a banana?
A: | elephant | * | banana | * sin(theta)
cant get it feel so stupid!!!