Meta-joke

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Meta-joke refers to several somewhat different, but related categories: "self-referential jokes", "jokes about jokes" also known as metahumor, and "joke templates".^{[citation needed]}

1 Self-referential jokes
2 Joke about jokes (metahumor)
3 Joke template
4 See also
5 References

[edit] Self-referential jokes

This kind of meta-joke is a joke in which the joke itself, or rather a familiar class of jokes, is part of the joke.

Examples of meta-jokes:

An Englishman, an Irishman, and a Scotsman walk into a bar. The bartender turns to them, takes one look, and says "What is this - some kind of joke?"
A Priest, a Rabbi and a Leprechaun walk into a bar. The Leprechaun looks around and says, "Woah bejaysus! I'm in the wrong joke!"
Three blind mice walk into a bar, but they are un-aware of their surroundings so to derive humour from it would be exploitative — Bill Bailey^{[citation needed]}
The example quoted by Marc Galanter below may also be included in this category.

The usage of the term "meta" here is similar to that in meta-reference.

[edit] Joke about jokes (metahumor)

"Metahumor" as "humor about humor". Here "meta" is used to describe the fact that the joke explicitly talks about other jokes, a usage similar to the word metadata (data about data) or metatheatrics (a play within a play, as in Hamlet).

Marc Galanter in the introduction to his book Lowering the Bar: Lawyer Jokes and Legal Culture cites a meta-joke in a speech of Chief Justice William Rehnquist:^[1]

I've often started off with a lawyer joke, a complete caricature of a lawyer who's been nasty, greedy and unethical. But I've stopped that practice. I gradually realised that the lawyers in the audience didn't think the jokes were funny and the non-lawyers didn't know they were jokes.

Another kind of metahumor is when jokes make fun of poor jokes by replacing a familiar punchline with a serious or nonsensical alternative. Such jokes expose the fundamental criterion for joke definition, "funniness", via its deletion. Comedians such as George Carlin and Mitch Hedberg are examples of comics who use metahumor of this sort extensively in their routines. Hedberg would often follow up a joke with an admission that it was poorly told, or insist to the audience that "that was funnier than you acted". These followups usually get laughs superior to those of the perceived poor joke and serve to cover an awkward silence. Johnny Carson, especially late in his Tonight Show career, used to get uproarious laughs when reacting to a failed joke with, for example, a pained expression. Eddie Izzard often reacts to a failed joke by miming writing on a paper pad and murmuring into the microphone something along the lines of "must make joke funnier" or "don't use again" while glancing at the audience.

[edit] Joke template

This kind of meta-joke is a sarcastic jab at the fact that some jokes are endlessly refitted, often by professional jokers, to different circumstances or characters without significant innovation in the humor.^[2]

"Three people of different nationalities walk into a bar. Two of them say something smart, and the third one makes a mockery of his fellow countrymen by acting dumb."

"Three blokes walk into a pub. One of them is a little bit stupid, and the whole scene unfolds with a tedious inevitability."

—Bill Bailey

"How many members of a certain demographic group does it take to perform a specified task?"

"A finite number: one to perform the task and the remainder to act in a manner stereotypical of the group in question."

Besides being a kind of meta-jokes, joke templates are an instrument in computational humor, in particular, in joke generators, such as STANDUP. ^[3]^[4]