Do you have a favorite joke? If so, why is it your favorite joke (yes, I know that explaining why a joke is funny has to be the least funny human activity, but humor me...pun intended)? Do you have it memorized, is it a comedian's signature bit, or did you learn it from a parent or a friend?
For my part, I do not have a relationship with any joke in particular as the humor that most appeals to me often lacks a referent and it seems that such a degree of absurdity does not conform well to the tightly-constructed genre of the joke. What do remain for me are comedic memories of individual bits from sketch comedy, which frankly tends to be my favorite genre of humor.
In the late 1990's (damn it, I am dating myself with this one...) when MTV was still generally quite cool and had a panoply of interesting programming, there was a sketch comedy show called The State. This was the heyday of the sketch comedy troupe and The State began as the comedy troupe of a bunch of NYU students and their friends (including producers David Wain and Michael Showalter who have subsequently become machers in the entertainment industry). There was a recurring bit called, "Old Fashioned Guy" in which a Southern gentleman in a seersucker suit (played masterfully by Thomas Lennon of Reno 911) would state, "Call me old fashioned, but I..." and continue by sharing something absolutely non sequitur. Here is an example:
Old-Fashioned Guy
I am not sure why this bit has stuck with me. Watching it again many years later, I hardly chuckled, and there have been so many things that have certainly made me laugh much more for altogether different reasons, but perhaps I didn't laugh this time because I knew what to expect. Perhaps it was the paraprosdokian or "unexpected quality" of the humor that made me laugh as an adolescent. Now that I know what to expect, "Old-Fashioned Guy" has simply become a delicious bit of nostalgia.
In any case, if you do have a favorite joke or bit, please post it here and if possible try to articulate why it is your favorite.
