Episode 24: Christmas Jokes with Evan Wheeler (12/24/2020)

Callie: Hey y’all. Welcome to Fast Facts for Gen Z. I’m your host, Callie, and I don’t know anything about anything. Come with me on my exploration of the world, and I’ll tell you everything you ever, and never, wanted to know, through the eyes of Gen Z.

Today’s episode: Christmas-themed jokes, and the diversity of humor between people and generations. Also, Evan is back, because I needed somebody to tell jokes with, and Evan is very funny. Hi Evan.

Evan: Hello! You flatter me.

C: (laughs) Welcome back, I’m very glad to have you here.

E: Ah, great to be back, great to be back.

C: Would you like to start us off with a Christmas joke?

E: What do gingerbread men put on their bed?

C: What?

E: A cookie sheet.

C: Mmm…

E: (laughs) Mhm.

C: I thought it was going to be a pun on, like, ginger-bed.

E: Ooh!

C: That’s a good joke! That could be any cookie though.

E: Oh, true, they kinda shoehorned the Christmas in there.

C: I think that was a 7/10 joke, like that’s a good joke, but I think it was a 5/10 Christmas joke.

E: Ahh. I’m gonna be a little bit of a harsher judge here. I think that was a 5/10 joke and a 3/10 Christmas. I really think they shoehorned gingerbread in there!

C: Yeah.

E: Honestly? Gingerbread should be year-round.

C: I’m gonna read you a joke that I don’t understand, and I want you to see if you understand it.

E: Oh! Alright.

C: Why did no one bid for Rudolph and Blitzen on Ebay?

E: Why did no one bid… okay. Because they’re unwanted. They’re reindeer.

C: Because they were two deer.

E: What?

C: They were two deer.

E: (laughs) They are two deer! Two reindeer, in fact.

C: I don’t… I don’t understand.

E: (laughs) Okay, uh, maybe like, okay, too expensive? How does that tie into deer? I’m thinking “dear,” like D-E-A-R? As wordplay.

C: I don’t think you can sell live animals on Ebay, so maybe that’s the joke?

E: Ooh! It is a British term. I looked up “deer,” the definition, it’s British slang for expensive.

C: Oh!

E: If something is “deer” in Britain, it means it is expensive or high-priced.

C: Huh!

E: You know what? The joke has redeemed itself.

C: That’s a good joke, actually!

E: I’m gonna give that one a 6.5/10 on the joke, and I’m gonna give it a 7.5/10 on the Christmas. If you take out the Christmas, it’s not really a joke.

C: Yeah, I would give it… if you take out the Christmas… if that’s the criteria, then I think it’s an 8/10 Christmas joke. But I agree with – did you say 6/10 joke?

E: I said 6.5.

C: 6.5. I agree with that. It’s funnier if you’re British. And don’t have to Google what it means.

E: (both laugh) It’s funnier if you’re British. What do you call buying a piano for the holidays?

C: What do call buying a piano…

E: Ah, Christmas Chopin (shopping). Sho-pan? Sho-pahn?

C: Sho-pah?

E: See, I have to butcher the name, otherwise it doesn’t make sense.

C: Okay.

E: I’m disappointed by that joke. I don’t like that joke.

C: That’s such a weird one! You need a certain amount of understanding of who he is as a composer, but if you know that, then you say the name right. And then the joke doesn’t make sense.

E: Ooh! A very good point.

C: This joke is for nobody. This joke does not have an audience.

E: (both laughing) Audience? Negative!

C: Actually, I changed my mind. 0/10 joke. 0/10 Christmas joke.

E: (laughs) Zero! I’ll give it a 1/10. I won’t be as harsh as you. I agree with you, mostly. I think Christmas… you can buy a piano any time, and it’s still called shopping.

C: That’s true. I’m gonna read you another one, and I want to see if you think… because this is definitely, 100%, not a Christmas joke. What do you call a scary-looking reindeer?

E: I don’t know, what do you call it?

C: A cari-boo.

E: No! Reindeer and caribou are- wait, are they different?

C: Yeah. I’m pretty sure.

E: I was pretty sure they’re different… no! They’re the same animal!

C: Really?

E: Anyway, not Christmas themed.

C: Not Christmas themed. Although…

E: Because caribou doesn’t make you think Christmas.

C: But reindeer does. And you can’t take reindeer out of the joke and keep it making sense.

E: What do you call, like, a scary deer?

C: A cari-boo?

E: A cari-boo? You know what? I think you can take Christmas out. I think that’s a cheap joke. Relying on the “boo” punchline? Mm-mm. Not a fan.

C: I’d say this is a 5/10 joke, it’s kind of a mediocre joke. But… on the Christmas…

E: I would go lower, I’d say 3.5.

C: It makes me think of Nightmare Before Christmas. Because it’s like, half spooky, half Christmas.

E: Half scary, yeah.

C: So because it made me think of a Christmas movie, which Nightmare Before Christmas is, I have to give it at least like a 7.5 on the Christmas scale.

E: It did not make me think of Christmas very much; I’m gonna put this at a 2/10 Christmas. It had reindeer in there but I feel like you could take it out. Alright, I’ve got some knock-knock jokes here.

C: Oh, please!

E: And they’re… they are brutal.

C: Hit me.

E: Knock knock.

C: Who’s there?

E: Snow.

C: Snow who?

E: Snow time to waste, it’s almost Christmas.

C: I’m gonna interject here, I don’t understand knock-knock jokes. I don’t get why they’re funny.

E: As a kid, I found… well, here. Knock-knock.

C: Who’s there?

E: Interrupting cow.

C: (pause) Shut up.

E: (both laugh) I found that one funny as a kid! I got a kick out of that one.

C: You would. I’m sure I did too.

E: Like, the first time.

C: Right. And then it’s annoying.

E: And then it’s annoying.

C: I mean, I’m a fan of, like… why did the chicken cross the road?

E: A classic. I never got that joke as a kid. It’s like anti-humor, a little too advanced.

C: No no no, do this with me, do this with me.

E: Oh! Oh, okay.

C: Why did the chicken cross the road?

E: I have no idea.

C: To get to the idiot’s house. Knock-knock.

E: Who’s there?

C: The chicken.

E: Oh, I’m offended.

C: I love that joke! That’s such a fun joke!

E: Wow!

C: That joke is so much fun. I like it so much.

E: Well, I think it’s funny because it’s a subversion of expectations. You take the joke, but instead of you saying “to get to the other side,” you subvert their expectations and call them an idiot.

C: Right.

E: That’s what makes things funny.

C: Yeah, and the chicken joke is already… like, everyone knows it, so they don’t think it’s funny, but it is a classic subversion of expectations!

E: Again, yeah! It is a subversion of expectations! That’s why I never got it as a kid. It’s almost an anti-joke. It’s funny in its nothingness. It’s like a lot of Gen Z humor, actually.

C: Right, it’s funny because it doesn’t actually have a punchline.

E: Yeah, it’s like an oversaturated image of a dodgeball, (Callie laughs) with the big block letters “BALL” underneath and the sound effect “p-tonk.” (Callie still laughing) Like, that is Gen Z humor.

C: A radially-blurred image of a bag.

E: (laughs) Exactly! That is Gen Z humor, and I hate that it’s legitimately funny to me.

C: It’s so funny!

E: For a second, I’m like, “this is such garbage nonsense.”

C: Yeah. I really… I find Gen Z humor fascinating because I think that like, the normal puns and wit and the structured jokes? We get it. We’re used to it. So it takes a very different structure of joke to subvert our expectations in a way that makes us laugh. And it’s in breaking the expected structure of daily life in complete nonsense memes that subverts our expectations enough to make us laugh.

E: Yeah, I mean, if you look at the climate that Gen Z grew up in: the economic recession of 2008, a post-9/11 world, the coronavirus is only adding to that… the political tumult that has faced the Western world… and the abundance of media that has been at our fingertips from day one. Especially if you get into the more Gen-Alpha kids, the late-Gen-Z kids who were born, you know, 2010, those kids were born and probably had an iPad essentially from birth. Technology and technological advancement is good, I’m in favor of progression, but, I don’t know, I feel like it’s bad for their eyes!

C: Parent your kids. Parent your kids.

E: Please! Please god give them human interaction.

C: You don’t even have to limit their screentime. Just don’t give them an iPad.

E: Yeah! For real, for real.

C: It’s very easy to just not give them an iPad.

E: One of the weirdest things I saw, of course it was in Florida-

C: You’re Canadian!

E: I was visiting Orlando, I was visiting Disney with my family. We were going in to pick up takeout, and I walked by a table, dinner in front of them, this kid, no older than six years old, feet up on the table, headphones on, fully strapped into their iPad watching a Fortnite video. At the dinner table. In public.

C: Parent your children, Jesus.

E: I was appalled. The adults are just having a conversation! I was like man, I feel so old right now. I feel like I’m 70.

C: That makes me sad for the kid though. That makes me so sad for the kid.

E: Yeah! This is the only thing that brings that child joy.

C: They must feel so disconnected and they might not even notice it, but when they become self-aware, and I think kids become self-aware around like, mmm, 11 or 12, but when that child becomes self-aware, he’s gonna feel sooo disconnected from his family.

E: Yeah.

C: That’s really sad.

E: Yeah.

C: I remember when I was… old enough to be self-aware, so maybe like 12? I was at dinner with my grandparents and my family, and I didn’t have a phone and I didn’t have electronic, and also like, I was parented well.

E: Me too.

C: Thanks Mom, thanks Dad. A lady, like a stranger, came up to our table and was like, “I just want to compliment you and say that these girls have been sitting here talking to their family the whole time, I haven’t seen a single electronic, they’re not glued to their screens like everybody else.” And I was sitting there, embarrassed, SO badly.

E: (laughs) That’s Boomer stuff right there.

C: I just! Ah! (unintelligible gibberish expressing distress. Hard to transcribe)

E: That is…

C: Okay Karen! Leave me alone! I’m eating dinner! No one asked!

E: That is Boomer stuff, going up to people you don’t know and commenting…

C: Let’s tell a joke, you wanna hear a joke?

E: I would love to hear a joke.

C: Why is it getting harder to buy Advent calendars?

E: I don’t know, why is it?

C: Their days are numbered.

E: Their days are… (both laugh) That implies the death of Advent calendars, literally!

C: Yeah! I think that’s a good joke. That joke is a funny joke.

E: I think that is a funny joke.

C: 8/10 joke, 8/10 Christmas joke.

E: You know, I laughed at that joke. I’m gonna give it a 7/10 joke and a 9/10 Christmas. Advent calendars are very exclusively Christmas.

C: Theoretically, it could just be calendars and their days would still be numbered.

E: Ohhhh.

C: But calendar days don’t really run out. It goes the full year.

E: That’s true.

C: Advent calendar days count down to a thing.

E: There is much more of an end to an Advent calendar.

C: Yeah.

E: There’s no real end… you go 11 months without an Advent calendar. It is a countdown.

C: And “their days are numbered” implies that there is an end that each day works up to, and Advent calendars have that.

E: I agree.

C: I don’t think the joke would work if it was just about calendars. I think it wouldn’t be funny.

E: I agree. Would you like to hear a joke?

C: I would.

E: What is a Christmas tree’s favorite singer?

C: (silence)

E: Spruce Springsteen.

C: Okay. That’s a good joke. I respect that.

E: I think it’s cute. I think it is a 5.5/10 joke, and I think it is 4/10 Christmas. I think you could say evergreen tree. I do. Even a pine tree.

C: Mm.

E: I guess. I don’t know. Maybe pine trees look up to spruce trees.

C: Yeah, I don’t know where that falls on the Christmas scale. It’s a joke you could tell on Christmas day and people would be like, “Hahaha, aw, how topical!” You know? (both laugh)

E: It is very topical.

C: But I don’t know where that falls on the scale. What do you call a bunch of chess players bragging about their games in a hotel lobby?

E: Chess players… hotel lobby… bragging… and it relates to Christmas… I don’t know, what is it?

C: Chess nuts boasting in an open foyer. (both laugh)

E: You know what? I like that. It brings the joke together for me.

C: I love jokes that have long puns. It’s so funny. That’s a good joke. 10/10 joke. What do snowmen eat for breakfast?

E: I don’t know, what do they eat for breakfast?

C: Frosted Flakes.

E: Frost- (laughs)

C: Alternatively, Ice Krispies.

E: Ooh!

C: I like Ice Krispies better. It’s a better pun.

E: Yeah.

C: Frosted Flakes is a good punchline, Ice Krispies is a good pun. So, whatever you’re looking for, it’s got it.

E: Yeah, I would agree, I would agree. Would you like to hear a joke?

C: I would, please.

E: Uh, the GOP.

C: (pause, then stifled laughter, then both laughing) So… um… let’s examine why that joke was funny. It was.

E: (laughs) Because the Republican party’s a mess.

C: Well, it actually was funny because it subverted my expectations a lot-

E: Ooh!

C: And also is in line with my political beliefs.

E: Yeah!

C: However, um, also, haha funny. (both laugh) Consider: haha funny.

E: It’s always good to poke fun.

C: What’s every elf’s favorite type of music?

E: Oh, it’s… I have a guess, what is every elf’s favorite type of music.

C: Wrap.

E: Yeah, there it is. Like wrapping things, with a W.

C: That’s a good pun. I approve, funny joke, haha. 10/10 Christmas.

E: You approve. It is 10/10 Christmas, it has elves, it has wrapping…

C: Mhm! If you take the Christmas away from this joke, you don’t have a joke anymore.

E: I guess you can wrap things for birthdays.

C: Yeah, but that doesn’t make a very compelling joke.

E: What kind of music do you listen to when preparing birthday presents? Wrap?

C: That’s not a good joke!

E: You really have to finagle it. It’s not a good joke, I would agree. I would agree that this is very strong Christmas.

C: Ooh ooh ooh! Here’s a funny joke, it made me… react.

E: Oh! (both laugh)

C: Why wouldn’t the Christmas tree stand up?

E: Sorry, why did the Christmas-?

C: Why wouldn’t the Christmas tree stand up?

E: I don’t know.

C: It had no legs. (both laugh)

E: See, that’s an anti-joke! That is a subversion of expectations.

C: Good joke! Funny!

E: I like that one. I think that’s what it’d have to take, again going back to what makes Gen Z humor, it’s that overexposure, that extreme saturation of media. We’ve heard the same joke reskinned a million times.

C: Yeah, we’ve heard everything before.

E: To subvert expectations is to not go for the weak, basic, wordplay pun.

C: We have seen every word combination that you could possibly think of that makes sense, give us something that makes no sense at all and we will cackle.

E: Exactly.

C: Because we have seen everything before. We consume so many words in a day.

E: Callie, what is Santa Claus’s favorite type of potato chip?

C: Santa Claus’s favorite type of potato?

E: Potato chip.

C: Potato chip! Oh… hm, I don’t know.

E: Crisp Pringles.

C: That’s a funny joke.

E: I think that one’s okay! I think the “crisp” is a little shoehorned.

C: Mhm, it would be funny if it was just “Kris Pringles,” like Kris Kringle.

E: It just makes a little less sense, which of course is funnier to us. What do you call a snowman with a six-pack?

C: What?

E: An abdominal snowman.

C: Mm. Okay, yeah.

E: I think the wordplay on that one is good. I just don’t think it’s that funny.

C: No, it’s not that funny, but it is good.

E: Abominable to abdominal is not a far leap.

C: No no, that’s pretty good.

E: One more joke and we’ll wrap things up?

C: Mhm.

E: Alright, how do Christmas angels greet each other?

C: How… how… you said how do Christmas angels greet each other?

E: That’s verbatim the joke, how do Christmas angels greet each other.

C: How do Christmas angels greet each other?

E: “Halo!”

C: Alriiiiiiiiiiight.

E: Not very, not very… a low note.

C: You can take out the Christmas from that joke.

E: Easily!

C: That is a 0/10 Christmas joke.

E: Really? I feel like a 0/10 Christmas joke is like, how do pirates pay for corn?

C: How?

E: It’s a buccaneer.

C: Oh. No no no.

E: That’s a 0/10 Christmas joke.

C: That’s not even trying to be a Christmas joke though! This is trying to be a Christmas joke, but it’s so bad that it’s not. Also, angels don’t even have- like that’s not even Biblically correct.

E: Aren’t Biblical angels like, freakish monsters?

C: Yes! I guess that’s probably why they had to specify “Christmas angels.” Because Gabriel.

E: Yeah.

C: Low note to end on, but, you know, Christmas.

E: You know what? Jokes are bad.

C: Thanks.

E: I’m just gonna say it.

C: Hot take with Evan Wheeler: jokes are bad.

E: Hot take! If you’re doing a very basic setup-punchline joke, it’s not funny, so much of the time.

C: Yeah.

E: So much of the time.

C: (sarcastically) Ugh! Sucks to be Gen Z! Our lives are so hard!

E: Amen!

C: (sarcastically) Jokes aren’t even funny!

E: Disillusioned!

C: Disillusioned with the existence of reality.

E: (both laugh) Humor is so much of a coping mechanism that it isn’t even funny anymore.

C: (sighs, dramatically, then slightly strained) Thanks for coming on the podcast, Evan.

E: (laughs) You’re welcome! A pleasure as always.

C: I appreciate it a lot. (both laugh) Well, merry Christmas, Evan, merry December 25th.

E: Merry Christmas, happy holidays to everyone at home. Stay safe!

C: Stay safe!

E: Enjoy yourself!

C: Don’t leave your house! Stay inside your house!

E: Stay inside your house, what a wild hot take.

C: Don’t leave your house. Hot takes with Callie, don’t leave your house.

E: (laughs) Alright.

C: Bye-bye!

C: Thank you for listening to this holiday episode of Fast Facts for Gen Z. If you liked this podcast, be sure to follow or subscribe on your listening platform of choice so you can be notified when I release new episodes. Even if you don’t celebrate Christmas, I wish you a very merry December 24th and 25th. This is Callie, signing off.