Elephant joke
Encyclopedia
An elephant joke is a joke
, almost always an absurd
riddle
or conundrum and often a sequence of such, that involves an elephant
. Elephant jokes were a fad in the 1960s, with many people constructing large numbers of them according to a set formula. Sometimes they involve parodies
or pun
s.
Three examples of elephant jokes are:
in 1962. They were first recorded in the Summer of 1962 in Texas, and gradually spread across the U.S., reaching California in January/February 1963. By July 1963, elephant jokes were ubiquitous and could be found in newspaper columns, and in TIME
and Seventeen
magazines, with millions of people working to construct more jokes according to the same formula.
Both elephant jokes and Tom Swifties
were in vogue in 1963, anwrenre reported in the U.S. national press. Whilst the appeal of Tom Swifties was to literate adults, and gradually faded over subsequent decades, the appeal of elephant jokes was mainly to children, and has lasted. Elephant jokes began circulation primarily amongst schoolchildren, and have been discovered afresh by subsequent generations of children, remaining, in Isaac Asimov's
words "favorites of youngsters and of unsophisticated adults".
Asimov discusses one particular elephant joke that he states is notable for the exceptional sophistication of its humour. The joke was told in the aftermath of the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald
by Jack Ruby
, who had walked into Dallas police headquarters carrying a gun, and, in Asimov's words, whilst still maintaining the absurdity necessary for elephant jokes "carried a quick overtone of chill rationality":
Elephant jokes are often parodies of conventional children's riddles. In conventional riddles, the answer to the riddle is usually a well-known item, such as an egg. In elephant jokes, the answer to the riddle is something that is usually outlandish or absurd, and impossible for those who do not know the punchline to guess, such as Campbell
's Cream of Elephant Soup.
David Ritchie describes elephant jokes as comprising double frame shifts. The joke about the elephant in the bathtub comprises first a frame shift from a realistic frame ("in which an elephant could not possibly be found anywhere near my bathtub") to a fantasy frame; and then, in the punchline, a second frame shift in which the fantasy is in its turn logically subverted by the idea that "none of the obvious attributes of elephants (e.g. size and color) is deemed relevant, and the salience of a totally secondary association with eating peanuts is increased". He states that the humour of elephant jokes derives in part from the contradiction between "the logical and expected schema-driven answer" to the riddle, and the actual absurd punchline.
Elephant jokes usually comprise a series of connected riddles, rather than a single standalone riddle. The series usually compounds the absurdity, with succeeding riddles in the joke undermining the logical structures that are implied by the answers in the preceding ones. For example:
And:
Similarly:
Elephant jokes thus not only deliberately undermine the conventions of riddles, they even act to undermine themselves. This even extends to undermining the implied premise, expected by those that are familiar with elephant jokes, that an elephant joke is automatically illogical, or even involves elephants at all. For example:
There can even be an off-colour tinge:
One time Gong Show act Mike Elephant is remembered for the following joke:
Elephant jokes can also use their inherent absurdity to point up the inherent absurdity in some current events. One such joke from the early '60's refers to an incident in President Kennedy's on-again-off-again support for Cuban exiles' attempts to overthrow Fidel Castro
:
and the UK in the 1960s. Elliot Oring notes that elephant jokes dismiss conventional questions and answers, repudiate established wisdom, and reject the authority of traditional knowledge. He draws a parallel between this and the counterculture of the 1960s
, stating that "disestablishment was the purpose of both," pointing to the sexual revolution
and noting that "[p]erhaps it was no accident that many of the elephant jokes emphasized the intrusion of sex into the most innocuous areas."
Abrahams and Dundes
, in their paper On elephantasy and elephanticide, consider elephant jokes to be convenient disguises for racism
, and symbolised the nervousness of white people about the civil rights movement
. Whilst blatantly racialist jokes became less acceptable, elephant jokes were a useful proxy. Abrahams and Dundes take the joke
and state that the "big and grey and comes in quarts" is in fact a reference "to the supposed mammoth nature of black sexuality." Similarly, the joke about an elephant in the bathtub is argued to be a reference to the increased intrusion of black people into "the most intimate areas of white life."
Oring strongly disagrees with this view, writing: "The Civil Rights movement, of course, was an integral part of the countercultural revolution. But there is no reason to view it as the single force conditioning the joke cycle. Much more than the relations between the races was being turned on its ear. Reducing elephant jokes to a mere front for racial aggression, it seems to me, not only misses the larger sense of what the jokes are about, but the larger sense of what was going on in the society at the time." and continuing: "Elephant joking is more than a description of the episodic career of an animal with a phallic nose. What engenders the humor in such jokes is the violation of categories of expectation, and not images of subjugation, degradation, or feminization of the elephant."
Charles Gruner agrees with Oring that Abrahams' and Dundes' explanation (that "the elephant is an ambivalent father figure" that is, in reality, "the black man (perceived as a sexual threat) that stands hidden behind the image of the elephant") is an "explanation from Freudian Monsterland [that] holds no water."
Gruner however disagrees with Oring about the chronological topicality of the elephant joke and its relation to social upheavals, arguing from personal experience of "one of the best motion picture sight gags in history", where Jimmy Durante
in the 1962 movie Billy Rose's Jumbo
is attempting to sneak an elephant unseen through a circus. Upon coming around a tent and being faced with a crowd of people and a policeman who demands "Where do you think you are you going with that elephant?" Durante backs against the elephant, arms wide, and asks, innocently, "What elephant?" Gunder proposes that the success of this sight gag
spawned in comic writers the idea of "hiding the elephant by all sorts of ridiculous means," and thus, by extension to "other silly, stupid comparisons", the whole genre of elephant jokes.
A turnabout to the Blind men and an elephant
cited below is the joke about the 4 blind elephants who felt a human. The first reports that humans are flat, the other three agree.
Joke
A joke is a phrase or a paragraph with a humorous twist. It can be in many different forms, such as a question or short story. To achieve this end, jokes may employ irony, sarcasm, word play and other devices...
, almost always an absurd
Surreal humour
Surreal humour is a form of humour based on violations of causal reasoning with events and behaviours that are logically incongruent. Constructions of surreal humour involve bizarre juxtapositions, non-sequiturs, irrational situations, and/or expressions of nonsense.The humour arises from a...
riddle
Riddle
A riddle is a statement or question or phrase having a double or veiled meaning, put forth as a puzzle to be solved. Riddles are of two types: enigmas, which are problems generally expressed in metaphorical or allegorical language that require ingenuity and careful thinking for their solution, and...
or conundrum and often a sequence of such, that involves an elephant
Elephant
Elephants are large land mammals in two extant genera of the family Elephantidae: Elephas and Loxodonta, with the third genus Mammuthus extinct...
. Elephant jokes were a fad in the 1960s, with many people constructing large numbers of them according to a set formula. Sometimes they involve parodies
Parody
A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...
or pun
Pun
The pun, also called paronomasia, is a form of word play which suggests two or more meanings, by exploiting multiple meanings of words, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. These ambiguities can arise from the intentional use and abuse of homophonic,...
s.
Three examples of elephant jokes are:
- Q: How can you tell that an elephant is in the bathtub with you?
- A: By the smell of peanuts on its breath.
- Q: How can you tell that an elephant has been in your refrigerator/ice box?
- A: By the footprints in the butter/cheesecake/cream cheese.
- and
- Q: What time is it when an elephant sits on your fence?
- A: Time to buy/make a new fence.
History
Elephant jokes first appeared in the United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
in 1962. They were first recorded in the Summer of 1962 in Texas, and gradually spread across the U.S., reaching California in January/February 1963. By July 1963, elephant jokes were ubiquitous and could be found in newspaper columns, and in TIME
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
and Seventeen
Seventeen (magazine)
Seventeen is an American magazine for teenagers. It was first published in September 1944 by Walter Annenberg's Triangle Publications. News Corporation bought Triangle in 1988, and sold Seventeen to K-III Communications in 1991. Primedia sold the magazine to Hearst in 2003. It is still in the...
magazines, with millions of people working to construct more jokes according to the same formula.
Both elephant jokes and Tom Swifties
Tom Swifties
A Tom Swifty is a phrase in which a quoted sentence is linked by a pun to the manner in which it is attributed. Tom Swifties may be considered a type of wellerism.-Origins:...
were in vogue in 1963, anwrenre reported in the U.S. national press. Whilst the appeal of Tom Swifties was to literate adults, and gradually faded over subsequent decades, the appeal of elephant jokes was mainly to children, and has lasted. Elephant jokes began circulation primarily amongst schoolchildren, and have been discovered afresh by subsequent generations of children, remaining, in Isaac Asimov's
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov was an American author and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, best known for his works of science fiction and for his popular science books. Asimov was one of the most prolific writers of all time, having written or edited more than 500 books and an estimated 90,000...
words "favorites of youngsters and of unsophisticated adults".
Asimov discusses one particular elephant joke that he states is notable for the exceptional sophistication of its humour. The joke was told in the aftermath of the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald
Lee Harvey Oswald
Lee Harvey Oswald was, according to four government investigations,These were investigations by: the Federal Bureau of Investigation , the Warren Commission , the House Select Committee on Assassinations , and the Dallas Police Department. the sniper who assassinated John F...
by Jack Ruby
Jack Ruby
Jacob Leon Rubenstein , who legally changed his name to Jack Leon Ruby in 1947, was convicted of the November 24, 1963 murder of Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged assassin of President John F. Kennedy. Ruby, who was originally from Chicago, Illinois, was then a nightclub operator in Dallas, Texas...
, who had walked into Dallas police headquarters carrying a gun, and, in Asimov's words, whilst still maintaining the absurdity necessary for elephant jokes "carried a quick overtone of chill rationality":
- Q: What did the Dallas chief of police say when the elephant walked into the police station?
- A: Nothing! He didn't notice.
Structure
Elephant jokes rely upon absurdity and incongruity for their humour, and a contrast with the normal presumptions of knowledge about elephants. They rely upon absurdist reasoning such as that the only way to detect an elephant in one's bathtub or in one's refrigerator is by the smell of its breath, or by the presence of footprints in the butter; such as that an elephant would be found dressed in a nun's habit; or such as that an elephant could climb a cherry tree, that an elephant would paint its toenails, and that simply painting its toenails in turn would be sufficient in order to camouflage it. However, this reasoning is not outright nonsense, and elephant jokes do contain a small core of conventional logic. Although that is not the primary method of distinguishing them, elephants and prunes do differ in colour. If painting an elephant's toenails were a camouflage mechanism, red would be the appropriate colour for a cherry tree. Black, white, and grey would be the colours of an elephant dressed in a nun's habit, and not the colours of an elephant dressed in some other form of costume.Elephant jokes are often parodies of conventional children's riddles. In conventional riddles, the answer to the riddle is usually a well-known item, such as an egg. In elephant jokes, the answer to the riddle is something that is usually outlandish or absurd, and impossible for those who do not know the punchline to guess, such as Campbell
Campbell Soup Company
Campbell Soup Company , also known as Campbell's, is an American producer of canned soups and related products. Campbell's products are sold in 120 countries around the world. It is headquartered in Camden, New Jersey...
's Cream of Elephant Soup.
David Ritchie describes elephant jokes as comprising double frame shifts. The joke about the elephant in the bathtub comprises first a frame shift from a realistic frame ("in which an elephant could not possibly be found anywhere near my bathtub") to a fantasy frame; and then, in the punchline, a second frame shift in which the fantasy is in its turn logically subverted by the idea that "none of the obvious attributes of elephants (e.g. size and color) is deemed relevant, and the salience of a totally secondary association with eating peanuts is increased". He states that the humour of elephant jokes derives in part from the contradiction between "the logical and expected schema-driven answer" to the riddle, and the actual absurd punchline.
Elephant jokes usually comprise a series of connected riddles, rather than a single standalone riddle. The series usually compounds the absurdity, with succeeding riddles in the joke undermining the logical structures that are implied by the answers in the preceding ones. For example:
- Q: How do you shoot a blue elephant?
- A: With a blue elephant gunElephant gunAn elephant gun is a large caliber gun, rifled or otherwise, so named because they were originally developed for use by big-game hunters for elephants and other large dangerous game. They used black powder at first but then started using smokeless powder...
. - Q: How do you shoot a yellow elephant?
- A: Have you ever seen a yellow elephant?
- Q: How do you shoot a red elephant?
- A: Hold his trunk shut until he turns blue, and then shoot him with the blue elephant gun.
And:
- Q: How do you shoot a purple elephant?
- A: Paint him red, hold his trunk shut until he turns blue, and then shoot him with the blue elephant gun.
Similarly:
- Q: How many elephants will fit into a MiniMiniThe Mini is a small car that was made by the British Motor Corporation and its successors from 1959 until 2000. The original is considered a British icon of the 1960s, and its space-saving front-wheel-drive layout influenced a generation of car-makers...
? - A: Four: Two in the front, two in the back.
- Q: How many giraffes will fit into a Mini?
- A: None. It's full of elephants.
- Q: How do you get two whales in a Mini?
- A: Along the M4M4 motorwayThe M4 motorway links London with South Wales. It is part of the unsigned European route E30. Other major places directly accessible from M4 junctions are Reading, Swindon, Bristol, Newport, Cardiff and Swansea...
and across the Severn BridgeSevern BridgeThe Severn Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the River Severn between South Gloucestershire, just north of Bristol, England, and Monmouthshire in South Wales, via Beachley, a peninsula between the River Severn and River Wye estuary. It is the original Severn road crossing between England and...
. - Q: How do you know there are two elephants in your refrigerator?
- A: You can hear giggling when the light goes out.
- Q: How do you know there are three elephants in your refrigerator?
- A: You can't close the door.
- Q: How do you know there are four elephants in your refrigerator?
- A: There's an empty Mini parked outside.
Elephant jokes thus not only deliberately undermine the conventions of riddles, they even act to undermine themselves. This even extends to undermining the implied premise, expected by those that are familiar with elephant jokes, that an elephant joke is automatically illogical, or even involves elephants at all. For example:
- Q: What do elephants have that nothing else has?
- A: Baby elephants.
- Q: What is gray, has four legs, and a trunk?
- A: A mouse going on vacation.
- Q: What is brown, has four legs, and a trunk?
- A: A mouse coming back from vacation.
- Q: What has eight legs, two trunks, four eyes, and two tails?
- A: Two elephants.
There can even be an off-colour tinge:
- Q: Why is an elephant big, grey and wrinkly?
- A: Because if it was small, white and hard it would be an aspirin.
- Q: Why are golf balls small and white?
- A: Because if they were big and grey they would be elephants.
One time Gong Show act Mike Elephant is remembered for the following joke:
- Q: What's the difference between an elephant and a plum?
- A: Their colour.
- Q: What did Tarzan say to Jane when he saw the elephants coming?
- A: Here come the elephants.
- Q: What did Jane say to Tarzan when she saw the elephants coming?
- A: Here come the plums; she was colour blind.
Elephant jokes can also use their inherent absurdity to point up the inherent absurdity in some current events. One such joke from the early '60's refers to an incident in President Kennedy's on-again-off-again support for Cuban exiles' attempts to overthrow Fidel Castro
Fidel Castro
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz is a Cuban revolutionary and politician, having held the position of Prime Minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976, and then President from 1976 to 2008. He also served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from the party's foundation in 1961 until 2011...
:
- Q: How do you get 2,000 elephants to invade Cuba?
- A: Promise them air support!
Symbolism
Elephant jokes are seen by many commentators as symbolic of the culture of the United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and the UK in the 1960s. Elliot Oring notes that elephant jokes dismiss conventional questions and answers, repudiate established wisdom, and reject the authority of traditional knowledge. He draws a parallel between this and the counterculture of the 1960s
Counterculture of the 1960s
The counterculture of the 1960s refers to a cultural movement that mainly developed in the United States and spread throughout much of the western world between 1960 and 1973. The movement gained momentum during the U.S. government's extensive military intervention in Vietnam...
, stating that "disestablishment was the purpose of both," pointing to the sexual revolution
Sexual revolution
The sexual revolution was a social movement that challenged traditional codes of behavior related to sexuality and interpersonal relationships throughout the Western world from the 1960s into the 1980s...
and noting that "[p]erhaps it was no accident that many of the elephant jokes emphasized the intrusion of sex into the most innocuous areas."
Abrahams and Dundes
Alan Dundes
Alan Dundes, was a folklorist at the University of California, Berkeley. His work was said to have been central to establishing the study of folklore as an academic discipline. He wrote 12 books, both academic and popular, and edited or co-wrote two dozen more...
, in their paper On elephantasy and elephanticide, consider elephant jokes to be convenient disguises for racism
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
, and symbolised the nervousness of white people about the civil rights movement
Civil rights movement
The civil rights movement was a worldwide political movement for equality before the law occurring between approximately 1950 and 1980. In many situations it took the form of campaigns of civil resistance aimed at achieving change by nonviolent forms of resistance. In some situations it was...
. Whilst blatantly racialist jokes became less acceptable, elephant jokes were a useful proxy. Abrahams and Dundes take the joke
- Q: What is big and grey and comes in quartQuartThe quart is a unit of volume equal to a quarter of a gallon, two pints, or four cups. Since gallons of various sizes have historically been in use, quarts of various sizes have also existed; see gallon for further discussion. Three of these kinds of quarts remain in current use, all approximately...
s? - A: An elephant.
and state that the "big and grey and comes in quarts" is in fact a reference "to the supposed mammoth nature of black sexuality." Similarly, the joke about an elephant in the bathtub is argued to be a reference to the increased intrusion of black people into "the most intimate areas of white life."
Oring strongly disagrees with this view, writing: "The Civil Rights movement, of course, was an integral part of the countercultural revolution. But there is no reason to view it as the single force conditioning the joke cycle. Much more than the relations between the races was being turned on its ear. Reducing elephant jokes to a mere front for racial aggression, it seems to me, not only misses the larger sense of what the jokes are about, but the larger sense of what was going on in the society at the time." and continuing: "Elephant joking is more than a description of the episodic career of an animal with a phallic nose. What engenders the humor in such jokes is the violation of categories of expectation, and not images of subjugation, degradation, or feminization of the elephant."
Charles Gruner agrees with Oring that Abrahams' and Dundes' explanation (that "the elephant is an ambivalent father figure" that is, in reality, "the black man (perceived as a sexual threat) that stands hidden behind the image of the elephant") is an "explanation from Freudian Monsterland [that] holds no water."
Gruner however disagrees with Oring about the chronological topicality of the elephant joke and its relation to social upheavals, arguing from personal experience of "one of the best motion picture sight gags in history", where Jimmy Durante
Jimmy Durante
James Francis "Jimmy" Durante was an American singer, pianist, comedian and actor. His distinctive clipped gravelly speech, comic language butchery, jazz-influenced songs, and large nose helped make him one of America's most familiar and popular personalities of the 1920s through the 1970s...
in the 1962 movie Billy Rose's Jumbo
Billy Rose's Jumbo (film)
Billy Rose's Jumbo is an American musical film produced by MGM in Panavision and Metrocolor, and starring Jimmy Durante, Doris Day, Martha Raye, and Stephen Boyd. The film was directed by Charles Walters and featured Busby Berkeley's choreography...
is attempting to sneak an elephant unseen through a circus. Upon coming around a tent and being faced with a crowd of people and a policeman who demands "Where do you think you are you going with that elephant?" Durante backs against the elephant, arms wide, and asks, innocently, "What elephant?" Gunder proposes that the success of this sight gag
Visual gag
In comedy, a visual gag or sight gag is anything which conveys its humor visually, often without words being used at all.There are numerous examples in cinema history of directors who based most of the humour in their films on visual gags, even to the point of using no or minimal dialogue...
spawned in comic writers the idea of "hiding the elephant by all sorts of ridiculous means," and thus, by extension to "other silly, stupid comparisons", the whole genre of elephant jokes.
A turnabout to the Blind men and an elephant
Blind Men and an Elephant
The story of the blind men and an elephant originated in India from where it is widely diffused. It has been used to illustrate a range of truths and fallacies...
cited below is the joke about the 4 blind elephants who felt a human. The first reports that humans are flat, the other three agree.
See also
- Blind men and an elephantBlind Men and an ElephantThe story of the blind men and an elephant originated in India from where it is widely diffused. It has been used to illustrate a range of truths and fallacies...
- Elephant in the roomElephant in the room"Elephant in the room" is an English metaphorical idiom for an obvious truth that is being ignored or goes unaddressed. The idiomatic expression also applies to an obvious problem or risk no one wants to discuss....
- Elephant testElephant testThe term elephant test refers to situations in which an idea or thing "is hard to describe, but instantly recognizable when spotted".- Uses :...
- Meta-jokeMeta-jokeMeta-joke refers to several somewhat different, but related categories: self-referential jokes, jokes about jokes , and joke templates.-Self-referential jokes:...
- Newspaper riddle