You probably saw that sorry this week about three plane that skidded off the runway while attempting a landing at LaGuardia airport in New York. Wow, it's scary to think how close that was to a massive tragedy. Just think, if that plane had landed properly, those passengers would have had to go through LaGuardia.
Alright, I have to confess: I’ve never been to LaGuardia. But I know of its reputation thanks to endless jokes, mostly from late-night monologues. I mentioned something like this a while back, especially about French jokes that everyone gets but many probably don’t know why. In this case, the joke came about because of the concentration of media New York. So now people all over America know the reputation of this airport that most of them have never been to.
Usually a joke - however silly - has its roots in real life. So what is the point of making a joke that is based on qualities you know nothing about? Is it still a joke if it’s based on things you know only from hearing other jokes. I mean, would it be funny if I made a joke about how people from Abilestan always have bad hairstyles? What if the only thing you know about Abilestan is that the people there have bad hairstyles, and the only way you know this is that I’ve just told you?
It’s sort of like when a sitcom character becomes the butt of jokes. Usually humour at the expense of a fictional character are funny because those characters remind us of people we know. But sometimes the character is its own joke; I think Kramer from Seinfeld would be an example. Of course, there’s a joke to be made here about matching New York’s other airport’s with Seinfeld characters, but I’ll have to wait for monologues to teach me more about their personalities.
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