The Most “Intellectual Jokes”: Our Favorite Open Culture Reader Submissions

Last week, we point­ed to a Red­dit thread that asked for users’ most “intel­lec­tu­al jokes.” Using that idea as a plat­form, we asked our read­ers to sub­mit their favorites, and we received a healthy num­ber of howlers (and some clunk­ers). We also got a piece of dour crit­i­cism from one read­er, who wrote, “real­ly? intel­li­gent humor means that it’s wit­ty and sub­tle, not that it’s [sic] stan­dard type of joke with ‘smarter’ con­tent..
come on amer­i­cans, you can do bet­ter.”

I can only assume two things here (per­haps mak­ing an an ass of u and me): the writer is not an “amer­i­can” and is some­thing of a con­nois­seur of what he or she calls “intel­li­gent humor.” I am very sym­pa­thet­ic. Whether this per­son has in mind the mor­dant absur­dism of Beck­ett, the tren­chant wit of Swift or Wilde, the sur­re­al­is­tic flights of farce in Von­negut, or the heights of high-toned silli­ness in Mon­ty Python, I can’t say. All of these are excel­lent exam­ples of “intel­li­gent humor.”

But I’m afraid our read­er has mis­read the prompt, which asked specif­i­cal­ly for “intel­lec­tu­al jokes”—like the ani­mat­ed New York­er car­toon above. The for­mu­la for jokes every­one knows: set­up, punch­line. The “intel­lec­tu­al” part relates, I think, express­ly to the “smarter” con­tent, but the judg­ment of such humor is sub­jec­tive, of course, and in the brief selec­tion below of my favorite sub­mis­sions, I will cer­tain­ly admit as much. My sense of humor is nei­ther wit­ty nor sub­tle; I’m par­tial to the puerile—puns, sil­ly rever­sals, broad satire. Of course, the same can be said of all of the writ­ers above to some degree or anoth­er.

So with­out fur­ther going-on about it, here are a few of my favorite Open Cul­ture read­ers’ “intel­lec­tu­al jokes” (with my edi­to­r­i­al intru­sions in brack­ets):

• Rene Descartes is attend­ing a soiree at the Palais Ver­sailles. A som­me­li­er approach­es and asks, “Mon­sieur Descartes, would you like a glass of wine?” Descartes paus­es and answers, “I think not.” And poof!–he dis­ap­pears.

[This one’s not par­tic­u­lar­ly funny—it’s cute—but I quite like the speci­fici­ty in the set­up and the fun sur­prise of “poof!”]

•  I used to be a struc­tur­al lin­guist, but now I’m not Saus­sure.

[Told you I like puns]

• Masochist walks up to a sadist in a bar, says to the sadist “hurt me.” Sadist says “no.”
• What do you get when you com­bine a joke with a rhetor­i­cal ques­tion?

[So dry and dead­pan, these two. Love it.]

• What did the indige­nous per­son say to the post­mod­ern anthro­pol­o­gist? “Can we talk about me for a change?”

[A lit­tle crack at navel-gaz­ing po-mo academics—part of a pop­u­lar genre]

• Blind guy with a see­ing eye dog walks into a depart­ment store. Guy picks up dog by the tail and starts swing­ing him around over his head. Clerk rush­es over and says ner­vous­ly “Can I help you sir?” Guy replies: “No thanks, I’m just look­ing around.”

[I don’t think the con­tent of this one is par­tic­u­lar­ly “intel­lec­tu­al,” but the style is—it’s dark and weird and skirts a line between slap­stick and cru­el­ty, requir­ing a mor­bid and elas­tic imag­i­na­tion.]

• Q: What does a dyslex­ic, agnos­tic insom­ni­ac do? A: Stays up nights won­der­ing if there’s a dog.
• JOKE: What do Japan­ese pigeons sing? Answer: High Coos

[More puns, bless ‘em]

• Argon walks into a bar and orders a drink. The bar­tender says, “sir, we don’t serve noble gasses.”
 There was no reac­tion.

[For you sci­ence types. Anoth­er read­er responds with a pun for bonus points]:

• Thanks. Now all the good chem­istry jokes Argon.

Good work, read­ers. Keep ‘em com­ing. This was fun. Remem­ber, you can scan through the oth­er sub­mis­sions here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

What’s the Most Intel­lec­tu­al Joke You Know?: The Best from Red­dit (and You?)

New York­er Car­toon Edi­tor Bob Mankoff Reveals the Secret of a Suc­cess­ful New York­er Car­toon

What’s the Deal with Pop Tarts? Jer­ry Sein­feld Explains How to Write a Joke

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Wash­ing­ton, DC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness