Jesting - Cycles

Cycles

Folklorists, in particular (but not exclusively) those who study the folklore of the United States, collect jokes into joke cycles. A cycle is a collection of jokes with a particular theme or a particular "script". (That is, it is a literature cycle.) Folklorists have identified several such cycles:

• the Helen Keller Joke Cycle that comprises jokes about Helen Keller
• Viola jokes
• the NASA, Challenger, or Space Shuttle Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster
• the Chernobyl Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Chernobyl disaster
• the Polish Pope Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to Pope John Paul II
• the Essex girl and the Stupid Irish joke cycles in the United Kingdom
• the Dead Baby Joke Cycle
• the Newfie Joke Cycle that comprises jokes made by Canadians about Newfoundlanders
• the Little Willie Joke Cycle, and the Quadriplegic Joke Cycle
• the Jew Joke Cycle and the Polack Joke Cycle
• the Rastus and Liza Joke Cycle, which Dundes describes as "the most vicious and widespread white anti-Negro joke cycle"
• the Jewish American Princess and Jewish American Mother joke cycles
• The Wind-up doll joke cycle
• The "Blonde joke" cycle.

Gruner discusses several "sick joke" cycles that occurred upon events surrounding Gary Hart, Natalie Wood, Vic Morrow, Jim Bakker, Richard Pryor, Princess Diana and Michael Jackson, noting how several jokes were recycled from one cycle to the next. For example: A joke about Vic Morrow ("We now know that Vic Morrow had dandruff: they found his head and shoulders in the bushes") was subsequently recycled about Admiral Mountbatten, and again applied to the crew of the Challenger space shuttle ("How do we know that Christa McAuliffe had dandruff? They found her head and shoulders on the beach.").

Berger asserts that "whenever there is a popular joke cycle, there generally is some widespread kind of social and cultural anxiety, lingering below the surface, that the joke cycle helps people deal with".