The Collection

Acknowledgements

A large percentage of the jokes, urban myths and illustrations in this book will be vaguely familiar to many readers because they all belong to that mysterious creative process we call folklore. Just as mysterious is their creative origin and ownership with most happily residing under the banner of ‘anonymous’. This is not a joke book for the subject is far too sensitive and in many cases concerns the unnecessary loss of lives. It is a serious attempt to understand where jokes come from, how they are circulated and, most importantly, how we use humour to unconsciously share grief when faced with disastrous situations.

This book is also a study of how the Internet has developed to become an important distributor of folklore.

I am indebted to the many people who assisted me in collecting the many examples cited in the book. In particular I thank Russell ‘Big Russ’ Hannah, Mike Salter, Marita Blood, Stephen Wall, Morag White, Doug Ford, Richard Mills, Graham Seal, Julian Ward, Keith McKenry, Mel and Stuart McCarthy, Tim Nicholas, Jim Leesses, Vincent Brophy, Rob Willis, Carol Higman, Stuart Coupe, Valda & Jim Low, Greg Bracketeer, Roger Holmes, Geoff Morgan, Bruce Cameron, Paul Hemphill, Geoff Francis, Peter Hicks, Tony Squires, John Thompson, Gilly Darby, Greg Peacock, Garth Nix, Jeanette Wormld, Kate Andrews, Marcus Holden, David Gool, Rebel Penfold-Russell, Paul Stewart, David Mulhallen and Rowan Webb. I also thank the anonymous creators and those who dutifully pass these jokes into cyberspace. Obviously there is absolutely no way to identify individual ownership of particular illustrations or jokes and I take this opportunity to thank anyone who has discovered their work in this collection. You should be flattered that your creation has tickled the fancy of folklore and found its own journey into cyberspace.

This is a book about disaster folklore and how we unconsciously use humour to share grief. It is also about how we create humour and pass it on to our immediate circle and beyond. In particular it shows us the role of the Internet as a new means of circulating humour and folklore. 

There is little doubt that the world changed forever after the terrorist attacks on America, September 11, 2001 and, because of the immediacy of modern communication, many of us will go to the grave with the horrific images we observed ‘live from New York’. Our world has seen horrors before and, sadly, we do not seem to learn from our shared history. One of the most startling and repeated comments that emerged from stunned television viewers was that “watching the live broadcast was very similar to watching a familiar thriller movie”. Have we become so insensitive to violence and pain that we have such blurred vision? 

It is now some months since the attacks and the governments of the world continue to encourage a return to normalcy as they attempt to explain the how, why and where behind the terrorism. Some say this is the opportunity the world needed to reassess the role of government, business and religion whilst others point to the retaliation attacks and the still bloody war zones in every corner of the globe. If anything it has made us more aware of our vulnerability and, hopefully, the importance of international harmony. In the meantime America continues to clean up ‘Ground Zero’ and, at the same time, reduce Afghanistan to a veritable rubble heap.  

Folklore has played an ongoing role in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks and it makes for a shocking reminder as to who we are, where we have come from and where we are going as a global community. Confusion appears to rule supreme as we aggressively question civil liberty, the power of governments, the role of religion, the separation of church and state and the wealth inequality of nations. Personal and business confidence is at an all-time low and every second person is looking around for someone to take the blame.  At the same time it is important we actually cope with these stressful situations even though, in these media-driven times, it is a communal learned response rather than an individual one. Government leaders can make political and humane speeches, monuments can be erected and vigils staged however we humans crave for something closer to our communal being. Tragedy creates unique stresses and one of the characteristic ways in which the human psyche responds is through the use of humour. This is a relatively new mechanism and if one were to place a date on its adoption the assassination of John F Kennedy would be a logical starting point. This type of disasters is treated differently from the more immediate catastrophes such as cyclones, floods, bushfires or vehicular accidents. In such cases, emotions are suppressed as individuals put aside their personal feelings and join a community effort to assist through donation or direct action. Folklorists have employed the term ‘media disaster syndrome’ to cover disasters like Kennedy’s assassination and the recent attacks on America. This syndrome produces a variety of folklore response including hero-myth, urban myth, deitification and humour.

The attack on New York, as a ‘media disaster’, was watched by millions of people as they were continually shown the review footage of the actual event. The normal response to a disaster would be to encourage support action however, in this instance, the viewers were stunned as the events appeared ‘unreal’ and distant from our lives making viewers feel as if there was nothing they could do to help. Because of this feeling of inadequacy the public falls back on a variety of symbolic improvised responses as a way of signaling solidarity with the people directly affected by the tragedy. A rush to donate blood was the first American public response following a casual remark by one of the safety workers on the site.

The role of the media in the attack on New York, and our response to it, is a delicate tightrope. We had ‘live’ coverage of a tragedy that involved us in an intensive way and to avoid the horror all we had to do was flick the switch to an innocuous program on another channel: New York disaster to the Music Channel then to Cartoon Corner and The Disney Channel. Worse still we move from devastating news coverage to commercials for brand name products. This could be dismissed as typical insensitivity of major media corporation mentality however it is our acceptance, almost expectation that commercials follow such news reportage, which is insensitive. We have been conditioned and the media is the manipulator with the message machine. The media, especially the American cable providers, have come in for understandable criticism over the way it manipulates the news and also the grief process.

Folklore is a confusing word and carries a considerable amount of baggage. At the same time it is becoming an increasingly important tool as we track our cultural roots and especially how we cope with these stressful modern times. In a nutshell it is the lore we unconsciously create or pass on to our family and associated community to distinguish ourselves as a people. We use folklore as the wheels of our lives passing on, among other things, traditional wisdom, values, customs and family history. Pundits now preach that we are rapidly headed for a global world where we have one currency, one language and one government. One assumes that they would also like to add the words ‘one culture’ to that scary list. Some say globalisation is tantamount to treason however the fact remains that we haven’t been able to make the present systems work effectively and the world continues to sit under the gloomy clouds of local war, poverty, greed, racial inequality and religious fanaticism. Because our lives have become so fractured we need to look at folklore to provide us with keys to some of the puzzles we face.

One of the main showcase arguments of the global community is the promotion of world culture and in many ways this has created an economic dilemma. When one considers the massive investments the popular culture machines of Hollywood, New York and London now make in their supposed blockbusters films, hit recordings and mass-marketed books then it is clearly obvious that they need larger markets than their domestic one to recoup their investment. Australia, being an English-speaking nation, is a prime target for such cultural invasion and this needs to be stacked up against our Government’s rulings on such things as Australian content levels on radio, television and in publishing. Personally I don’t think we have been very successful in protecting or policing our cultural content levels however that is another argument for another platform.  For the time being we should also assume the description ‘world culture’ be interpreted as ‘cultural imperialism’.

Small nations, and Australia is a relatively small population, need to be aware of protecting their culture. It is inevitable that the blockbusters will keep coming and, to be brutally frank, who would want to be the spoilsport to stop them? What we do need is to accept that there is such a thing as an international culture and, at the same time, be very aware that we also have our own homegrown culture. Both can and should live in harmony even if nations appear unable to achieve such a relationship. In the case of Australia we are indeed fortunate in being an island floating in the Pacific Ocean and not a country surrounded by borders and other directly intrusive cultures.

Such physical isolation begs the question whether this is the key to our collective sense of humour. Australians have a reputation for possessing a laconic sense of humour best described as ‘dry’. It has always seen the perverted comic side of misfortune be it the convict referring to his cat-o-nine-tails flogging as ‘getting a new red shirt’ or the pioneering family facing a seemingly never-ending circle of flood, drought, bushfire and pestilence and commenting that things were ‘as good as it gets’. It was during the pioneering nineteenth century that we really honed many areas of our national identity. The fact that the majority of our population lived in the bush rather than on the coast played a leading role in that identity and also explains why so many urban-dwelling Australians still see themselves as bushwhackers complete with R.M.Williams’ clothing, Akubra hat and four-wheel drive. We are conditioned to natural disasters, which possibly has prepared us for unnatural disasters. Somehow-or-other we continue to shrug our shoulders, roll up our shirtsleeves and carry on. Of course this does not halt compassion but it does provide the circumstance to carry on in times of trouble.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

A large percentage of the jokes, urban myths and illustrations in this book will be vaguely familiar to many readers because they all belong to that mysterious creative process we call folklore. Just as mysterious is their creative origin and ownership with most happily residing under the banner of ‘anonymous’. This is not a joke book for the subject is far too sensitive and in many cases concerns the unnecessary loss of lives. It is a serious attempt to understand where jokes come from, how they are circulated and, most importantly, how we use humour to unconsciously share grief when faced with disastrous situations.

This book is also a study of how the Internet has developed to become an important distributor of folklore.

I am indebted to the many people who assisted me in collecting the many examples cited in the book. In particular I thank Russell ‘Big Russ’ Hannah, Mike Salter, Marita Blood, Stephen Wall, Morag White, Doug Ford, Richard Mills, Graham Seal, Julian Ward, Keith McKenry, Mel and Stuart McCarthy, Tim Nicholas, Jim Leesses, Vincent Brophy, Rob Willis, Carol Higman, Stuart Coupe, Valda & Jim Low, Greg Bracketeer, Roger Holmes, Geoff Morgan, Bruce Cameron, Paul Hemphill, Geoff Francis, Peter Hicks, Tony Squires, John Thompson, Gilly Darby, Greg Peacock, Garth Nix, Jeanette Wormld, Kate Andrews, Marcus Holden, David Gool, Rebel Penfold-Russell, Paul Stewart, David Mulhallen and Rowan Webb. I also thank the anonymous creators and those who dutifully pass these jokes into cyberspace. Obviously there is absolutely no way to identify individual ownership of particular illustrations or jokes and I take this opportunity to thank anyone who has discovered their work in this collection. You should be flattered that your creation has tickled the fancy of folklore and found its own journey into cyberspace.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

A large percentage of the jokes, urban myths and illustrations in this section will be vaguely familiar to many readers because they all belong to that mysterious creative process we call folklore. Just as mysterious is their creative origin and ownership with most happily residing under the banner of ‘anonymous’. This is not a joke book for the subject is far too sensitive and in many cases concerns the unnecessary loss of lives. It is a serious attempt to understand where jokes come from, how they are circulated and, most importantly, how we use humour to unconsciously share grief when faced with disastrous situations.

This book is also a study of how the Internet has developed to become an important distributor of folklore.

I am indebted to the many people who assisted me in collecting the many examples cited in the book. In particular I thank Russell ‘Big Russ’ Hannah, Mike Salter, Marita Blood, Stephen Wall, Morag White, Doug Ford, Richard Mills, Graham Seal, Julian Ward, Keith McKenry, Mel and Stuart McCarthy, Tim Nicholas, Jim Leesses, Vincent Brophy, Rob Willis, Carol Higman, Stuart Coupe, Valda & Jim Low, Greg Bracketeer, Roger Holmes, Geoff Morgan, Bruce Cameron, Paul Hemphill, Geoff Francis, Peter Hicks, Tony Squires, John Thompson, Gilly Darby, Greg Peacock, Garth Nix, Jeanette Wormld, Kate Andrews, Marcus Holden, David Gool, Rebel Penfold-Russell, Paul Stewart, David Mulhallen and Rowan Webb. I also thank the anonymous creators and those who dutifully pass these jokes into cyberspace. Obviously there is absolutely no way to identify individual ownership of particular illustrations or jokes and I take this opportunity to thank anyone who has discovered their work in this collection. You should be flattered that your creation has tickled the fancy of folklore and found its own journey into cyberspace.

Communities create and use folklore in many ways to record their history, celebrate successes, express frustration and, of late, to share despair and grief. It can be seen as a mechanism, which allows us to look at our emotional sense. The epic poems and ballads composed centuries ago and passed on down through the years are folklore. The old bush songs of Australia that tell of our pioneering days are folklore. I use these two musical examples because most people associate folklore with folksong. The truth is that we all create and pass on lore and nowadays it is more likely to be an urban myth, yarn, word usage or some custom that seems to be a natural part of everyday life. Our lives abound in folklore and especially when we look at how we celebrate, for example, a death, birth or wedding. We take such customs and habits for granted even though much of the meaning behind the lore is symbolic and often long forgotten.

Jokes, be they spoken or transmitted electronically via the Internet, have become an important part of the folklore process and especially in these times of international uncertainty. Much has been spoken and written about the terrorist attacks on America and most agree that this was indeed an unprecedented and horrific event in modern world history however this has not stopped us creating and passing on humour related to the horror. The interesting aspect of this particular disaster is that we in Australia were intimately involved through the direct television coverage and the Internet. There was, of course, the fact that a number of Australians were working in the targeted buildings.

It is all very well to say that jokes trivialise the horror associated with disaster however folklorists know that as sure as night follows day, jokes will flow soon after such events. Of those who have seriously sought to understand jokes, most have explained that jokes are a form of aggression – a socially acceptable way of showing contempt and displaying superiority. We do this unconsciously and that is why when asked to explain the meaning of jokes we tend to dismiss them as meaningless and far too obvious to warrant explanation.

As a folklorist I act as a ‘recycling unit’ gathering in folklore as it travels its ever-winding path. I attempt to make sense of the findings and then return them, suitably packaged, to the ‘folk’ as a way of showing how the collective process works. Folklore is a fascinating study because it knows absolutely no boundaries: be it the circulation of old bush yarns; locating remnants of long-forgotten songs; tracking traditional working skills; recording disappearing home crafts or even the traditional singing of lullabies. Folklore makes our lives more interesting because of how we adopt and adapt and pass onto the next step. Most importantly it is a communal creativity that knows no master or ownership.

No one really knows where jokes come from but we do know that they come in all shapes and sizes and have a habit of returning just when you thought they had disappeared. Some say that there are only a dozen or so original jokes and all others are simply clever variants. I do not subscribe to this train of thought and believe human creativity extends a hell of a lot further than a bakers’ dozen! I have heard the same argument about traditional music in that there are only a handful of basic tunes and all others are but variants. This is insensitive nonsense aimed at undervaluing traditional creativity and it doesn’t stand the test of time. Traditional tunes are like pearls that have been honed in their shells with every new wave adding a new polish to the gem. The same process applies to stories and, to some extent jokes, in that they are continually changing depending on the whim and will of the person currently ‘minding’ that story.

I attempt to explain in my ‘Classic Bush Yarns’ (Harper Collins. 2001) how the joke, or in that particular case, the Australian tall story, was created and passed on in the tradition. I also suggested that because of the dramatic ways we have changed our entertainment patterns: being entertained rather than entertain each other, the role of the joke teller has changed. This book clearly shows how contemporary entertainment continues to change rapidly and especially the dominating role of the electronic media and the World Wide Web in particular.

The Internet has come to the forefront in disseminating jokes. We still tell jokes across the dinner table and at the club and pub but it is obvious from this recent study that the Internet has emerged as a major, if not the major, distribution vehicle. I would suggest that because email now plays such an accepted and widespread role in most offices it stands to reason that they would also be used for non-office work including entertainment. I also believe, because of the growing number of people working from home offices, the art of email conversation has become an important diversion. Jokes are ‘passed on’ via emails in a conversational style reminiscent of the idle chatter one would find in the office coffee room. 

Remember when the folk circulated jokes on printed sheets? Many of these were work subject related and dealt with stress, sex and office management and as often as not they would depict a worker in some unfathomable dilemma. Being preposterous they were usually funny and aimed at getting a shared laugh from the casual passer-by. They were mini posters and stuck to walls, doors and filing cabinets. Sometimes they would mysteriously appear on the office notice board explaining ‘new office regulations’ or ‘ten reasons why the boss is a bastard’. Folklorists called these ‘photocopy lore’ and true to folklore’s ‘here today gone tomorrow’ spirit they seem to have almost disappeared to be replaced by the same cartoons, sets of rules etc arriving on desks via the small screen. The beauty of email is that it can blast the folklore to many screens in one push of the send key. Instant folklore!

The real wonder of the Internet is that it not only zips all around the office but can also instantly send the message all over the country and all over the world. The jokes coming out of the terrorist attacks on America certainly showed the relevance and vitality of net transmission arriving on Australian desks at the very same time as American desks.

The attack on America resulted in several types of folklore being created and distributed. There were standard jokes in the several categories of accepted joke telling including one-liners, ‘what if…’ jokes and the usual recycled ‘situation’ jokes. Then came the novelty items such as song parodies, fake weather reports and musical hit parades. The most prolific creation was what, for want of a better description, I call PhotoShop folklore – realistic images modified by computer design packages. Many of these were extremely clever whilst some were extremely amateurish. They portrayed President Bush, Osama bin Laden and umpteen dozen other topical individuals in extraordinary situations and characterizations. As with jokes they came in all shapes and sizes including variants of the same image. How many of us received the classic image of the unsuspecting young man, binoculars in hand, staring out the window of the World Trade Centre however, the viewer could see the airplane headed directly for him. It looked real however it was a clever fake and would have been a natural for television’s Australia’s Funniest Home Videos.

Another aspect of folklore is that it helps in the propaganda efforts associated with situations like war. It seems that all wars throughout history required a face to identify the enemy. In ‘Diggers’ Songs’ (AMHP 1998) I tried to show how Australians had reacted to involvement in the eleven wars we had fought in since our first contingent travelled to the Maori Wars in 1863 (the Timor War was the twelfth and the War on Terrorism, the thirteenth). All these wars required a villain be it Kaiser Bill, Adolf Hitler, Ho Chi Min, Saddam Hussein or, in our most recent case, Osama bin Laden. I went on to explain it is easier for a soldier to kill if that target is seen as the enemy monster rather than just another soldier. Ridicule has always been an important part of the war machine. Parodies like ‘Hitler Has Only One Ball’ or even the WW2 nightly broadcasts by Tokyo Rose, as she chastised our boys on the Pacific frontline, “for leaving their womenfolk at home in Australia for the visiting American soldiers to play with” being a good example.  Ridicule, by nature, allows us to strip an individual of any shield and make fun of them as a means of destroying their reputation. It can be an extremely powerful weapon in itself and laughing at a ‘target’ can be the very bullet that brings such a person to their knees. 

Military folklore is a relevant comparative study as it inevitably involves the tragic loss of lives. Much of the folklore associated with war is aimed at unconsciously reinforcing morale and without it many would simply have given up the fight. Humour played a role in bolstering the concept of mateship and one could speculate on the myth of the Australian ‘Digger’ and how we used our traditional sense of humour in such adverse conditions. The idea of laughing in the face of death allowed our soldiers to witness the death of their mates, sometimes their best mate, and then push on with their expected soldiering. They were not laughing at the idea of their mates being blown to Kingdom Come, far from it, they were laughing at the concept of death and in doing so they gained the morale where-with-all to continue their work in the name of their fallen mates.  They were ‘laughing in the face of death’.

As a folklorist I was ready to track and document recent disaster jokes. I had already observed earlier international and domestic events that created disaster folklore and used these as my tracking system. The explosion of the NASA Challenger space shuttle over Florida on January 28, 1986 and the mysterious death of Azaria Chamberlain in 1980 had both produced a significant flow of jokes, parodies and photocopy folklore. None of the jokes coming out of these tragedies could be described as hilarious and they seemed to be a new type of humour made in despair. It is possible that they might be unconsciously playing the same role that songs and ballads played in the 19th and early 20th century where story songs and ballads were composed, often anonymously, about disasters to record the folk histories. These songs and ballads were then held in the community’s tradition for decades and often longer. In Australia, for example, they told of a coal mine collapse in Bulli, New South Wales, a tragic railway disaster at Sunshine station in Victoria and even the accidental death of a jockey at the Caulfield Cup in 1895. One could also put the case that many of the classic Australian bushranger ballads played a similar community role in reinforcing the ‘folk’ version of the outlaw tales.

In looking for the humour in disaster jokes one needs to look at how we use humour in our everyday lives. Essentially it is how we make light of situations, react to particular situations we observe as peculiar and is an intrinsic element in much of our entertainment. We ‘laugh ourselves sick’, ‘laugh until it hurts’, ‘laugh so hard we think we will pee in our pants’ and say ‘I could have died laughing’. We talk of humour that is sick, cruel, biting and black: disaster humour tends to embrace all three of these elements.

Ted Cohen in his ‘Philosophical Thoughts on Joking Matters’ (University of Chicago Press, 1999) commented “It is a well known fact, and for many people a problematic and disturbing fact, that these public topics for joking often and inevitably include misfortunes, sometimes horrible ones. There have been groups of jokes concerning earthquakes, hurricanes, plane crashes, space shuttle disasters, and, above and below all, death. These topics are as suitable as any others for use as public matters about which joke-tellers may assume a common awareness, and thus as occasions for cultivating the intimacy that goes with successful joking; but they have a special urgency all their own. They are topics that are hard to confront, difficult to accept, and yet relentless in their insistence upon our attention. Humour in general and jokes in particular are among the most typical and reliable resources we have for meeting these devastating and incomprehensible matters. No one understands death, no one can comprehend it and size it up without remainder, and no one can ignore it.”

In some ways humour allows us to participate in a shared grief. We might not understand the reasoning behind the disaster but the opportunity to make light of a very difficult situation enables us to partially close the door and resume our lives. Distress affects people in different ways and some individuals take so much on board that they invite nervous breakdowns and psychological depression. The attack on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon was an attack on all that America stands for and this in itself is taken personally by many members of the community. Government officials appeared on television asking “how anyone could do this to the USA. What has America ever done to them?”

Patriotism played a leading roll in the creation of much of the PhotoShop folklore. A large proportion of the images circulated reinforced America as ‘God’s own country’ complete with stars, stripes and even eagles sharpening their talons with a file. On the other hand, there were also contributions that openly criticised the American Government and the Presidency including a series of photographs depicting George W Bush holding a text-book labeled ‘Presidency for Dummies’ and another ‘Terrorism for Dummies’.

One of the obvious signs of a democracy is its ability to tolerate criticism, however radical. It also upholds free speech so it was not surprising to see several photoshop jokes along the lines of ‘what if the Taliban won…’

I would suggest that disaster humour, as expressed in the past 30 years, is a direct response to our distrust and dislike of the way mass media delivers such news coverage to us. We are confronted by television’s dogmatic and intrusive coverage in an ambiguous and distant way that is neither convincing nor satisfying. Humour is a more natural way of resolving and closing disastrous episodes as it emerges dramatically, circulates actively for a while then fades away when no longer necessary.

Urban myths, another expression of folklore, also thrive in times of disaster. Two of the most widely circulated examples came from the collapse of the World Trade Centre Towers. Apparently one of the workers was blind and his seeing-eye dog, Daisy, was responsible for saving the lives of some 300 people. She became quite distressed and kept returning to the building to lead peoplel through the smoke filled haze until eventually, totally exhausted by the heat and panic, she had to be carried back to the street by the firefighters. Another relates how one man ‘rode’ the debris from the 70th floor to the ground and lived. This tale, and yes, like the dog story it is a fabrication, has the man ‘surfing’ pieces of the building as he fell to the ground level while another has him curling himself into a ball as he fell to safety. A variant of the same survival story details a man riding the fall by standing in a door frame as he hurtled to the ground where he walked to safety. These urban myths celebrate the miraculous survival of an otherwise doomed man and by implication one is given hope that others may have found a way to survive. The anthrax scare has also prompted a flood of urban myths including a belief that by ironing your incoming mail you will neutralise the anthrax! Another suggested hefty doses of garlic and oregano oil would negate the poison.

The urban myths sit alongside the oral history interviews being recorded as part of the American Folklife Center in the Library of Congress collection program. The Center has encouraged oral historians and folklorists to record such accounts for a national archive of stories of heroism, survival, final telephone calls made by building tenants and airline passengers. These memories will likely prove to be a far more effective form of stress sharing than the flippant nature of humour.

It is obvious that the Internet now plays a leading role in the circulation of urban myths, probably more so than newspapers. The best example of this would be the way the ‘Nostradamus Prophecy’ zipped around the world shortly after the World Trade Centre Towers collapse. It is frightening to consider how many email addresses this particular item generated which is a sign of our gullibility and also willingness to believe in such nonsense.

In the City of God there will be a great thunder.
Two brothers torn apart by Chaos
While the fortress endures
The great leader will succumb
The third big war will begin when the big city is burning.

Nostradamus 1654

Well, for a start the famed French astrologist and physician died in 1566 and secondly he definitely didn’t write this quatrain. What is it about our society that we need to believe in such mysticism? Nostradamas, of course, has been responsible for some of the silliest predictions however the real guilty ones are the people who continually scramble to interpret his obscure quatrains to anything faintly resembling gloom including several attempts to predict the end of the world and especially as we turned the millennium.

The following urban myths are typical of those associated with the terrorist attacks on New York with contributors swearing black and blue that they are true. These items were collected in Australia from people who fervently passed them on as being true.

The pig story has some history. In 1911 General ‘Black Jack’ Pershing effectively discouraged Muslim uprisings in the Philippines by threatening to bury them with pigs. Once again we need to remind ourselves that not all Muslims are terrorists.

One of the stories surrounding the aftermath of the World Trade Centre crash concerned their lottery. On the day of the attack both of New Jersey’s winning three-number lottery combinations included the numbers 5-8-7 that were the flight number of the doomed American Airline.

Here is a joke concerning the use of mobile telephones and is veiled as an urban myth:

The following item, although clearly not an urban myth, is disguised as a factual news report to gain a reinforced joke impact:

SUBJECT: CNN BREAKING NEWS: COMMON GLOBAL CAUSE…

Another virulent folklore item to be spread via email was the Wingding interpretation. Apparently Q33NY was supposed to be the flight number of the first of the crashed planes.

Email recipients were given the following instructions:

1. Open Microsoft Word
2. Type Q33NY in upper case letters
3. Change the font size to 72
4. Change the font to Wingdings

And this is what you get!

The images refer to an aeroplane aimed at two towers followed by the skull and crossbones and the Star of David. Rest assured this is pure coincidence and not some work of evil. Both the designers of Wingding and the Microsoft Corporation have issued press releases confirming that there has been no foul play.

One of the most entertaining emails to cover the September 11 attack was an item simply labeled ‘Numerology’ and attributes an interpretation from an individual named ‘Dave’. It is impossible to locate ‘Dave’ however this doesn’t prevent readers from sympathising with his sentiments of frustration. Once again, it makes you think: who the hell sits down and creates these things!

SUBJECT: NUMEROLOGY

As Andy Warhol declared ‘everyone gets their 15 minutes of fame’ and this is obviously Dave’s time for the cyberstage. This humorous email appears to have bounced right around the world thus reinforcing the underlying belief that much of what we read is hokum yet we still read them as if they were factual

To gain perspective on recent disasters it is useful to look at some of the jokes associated with earlier disasters. The 1986 explosion of the ‘Challenger’ NASA space shuttle makes for an interesting study.  These jokes appeared within a week of the accident and were soon transmitted across the world. Considering email was not as widespread one assumes that these jokes were circulated internationally by telephone, facsimile and by tourists. Interestingly television, especially late night cable, plays a role in distributing new jokes however disaster jokes tend to be a taboo for obvious reasons.

Disaster jokes, by their association with recent death, are generally told as news. “Did you hear” being a common opening:

Q: Did you hear they found a penis on the beach at Miami?
A: It was a shuttle cock. 

Joke tellers also attempt to disassociate themselves from the horror by disguising the joke as a disassociated question:

Q: Where do astronauts go on their holidays?
A: All over Florida.

Q: Have you heard of the new cocktail?
A: Seven-Up and a splash of Teachers.

Crista McCauliffe, a teacher representing ‘average Americans’ on the exploratory flight, became a continuing thread in many of the NASA jokes: 

Q: What were Christa McCauliffe’s last words?
A: And what is this little button for?

One Crista McCauliffe joke posed as a job advertisement:

Go up as a school teacher.
Come back as a marine biologist.

Sometimes the joke situation is clearly ridiculous (yet still horrific) as the teller poses the question ready to spring the answer in order to solicit a shock response:

Q: What was the last thing to go through Christa McCauliffe’s mind?
A: Her feet!

The following extract, taken from an Internet chat-room conversation, makes for insightful reading linking the NASA explosion with the World Trade Centre attack:

To fully understand the role of jokes in folklore we also need to understand the psychological status of the joke teller and receiver. We also need to factor in the reality that what was true of orally distributed jokes is not necessarily the same for technologically distributed jokes. As with all joke exchanges, the teller reveals him or herself in the choice of subject and in the handling of them, though it is not always possible to put an exact psychological nametag to what one hears. In the NASA astronaut series the teller often attempts to remain masked behind some frantic pretense that he is passing on a true anecdote that undoubtedly came from a ‘good friend’.

If one was to select an obvious local study topic invariably it would be the folklore associated with the death of Azaria Chamberlain, the infant daughter of a Seventh Day Adventist pastor and his wife Linda Chamberlain. This event was surrounded in superstition, rumour and disbelief. The idea of a wild dingo native dog stealing and consuming the baby made for a horrible and somewhat improbable story and the folklore machine went into overdrive. The Chamberlains were brought before the courts, Lindy was unsympathetically placed in jail and the question of ‘did she or didn’t she?’ nagged at the national conscience. Even after her acquittal the family was surrounded by doubt. Jokes about the incident came fast and furious to taunt the Chamberlains and to sway public opinion. They were unkind and downright cruel but they would not desist as the community came to terms with the horror of the baby’s death.

Q: How do you bring up a baby in the outback?
A: Burp a dingo.

Q: What does a dingo call a baby in a pram?
A: Meals on wheels.

Q: What do vegetarian dingos eat?
A: Cabbage patch kids.

Q: What is the definition of revenge?
A: A baby with a dingo in its mouth.

Q: Why do dingoes like tents?
A: Because they like window shopping.Q: What noise does the Chamberlain’s doorbell make?
A: Ding-go.

Q. What did every pregnant woman in Australia fear at one time ?
A. A dingo with a yabby pump.

Q. If the baby had turned out to be male & black, what was Lindy going to call it ?
A. Man-dingo.

It is interesting to see how joke subjects remain in our collective minds. A good example of this is evident in the meeting of Azaria Chamberlain/Dingo and the Ansett collapse. One would imagine the two subjects to be miles apart however, on the front page of New Zealand’s The Press magazine of October 6, 2001, screamed the headline ‘The Dingo Stole My Airline’. The story continued to recount investor Gordon McAdam’s tale of woe: “Those Aussies keep underarm bowling us, and we just keep on taking it. Why isn’t Ansett back up flying again? Because it’s a dog and dogs don’t fly.”

Another example of jokes crossing timeframes brings together the dingo and the disappearance of one of Australia’s Prime Ministers in a swimming accident off Cheviot Beach, Victoria.

Q: Who was responsible for the disappearance of Harold Holt.
A:  A dingo with a snorkel.

Most songs emerging from disasters, in contrast to jokes, tend to be extremely sensitive to the subject and in no way humorous. Songs play a different role in folklore and one also needs to accept the inherent performance factor of songs. Folklore has a long history of using songs to document disasters. Of course one could trace the use back to the eighteenth century to those times when the publishers of London’s Seven Dials area employed ballad writers to attend court hearings and then to compose songs detailing the case. Like modern-day newspapers the public preferred all the gory details as expressed in ballads like ‘The Red Barn’ or ‘The Terrible Murder of Maria Martin’. The more salacious the better! Many of our convict transportation ballads had a similar birthplace as they documented the trials and tribulations of those condemned to seven years transportation to the hells of Botany Bay, Norfolk Island, Port Arthur and Moreton Bay. As these songs tend to be an emotional ‘people’s history’ and not necessarily a factual account, they were popular in the repertoire of many traditional song carriers. One could also point to the universal popularity of the tragic Victorian parlour songs like ‘Don’t Sell My Mother’s Picture in the Sale’ and the equally tragic ‘Luggage Van Ahead’.

Here is a partial list of traditional and contemporary songs written and sung about Australian disasters: ‘Death of Alec Robertson’ (aka ‘Jockey’s Lament’ ‘Caulfield Cup Smash’), ‘Ballad of Norman Brown’ (D Hewitt/M.Leydon), ‘Ballad of the Westgate Disaster’ (Lyell Sayer), ‘The Eldorado Mining Disaster’ (aka ‘Brave Dorkins’, ‘The McEvoy Disaster’), ‘Farewell to Tommy Corrigan’, ‘The Gatton Tragedy’, ‘Grace Darling’, ‘Ill-fated Temora Train’, ‘The Sunshine Railway Disaster’, ‘The Westgate Bridge Disaster’ (D. Henderson), ‘Westgate’ (P. Vinnicombe), ‘Wreck of The Dandenong’, ‘Wreck of the Yongla’.

One exception to the rule of avoiding taboo song subjects is the following parody that I included in an earlier book titled ‘Ratbags and Rabblerousers’ (Currency Press, 2000). Not a particularly singable or pleasant song and I suspect it had limited value however it appears to have had considerable circulation, which warrants inclusion in this study.

SEVENTH DAY ADVENTIST (TO THE TUNE OF “WALTZING MATILDA”)

Once a jolly Pastor camped in a caravan,
Under the shade of a Kurrajong tree,
And he sang and he prayed as he watched the baby’s bottle boil,
You’ll be a Seventh-day Adventist like me.

Seven Day Adventist, Seven Day Adventist,
You’ll be a Seventh-day Adventist like me,
And he sang and he prayed as he watched the baby’s bottle boil,
You’ll be a Seventh-day Adventist like me.

Down came Lindy and snatched up Azaria,
She picked up the scissors and stabbed her with glee,
And she smiled as she shoved the baby in the camera bag,
It’s fun to be a Seventh-day Adventist like me.

Out came a dingo nosing around the campfire,
Lindy winked at Michael and said, “It wasn’t me”,
What happened to the baby you put in the camera bag?
Give it to the dingo and you’ll get off free.

Give it to the dingo,
Give it to the dingo,
Give it to the dingo and you’ll get off free.

Up jumped the dingo,
ran past the camera bag,
You’ll never blame her murder on me,
And Azaria’s ghost may be heard as you pass by the Kurrajong tree,
Mummy was the one that did away with me.

Jokes also collide when convenient. The fusion of two joke genres – the disaster joke meets the ethnic slur joke:

Q: Did you hear about the Irish dingo they caught in the Botanical Gardens?
A: It was eating the azaleas.

One of the most horrific disasters in Australian history occurred on April 29 1996 when Martin Bryant randomly attacked visitors at the Port Arthur Historic Site where 34 tourists and staff in the museum’s Broad Arrow Café were shot dead. The nation was shocked by this tragic event and the shock jocks went into overdrive pontificating as only they can. Once again the ‘folk’ responded with humour as if to relieve the tension.

Q: Did you heat that one of the chain stores is opening a new branch at Port Arthur?<
A: Target.

Q: What was not on the menu at the Broad Arrow Cafe?
A: Duck!

In June, 2000, a fire broke out at the Palace Backpacker’s Hostel at Childers, a small farming town 315 kilometres north of the Queensland capital Brisbane. Thirty-four young travellers died in the horrific fire. Police investigations later revealed that the fire had been lit intentionally.

Australians were shocked as the news reports hit world headlines. 

There were several jokes in circulation within the week including this feeble contribution:

Q: Why do Pommy backpackers like Queensland?
A: It’s a great place for a barbecue.

Disasters also produce folk stories. Folklorist Ron Edwards calls these ‘yarns’ however I disagree as they usually do not subscribe to the form of a traditional yarn. Ron, of course, has a good point especially when these stories get the embellishment of time and ultimate exaggeration where truth and fiction meet. In Australia we believe in that adage: never let the truth get in the way of a good story.

After Cyclone Tracy flattened the City of Darwin on Christmas Eve 1974 there were many stories of bravado and this one seems to have taken the cake!

”Apparently there was a car half in, half out, of a motel swimming pool when this bloke comes along with bunch of keys.  Opens the boot of the car.  Takes out a carton of Foster’s beer.  Shuts boot.  Walks away.  Stops.  Thinks.  Throws keys back over his shoulder into pool and continues to walk away.”

Q: What did Cyclone Tracy say to the palm tree?
A: Hang on to your nuts, boy, this no ordinary blow job.

Other disaster events in Australia produced jokes including the Hoddle Street, Melbourne mass -shooting and this one from a similar shooting incident at Sydney’s Strathfield Plaza

Q: When is the best time to shop at Strathfield Plaza?
A: In the morning, because it’s murder in the afternoon.

Other expressions of folklore contribute to these events. Soon after the Strathfield shooting the Sydney Morning Herald reported an urban myth concerning a sign in that suburb declaring: ‘If you’ve time to kill visit Strathfield Plaza’. Of course no such sign existed however many readers enthusiastically passed the tale on.

I was curious to see what type of jokes would come from the terrorist attacks on America and how soon after the event they would enter and eventually retreat from circulation. I already receive a steady flow of general Internet folklore however, in this instance, I posted a message explaining that I was soliciting any material directly related to the terrorist attacks and why. Despite explaining my reasons it was obvious a delicate matter and, as expected, I found myself on the line. Emails arrived responding that this ‘was no laughing matter’ and ‘surely you cannot be serious’. There was general doubt that this event would actually result in humour. The first documented joke appears to have been circulated three days after the attack and the flow increased every day thereafter rising like a crescendo and falling some two months later. By the second month the World Trade Centre jokes had really slowed down although the Osama bin Laden jokes were experiencing their highest point. By the third month the WTC jokes had virtually ceased despite the fact that the fires were still burning.

The timeframe of disaster joke waves is predictable. In looking at the major Australian disasters mentioned previously it was extremely difficult to find any jokes in current circulation. This, of course, is the very point: their use had well and truly passed and they had absolutely no relevance. We had moved on considering we had reached a ‘closure’ on discussing these disasters. Going back even further to the Maitland Floods (1955), The Hobart Tragedy (1967), Ash Wednesday (1983) or even the Sydney Fires (1994) the jokes had completely disappeared from circulation.

The jokes from the attack on New York seemed to roll out as if late night television presenter Jay Leno was telling them as part of his show opener. Of course the reality is that many people died in this disaster and one has to be both understanding and sympathetic to their families and friends. This is no laughing matter however laugh we apparently must. Many of the jokes are re-hashed versions of old jokes like the following, which was first used in the NASA shuttle explosion:

Q: Where do Americans go on vacation?
A: All over Manhattan

Understandably the airlines feature in many jokes. Despite millions of dollars spent on advertising campaigns that tells us they are ‘floating luxury hotels’ it is apparent many of us still fear flying. It doesn’t make sense being up in the skies in a big metal bus and folklore has a habit of reinforcing such doubts through humour. The fact remains that four regular passenger aeroplanes were hijacked for the USA attacks with two hitting the World Trade Centre Towers, one hitting the Pentagon, Washington, D.C. and the fourth crashing in Pennsylvania; apparently the passengers forced the airline down to avoid a major collision.

Q: What is the quickest way to the World Trade Centre?
A: United Airlines.

Q: Did you hear American Airlines is now offering a new service?
A: Sightseeing tours of Manhattan!

Q: Did you hear about the hot dog seller who was dug out of the rubble after several days buried in the basement?
A: His first words to the rescuers were “Who ordered the two Jumbos?”

Q: Did you hear that American Airlines has introduced a new service?
A: They drop you off at the office.

Q: What is world most efficient airline?
A: American Airlines, leave Boston 8:15…be in your office in New York 8:48!

American Airline’s pilot announcement:
“Ladies and gentlemen, we’ll be landing on New York in about 10
minutes…..”

“It’s a bird!”
“It’s a plane!”
“It’s…. Oh fuck, it IS a plane!”

Q: What color were the pilot’s eyes?
A: Blue. One blew this way the other blew that way

Q: What should have tipped off the ticket sellers?
A: When the terrorists asked if there was anything cheaper than one-way.

Q: What team does a United Airlines pilot support?
A: The New York Jets

Q: What’s the number one drink served on United Airlines?
A: Flaming Manhattan

Famous last words: airline pilot “Right a bit, hey, the World Trade Centre, my
brother works there…lets look just a bit closer….”

(insert: 74/disc 5. WTC puzzle)

Black or sick jokes about airline disasters are not new and, as a folklore comparison, soon after the ill-fated Concorde disaster on July 25, 2000, the following jokes were collected in oral circulation:

It took them eighty years since World War I, but the French finally figured out how to kill Germans.

Q: Did you hear they have new Concorde schedules from Air France?
A: Depart Paris CDG 1700 > Arrive Hotel Gonesse 1703

Q: What would the captain of the plane be doing today if he hadn’t been killed?
A: Scratching weakly at the inside of his body bag.

Q: Why do wealthy German tourists love the Hotel Gonesse.
A: Because they can drop in at any time.

Q: How many wealthy German tourists can fit into a VW Bug?
A: 100. Four in the seats, 96 in the ashtray.

Another airline crash at Mount Erebus, New Zealand, resulted in:

Q: What’s tall, white and kills Kiwis?
A: Mount Erebus.

The skyline of New York has obviously changed since the twin towers have fallen and many of the jokes concern New York in general. It is interesting to speculate how many of these jokes were accepted by New Yorkers as their own. I say this knowing that New York has a particular sense of humour as opposed, for example, to West Coast or Mid-West humour. It might possibly have something to do with the city’s perceived ‘Jewishness’ and its history for seeing the perverse side of humour. Another factor in the early distribution of humour is that the people directly involved in Ground Zero rescue work discovered that humour was a vital ingredient for their own well being. Rescue workers shared such humour amongst themselves, but were understandably reluctant to tell such jokes to any other group, including members of their immediate family. The rule appears to be that we need a period of ‘closure’ before we deem humour associated with tragedy to be acceptable.

Q: What does WTC stand for?
A: What Trade Center?

Q: How many WTC employees does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Just one but he can do all 110 floors in 6 seconds.

Q: How do you get to the 50th floor of the World Trade Centre?
A: By subway.

Q: What happened to the World Trade Centre?
A: The FBI were looking for a couple of hijackers…

Q: How long does it take to reach the ground from 107 stories up?
A: The rest of your life

Q: What was the last thing going through Mr. Jones head while sitting in his 90th floor office at the WTC ?
A: The 91st floor.

Q: What was the last thing going through Mr. Smith’s head sitting in 110th floor of the WTC ?
A: The radio mast.

Q: What’s the difference between Wembley and New York?
A: Wembley’s still got their twin towers.

Did you here that Australia square has moved up two places on
the world’s highest building list?

Q: What do you call a New York dust storm?
A: Trade winds.

Q: What’s the area code of the World Trade Center?
A: 220 (two to zero).

Q: What was the quickest escape time from the World Trade Center?
A: Ten seconds flat.

Q: How long does it take to reach the ground from 107 stories up?
A: The rest of your life

Q: In a game of chess between Bush and Laden who would win? A: Osama bin Laden because Bush doesn’t have towers.

Q: What do bin Laden and Hiroshima have in common?
A: Nothing yet

Q: How do you play Taliban bingo?
A: B52, F16, B1.

Q: How is Bin Laden like Fred Flintstone?
A: Both may look out their windows and see Rubble.

Q: What does Osama Bin Laden and General Custer have in common?
A: They both want to know where those Tomahawks are coming from!

Q: What is the definition of optimism”
A: As you fall past the 20th floor you shout, “I’m not hurt yet”

Q: How many New Yorkers does it take to change a light bulb?
A: God knows, they keep jumping out the window when it gets too hot

Q: What music do they play in the elevator in the WTC?
A: ‘Jump’ and ‘It’s Raining Men’

Q: Did you hear that the US military has achieved its first victory in Afghanistan?
A: The Red Cross has surrendered.

Q: What is the five-day forecast for Afghanistan?
A: Two days.

New York should be renamed “Manflatten”

Today FBI concluded that New York had been hit by a U.F.M
(unidentified flying Muslim)

Q: What did one terrorist say to the other terrorist before boarding their
respective airplanes?
A: I slam, you slam, we all slam for Islam!

Q: Who’s blonde, got big boobs and lives in Finland?
A: Osama Bin Laden
(This joke was previously used to describe persecuted author S. Rushdie)

Q: What’s the difference between the attack on New York and the Oklahoma City Bombing?
A: Again foreigners prove they can do it better and more efficiently.

Famous last words: “Amal, was this tower here yesterday?”

Q: Who are the fastest readers in the world?
A: New Yorkers. Some of them go through 110 stories in 5 seconds

Q: Why do tourists flock to New York?
A: It’s a blast

New York, New York, so good they hit it twice

Whilst the jokes tend to be the usual throwaway type the Photoshop illustrated jokes were more likely to reinforce American patriotism and, in the case of those directly related to New York, they were pugnacious and defiant.

Folklore has a way of manipulating popular culture to produce a unique humour. This is not surprising considering the enormous impact television has on our lives. It is the one aspect of our everyday life that supplies a thread. We receive the majority of our news, views and entertainment from it and, because of its immediacy, we allow ourselves to be mentally manipulated by it. In truth we should be far more discerning with our viewing use however this appears to be a very big ask. Hence we use it to create a special brand of folklore. It is interesting to note that one of the first responses by the television media was to cancel all comedy programs including late night variety shows that depend on topical humour.

The modified image of British actor Rowan Atkinson’s alter ego Mr Been was one of the earliest circulated Photoshop items. This is particularly surprising as the actor is not well known in North America. Could this have been a British or Australian modified photograph? Whatever the case it appears to have set the field for the many television-inspired illustrations to follow including our very own bananas in pyjamas.

SUBJECT: AFGHAN TV GUIDE

The following, showing the effect of television on the development of humour, takes the form of a Jay Leno/David Letterman check list:

TOP 10 GOOD THINGS ABOUT THE WTC ATTACK

10. There are now 18 fewer Arab taxi drivers terrorizing the streets.
9. Flight training schools proved that they are expensive but worth it.
8. People are learning how to spell “Afghanistan” correctly.
7. Plenty of parking available at airports now.
6. Jerry Springer Show was off the air for a whole week.
5. Sales for U.S. flags are way up.
4. Several new job openings now at NYPD and NYFD.
3. Much lower electric bills for Manhattan.
2. Home videos of the WTC attack more spectacular than Arnold Schwarzenegger’s last 5 movies.
And the number one …
1. Some great new unobstructed views of Manhattan now.

After two months of the War Against Terrorism the late-night variety television shows started to address the hysteria through humour. The humour was guarded and, at the same time, aimed at belittling the fundamentalist Muslims. One such program on the 7th December 2001 demonstrated possible fantasy Christmas presents including toys that were based on visual gags. Instead of a kid’s tent there was a cave complete with two tiny Taliban tots. Another had a series of Osama bin Laden bouncing heads that you hit with a mallet. All fairly feeble and aimed at reinforcing the American position through ridicule of the perceived enemy. 

Two email distributed items used television characters to reinforce the muscle flexing of retaliation. ‘Batman’s’ offsider Robin is seen riding under the wing of a fighter plane and the flashcard of ‘Who wants to be a Millionaire’ asks Osama bin Laden: ‘What chance have you got of seeing Christmas?’

And in a similar vein for music lovers:

Music, being an internationally recognised cultural expression, produced more than its share of PhotoShop jokes including the expected parody of the heavy metal band Anthrax. There was also a series of posters modelled on the current live festival circuit using the same type and design as events like Gatecrasher, Ministry of Sound and Vibes on a Summer’s Day. I suspect these are an Australian contribution because of their relationship with Australian music events. One has bin Laden as a rapper asking “Is it ‘cos I am Taliban?”

And the following line, a joke in a weak disguise, will be familiar to anyone who has watched the peculiar quiz show ‘The Weakest Link’:

Floor 106 – –

               —  you ARE the weakest link — goodbye.

Mention should also be made of the role of the mobile telephone in distributing folklore and jokes in particular. This is obviously a new technology however as it is about to enter phase three it will no doubt become very important as we continue to text ourselves silly. I have already tracked several jokes that appear to be exclusively disseminated by text message and at least two concerning the recent terrorist attacks. Oddly enough neither joke appeared to have email circulation and considering they both used strong language one needs to consider the private role of the mobile screen compared to the more public office screen. There are also many examples of cartoon illustration text jokes that currently receive wide circulation and a detailed study needs to be made on the folklore associated with this technology.

There were also some jokes that although they appeared to be spoken jokes were predominately spread via the Internet.

The FBI has arrested the head of advertising at the Empire State Building for involvement in the WTC disaster. A spokesman said he was caught with ‘Empire State: We’re Back!’ T-shirts in his office…

A man walks into a hotel bar and sees George Bush and Colin Powell having a drink.
He decides to ask them what they’re talking about.
“Well,” says Bush, “we’re discussing world war three.”
“Really, what’s going to happen?” asks the man.
And Bush says, “Well, we’re going to kill 100 million Afghans and a television journalist”
“A television journalist!” the obviously shocked man exclaimed.
And Bush turns to Powell and says “See, I told you no one would care about 100 Afghans.”

The Americans should enlist the support of Reader’s Digest to track down bin Laden.
I have travelled to eight different countries in the past five years, lived in three different countries and since moving to Australia three years ago I have moved house and home three times and Reader’s Digest still manages to find us.

 So-called ‘sick jokes’ are another thing again. These are intended to solicit a shock response of revulsion from the listener. Like many areas of humour jokes come in waves and there was a time when ‘sick jokes’ were extremely popular (circa 1960s). This was also around the same time as ‘Mommy, Mommy’ and ‘Elephant’ jokes and in many ways a preferred joke genre for children who wanted to shock their elders. In the case of disasters it obviously trivialises a taboo subject which normally would not be addressed in humour. The shock approach allows us to address the taboo although the teller and the listener both express feigned horror at the joke itself.  

Q: What was good about the crash of the WTC?
A: It really proved New York comes together in a crunch!

Q: Why has the World Trade Center restaurant three seating areas?
A: smoking, non-smoking and burned beyond recognition.

Q: Why are police and firemen New York’s finest?
A: Because now you can run them through a sieve.

Q: Why don’t they need any more volunteers at the WTC?
A: They have already found 5000 extra pairs of hands.

Q: Why didn’t Superman stop the planes from hitting the Trade Towers?
A: Because he’s a quadriplegic!

Ethnic slur jokes have proven to be one of the most virulent of all joke types. This genre works on the assumption that a particular race has a universal and usually unpleasant trait and therefore to joke abuse. Poles are usually considered dumb, being Jewish or Scottish equates to miserly behaviour, French men are over-sexed, Japanese are inscrutable, Germans are control freaks, black Americans have oversized penises and so on. The Irish for some reason have been the brunt of stupidity jokes for far too long and like all racist jokes one needs to look at history to uncover how such a traditional reputation evolved into common attitude. It seems that every race has a joke enemy and locally we would need to look across the Tasman to see how our New Zealand neighbours retaliate for all those awful Kiwi and sheep jokes Australians insist on telling. Our indigenous Australians have also been unfairly targeted as lazy and rowdy. As for the rest of us – we only have to look at how the British see us – noisy, uncouth and a bunch of Bazza McKenzies. Rest assured there are plenty of Aussie jokes that are far from flattering.

Here is an ethnic slur joke that, interestingly enough, circulated the day after Australia defeated Uruguay in the World Cup in November, 2001:

The recent world events produced the following joke, which was collected in several variants. The British version featured a Liverpudlian, the American version featured a Texan and there was also a Polish version from Philadelphia.

Q: Did you hear about the Irish security forces that surrounded a Dublin department  store?
A: They had a hot tip that Gossamer Bed Linen was on the third floor.

Q: Did you hear that Ireland sent their best undercover agent to kill Osama bin Laden?
A: Unfortunately she got her anthrax mixed up with the tampax and blew up the wrong cunt.

Then there’s the Polish terrorist who tried to crash the A-Train into the
World Trade Center.

And from our own ugly backyard:

After I had received the above I discovered a variant from Britain with a different bunch of discriminated culprits:

And then out of the blue comes another Australian variant:

The fact that the above ethnic slur/terrorist joke has been circulated in more than one country begs the question of its original birth. It could, of course, have been an American slur joke, however the fact remains that an Australian version exists and that means someone had to localise it and ‘launch’ it into cyberspace. 

Of course the ethnic slur joke rules supreme when we look at how the world now views Muslims. It is a simple case of guilty by association. One of the worst aspects of these disastrous times is that the media has painted all Muslims as dangerous terrorists. The attacks were clearly the work of extremists and not the average peacekeeping Muslim.

It is understandable that Osama bin Laden should be attacked by the media and be held up for ridicule through jokes however it is not reasonable that all Muslims be placed in the same role.

Many of the photoshop jokes appear to indiscriminately ridicule Afghans and Muslims and take advantage of the economic misfortunes of that country. They are not particularly clever jokes and, once again, designed to show the power of the USA over this territory and its people. Some of the jokes, like the ‘Afghan missile launcher’ are old chestnuts that are continually wheeled out in times of war. Folklore propaganda!

There have also been a number of photographs circulated as email that also have the intention of showing that all Afghans are idiots. Many of these appear as actual news photographs and there is no way of proving that they are authentic or fake. One suspects, because they are anonymous, that there is a good chance they are photoshop.        

The Taliban attitude to women, and I note that this is a fundamentalist attitude and not one associated with all Arabic cultures, also produced a large volume of jokes. The fact that the Taliban is far more restrictive than other cultures is taken as a point of ridicule and especially by feminists. Once again, according to the general media, the Taliban appears to prohibit anything that moves and, in particular, anything that America takes for granted. It appears that our immediate reaction to anything we do not understand is to consider it evil and unnecessary and therefore open to ridicule through humour. There were several photoshop illustrations referring to Taliban women however instead of championing their rights they denigrated them even further.

And another version in the guise of a Wanted Advertisement:

Then there is the general premise that all terrorists are dim-witted and Arab terrorists in particular. This, as discussed, is a folklore mechanism to show power over the enemy. Many of the photoshop jokes are mere sword-waving intended to both rally the troops and scare the opposition. The following illustrations are part of a large body of photoshop expressing America’s defence might and what Afghanistan can expect from war.

Some are posed as letters from Boeing and others have bin Laden flying a magic carpet followed closely by a fighter jet.

Surprisingly there were few jokes about the attack on the Pentagon. It is difficult to understand why this is so. Maybe the massive death toll of New York compared to that of Washington merely drowned the need for humour.

Some jokes are created and circulated as stories rather than the elementary question and answer style joke.

As an example of the folklore process I am relating three versions of the same joke based on the guise that they are imparting traditional father-to-son wisdom. I do this to show how jokes evolve. Which was the original? Who would know? Why was it obviously changed? One answer is that joke tellers constantly change jokes to suit their own performance techniques and language. Whatever the case there are most probably a dozen more variants of this same story hurtling through space right now.

GEORGE W BUSH VS OSAMA BIN LADEN

Considering our diplomatic and cultural relationship with America we accept their humour without too many questions. What folklorists need to ask is what humour, if any, has been created by the supporters of the Taliban. The answer might possibly lie in the uniqueness of individual cultures and also their attitude to humour. Did they create and circulate sick humour about the attacks on America? Did they place George W Bush and other leaders in a joke ridicule situation? Did they use the Internet to distribute such humour?

As the war against terrorism progressed it was inevitable that jokes would be circulated about Australia’s involvement. This one, possibly revived from an earlier war, has a distinct Australian attitude and is typical of the military folklore than provided the Australian Armed Forces with its mythical reputation.

BANNER MANIA

AN AMERICAN HOLIDAY

There were several photoshop emails that modified well-known products. Familiarity brings discontent?

Fake office memos have always been a popular expression in photocopy lore. They appear on office notice boards and usually lampoon some aspect of the office management or procedures. Like many other aspects of photocopy lore they are now appearing on email screens.

The popularity of the WWW and its accessibility to the common man (and woman) has created a world wide chat room. It reminds me of my youth when I would venture down to Sydney’s Domain parkland to hear all manner of sage, lunatic and zealot spruik about all and nothing at all. It was here that I listened to one of the last of the Wobblies as he yelled out ‘International Workers of the World’ to which the audience would chant back ‘IWW – It Won’t Work!’. The Internet reminds me of those soapbox days and the messages are as garbled as ever. It has also seen the distribution of well-intended, often misguided, facts and especially ‘lists’ on how to make our world a better place. No one could or should argue with such intentions however a zealot is still a zealot however he or she is packaged.      

Several computer desktop graphics were circulated after America declared its War on Terrorism. The following enabled viewers to ‘shoot’ at bin Laden and even provided a scoreboard.

The following email was given wide distribution soon after the terrorist attacks and whilst it appears to come from the heart of a supposedly brilliant young man it still has the vagueness one associates with urban lore.  On reading Alex’s prose I decided to tap his name into the Internet and lo and behold he not only exists but also is an Australian living in Sydney. What interested me is the accompanying questioning dialogue where www users asked if Alex Hartman is real. There was no mention of the following screed on the postings so there is still no way of ascertaining its validity. Whatever the case the sentiments are real. (Alex Hartman is a lad who became a millionaire in Year 11 or 12 for designing some piece of software that the mega-computer companies salivated over. On the subject of the crisis in Afghanistan he writes:) 

Here is another example. These messages often appear as if they are chain letters however, unfortunately, they also look as if they carry a virus. There is a whole folklore associated with such viruses. Beware of false prophets especially when they have a virus attachment!

Here is a similar piece however this one has a feminist joke in its tail:

In a similar feminist vein this item spells out the role of the American women.

Sex, like humour, can be a powerful weapon and it is not surprising that some jokes, and especially photoshop, used sex to belittle bin Lager’s reputation. Most are cheap shots involving homosexuality and bestiality.

t is clear that many people see the Internet as their way to salvation. They use it as a pulpit and, considering the garbage delivered to our screens, this is not necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes emails arrive in the form of an intended wake-up call pontificating on what the world could be. The following item certainly pulls no punches as it dissects the world’s population and, if it achieves little else, it makes us think about our life on this strange old planet where, according to a 2001 United Nations survey,  more than half the world’s population has never used a telephone!

Here’s something worth pondering:

When one considers our world from such a compressed perspective, the need for acceptance, understanding and education becomes glaringly apparent.

The following is also something to ponder…

Of course, we tend to blindly believe all such percentages as fact. I haven’t checked these figures and for all I know they could be way off the mark. In some ways these goodwill messages have replaced chain letters however I rush to point out that the chain letter has not completely disappeared however they are now chain emails.

The following humorous piece is disguised as an authentic announcement in the style of a company press release. This particular item was said to quote the ‘voice of Sharia’ Sun. October 7, 2001. In earlier times this would have been photocopied and circulated on paper.

The Taliban’s repressive attitude to women appears to make the feminist folklore wheels turn at an unprecedented rate. The fundamentalist Muslim Taliban forbids the education of women, requires them to be completely subservient and to hide their faces from everyone except their husband. It is understandable that jokes would follow:

Message to the Taliban from the American people.

       Surrender Osama bin Laden or we will take all your women and send them to college.

History teaches us that we should never underestimate the power of a song. Several songs have come out of the War on Terrorism. These need to be placed in perspective in regard to how we use songs in this day and age.  The parody of a well-known popular tune is still the most favoured vehicle. This makes sense since so many people immediately recognise the song which, in turn, enables the song to gain wider circulation.

John Warner’s contribution to the tune of the Banana Boat Song

And the following sung to the tune of Tom Leher’s classic ‘Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh’ (Camp Granada) of the 1960s.

And in the spirit of Dr. Seuss . . .

One of the most circulated items in the collection was 100% Australian as it parodied one of our best-known beer commercials. This parody appeared with and without a photographic endorsement by bin Lager himself!

Another Australian television commercial found itself in the middle of the War on Terrorism when Toyota’s ‘bugger’ campaign jumped continents to find itself in Afghanistan.

Another Australian creation featured a letter from Prime Minister Howard.

Anthony Mundine, an Australian Muslim and prizefighter found himself in a pickle when he attempted to explain the Muslim side of the argument. Parody was not far behind him and the following went into circulation two days later.

What better story than one that lets you put shit on terrorism and Kiwis at the same time!

The attack on the World Trade Center and The Pentagon, two obvious symbols of American power, coincided with an economic disaster in Australia in the collapse of Ansett Airlines. Both events, although obviously unrelated, provided an opportunistic study of disaster folklore at work.

The demise of Ansett Airlines came as a complete shock to most Australians. Ansett, along with Qantas Airways, dominated the domestic airline business in Australia for many years and had achieved iconic status. Its collapse, supposedly influenced by decisions made by the controlling interests of the Air New Zealand Board of Directors resulted in thousands of people being thrown into unemployment including the closure of many associated businesses. Then there were the thousands of people stranded across Australia and several international ports. It was unbelievably messy and no one seemed to want to accept the blame. Out of this turmoil came humour as jokes were created and transmitted verbally and, once again, via the Internet. PhotoShop folklore played an important part in this story as would-be graphic designers made light of tragic situations.

The great wonder to me as a folklorist was the number of jokes and images that married the two disasters with Ansett management and the international terrorists meeting in the middle ground. I also believe that the Internet has provided another platform for jokes. Obviously the visual and in some cases the audio jokes are exclusively the domain of the screen however it seems as if it is seen as a way of telling a joke that would normally be considered no-go territory. Sexually explicit jokes that depict Osmar bin Laden having sex with a donkey simply wouldn’t work as a joke but it does work as an image especially when the caption on the email is related and humorous such as ‘Osama bin Laden’s last known position’.

Q: What is the definition of bad luck?
A: Being stranded in Afghanistan with an Ansett ticket, trying to make a call on your One-Tel mobile to your HIH Insurance contact.

Q: What is the safest way to fly to America?
A: Ansett. 

Q: What is the best way to walk to Sydney?
A: Ansett.

First pilot, “I heard you got a new position with Ansett Airlines..
Don’t they have kind of a lousy safety record?”
“I’ll say,” answered the second pilot. “Last week two of their
flight simulators collided.”

The recent accidental death of singer-turned-television presenter ‘Shirley’ Strachan shocked Australians and jokes were circulating within days of this popular entertainer’s death. Once again jokes played a role in allowing us to address the subject of death and, in this case, of an individual who was known to the community as a public figure. We feel like we ‘know’ such people however it is usually their public face that we actually know. A typical joke enquired:

Q: Why did Shirley Strachan die?
A: Because he didn’t have Skyhooks to support him.

This joke only works when the audience knows that Shirley was lead singer of the rock group Skyhooks and has an understanding of the folklore associated with the mythical concept of sky hooks. Of course this joke is simply an obvious play on words however it is also assumed that the listener knows that he dies in an air crash. This is another reason why such jokes have a use by date.

Disasters come in all shapes and disguises – the 1980/90’s collapse of several of Australia’s most successful financial youngbloods was certainly viewed as a disaster by those who lost their money. Christopher Skase escaped to the island of Majorca to avoid prosecution and humour only got its revenge after his death in 2001.

Q: What is the difference between Pixie Skase and The Aussie cricket team?
A: At least Pixie got to take the Ashes home

Let it be said that joking is an inevitable and socially therapeutic response to disaster and possibly the desire to have the last word on the subject before resuming normal life.

Similarly the collapse of the Thredbo snow village in 2000 shocked Australians until one survivor, Stuart Diver, was discovered under the debris. It was a dramatic and sad time however having a survivor, even if only one, played an important role in the shared healing surrounding the many deaths. Once again we relieved the tension with jokes.

Q: Did you hear Stuart Driver has returned to Thredbo?
A: He wanted to see some of his old flat mates 

The Palace Backpacker Hostel fire in 2000 was a distressful media event surrounded by mystery. The following joke, although set in far away Mexico, is obviously related to this fire.

In 2001 Australia experienced an invasion that created definite rifts in the fabric of its society. Boatloads of illegal refugees were coming from Iraq and Afghanistan via our neighbour Indonesia. Being a massive island, Australia is an obvious target for such illegal entry. The Government ran a scare campaign as an election issue however the fact remained that these were genuine refugees in a real problem. Many Australians were horrified by the entire episode and especially with the many associated unnecessary deaths. Once again, it was not a time for humour however folklorists know that racism, which was certainly at the root of this problem, has a particular association with black humour. John Thompson wrote this parody based on a medley of traditional Christmas carols. It is included to show that the art of parody is alive and kicking.

 No doubt psychologists could analysis these jokes and joke tellers and deliver an insightful verdict. The fact is that we do not always want to hear such verdicts waving it away with protests of “too much information!”

There is a pattern or similarity not only in the kind of jokes specific tellers tell, but also in the kinds and subjects of jokes to which specific listeners can and will listen with pleasure or at least with forbearance. Also positive taboos as to what kind of jokes  – or even words – they will not listen to and cannot stand. It is important to realise that the distinction between teller and listener is one of the least real or rigid social rules.

It is a fact very few people actually make up or invent jokes, or would even be capable of doing so. If they say they are then they are invariably repeating the jokes they have heard – usually quite recently – sometimes with minor changes. I have never made up a joke neither have I ever met anyone who has. Most people who believe and insist that they have made up jokes, or that they can do so usually operate in the area of verbal puns that are by no means the same thing as jokes. Since the jokes that are told are really only being repeated from previous listening, in the deeper sense teller and listener are indivisible and identical. It must never be overlooked that the tellers of jokes are also the principal audience for jokes. Jokes tend to be told to the people from whom you hear jokes, as a sort of exchange. The fact that the Internet is now a major distributor of jokes will change this because we simply have no control to stop the flow.

As with all jokes the teller visibly reveals himself in the choice of his subjects and in his special handling of them, although it is not always possible to put an exact psychological name-label to what one sees. The teller usually wants to remain masked and this most probably highlights the anonymous role played by the Internet. Often this veil is pretence that he is retelling a true anecdote or he is simply trying to fool the reader/listener. Sometimes it is a test of endurance – the telling of a brutal story, sometimes for the thousandth time – is really offered to test the listener and also to test the teller yet again.

The idea that horror-stories of this kind have some sort of cathartic value for either the teller or listener is brought out by the sheer number of people who obviously felt compelled to pass on the New York disaster jokes. I see this immediate transfer or sharing of humour as a way of retaliating, especially the ones that directly attack or belittle Osama bin Laden. When you make a joke about those more powerful than yourself, and even those who in some way determine your life, it is a way of striking back. Some observers say that the main type of joke is one made by people about those they imagine are their inferiors or jokes made by those with power about those who are powerless. There are many such jokes especially in the racist genre but the reverse also thrives. A good example of this being the large body of jokes from the 1930s and 1940s Jews made about Germans and the jokes that Russians made about Soviet Communism. The intention is to ridicule your oppressor and in doing so disarm him. Humour can do this very effectively and the jokes about Osama bin Laden are aimed at reducing the terrorist’s supposed power.

There is no escaping the horrors on the attack on New York where thousands of people, including many Australians, died a most terrifying death. To joke about such horror and to prepare a book such as this may seem ghoulish however the reality is that this event, and the other examples cited here, did happen and the humour was a universal result of that event. It is how we attempted to cope with  devastating and unprecedented horror stories. Joking about the horror and death is possibly an attempt to answer something that cannot be answered. Joking returns some sort of balance to a world turned upside down. Psychologists will tell you that by confronting a demon you can have power over that demon. If you can laugh about it, it hasn’t completely won.