EPISODE 1017: A MAN WALKS INTO A BAR

You'd think he would have ducked.

POP CULTURE SPIRIT WOW

Today I want to talk about jokes. One joke, actually, kind of the grandaddy of all jokes. A man walks into a bar.

They’re ancient, if you can believe it. Author Mark Forsyth traces them all the way back to Ancient Sumer, which existed 6500 years ago. And probably they go back even farther than that. As long as there have been drinking establishments, there have been almost certainly been jokes about people walking into them. Because that’s how jokes work—they take a familiar situation and give it a twist you don’t see coming.

I’m sure in your lifetime you’ve heard a million of them.

A rabbi walks into a bar with a parrot on his shoulder.
The bartender says, “Where did you get that?”
The parrot says, “Brooklyn, they’re everywhere!”

(That was a Robin Williams joke, part of this great Reddit collection of MWIABs).

“A man walks into a bar” jokes constitute the simplest and purest form of comedy.

We get a situation: A man walks into a bar. Then a set up: The bartender says or asks something. Finally, a punch line.

A grasshopper hops into a bar. 
The  bartender says, “Hey, we’ve got a drink named after you!” 
And the grasshopper says, “You have a drink named Trevor?”

A horse walks into a bar.
The bartender says, “Hey!”
The horse sits down and replies, “Sure, why not.”

Because everyone knows the form, and it’s so simple, Man Walks into a Bar jokes engage the listener in a unique way. You can’t help but try to anticipate what’s coming.

But the fact that everyone knows the basic form also gives the comedian the means to use those expectations against them. They can make the punchline come earlier, when listeners won’t expect it.

A ghost walks into a bar.
The bartender says, "Sorry, we don't serve spirits."

A horse walks into a bar.
The bartender says, “Why the long face?”

A dung beetle walks into a bar and asks, “Is this stool taken?”

Or sometimes the form gets expanded into a shaggy dog.

A man walks into a bar at the top of the Empire State Building.
"What're you drinking?" the man asks the guy on the next stool.
"Magic beer," says the guy.
“Magic beer?” the man asks. “Give me a break. There’s no such thing.”

After arguing about it for a few minutes, the guy says "I'll prove it to you."
He goes to a window, forces it open, chugs his beer and then jumps out the window.
“Oh my God!” the man shouts. But suddenly the guy floats up, flies back in through the window, sits back down at his stool, and orders another.

The man runs to the bar and says to the bartender, "I want what he's having!"
He chugs the beer, throws himself out the window, and plummets to his death.

The bartender shakes his head. "You know, Superman, you’re a real a-hole when you drink.”

The thing I love about shaggy dogs is that they completely undermine the listeners’ sense of what the joke is and when it’s coming. The angrier the listeners get, the better you’re doing.

An Irishman walks into a bar in New York City and orders three pints of beer. He drinks each one in turn, and walks out. The next night he returns, and again orders three pints of beer, and then again the next night. The bartender offers to serve them consecutively so they won’t go flat, but the Irishman explains, “I’d rather see them all lined up before me. I left two brothers behind in Ireland, and since we used to meet at the pub every night and have a pint together, I feel closer to them when I come drink my pint and their two.”

He does this every day for a month, then for six months, then for a whole year—orders three pints, drinks each one in turn, and then walks out.

Then one night, the Irishman fails to come in. The regulars spend the whole night talking about him, wondering if he’s okay or what could have happened. And it goes on like this for three days—the bar opens, the regulars gather, and they wait, but he never comes in.

The following night he finally returns. But when he sits at the bar, he orders only two pints. The regulars and the bartender exchange surprised and sad looks. When the bartender serves him his two beers, he says, “I see you didn’t order a beer for one of your brothers. Our condolences on your loss.”

“Oh, my brothers are still alive,” the Irishman says, taking the first beer. “My doctor just made me promise to give up drinking.”

Feel free to scream.

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Though you may not know it, if you’re of a certain age you probably spent the better part of a decade allowing a brilliant set of TV writers to tell you Man Walks into a Bar jokes. In 1982, creators Glen Charles, Les Charles and James Burrows debuted a new comedy about a bar in Boston called Cheers.

Amongst the show’s many hilarious eccentrics, there was one guy whose whole thing was being a loveable loser. And almost every time he came on set, often at the start of the episode, he entered from the street, hung up his coat, had a moment’s interaction with the bartenders, in which they asked him a question, and then delivered a joke.

Here he is in the pilot:

Norm enters, hangs up his coat.
NORM: Afternoon everybody.
EVERYBODY: NORM!
SAM: How you doing, Norm, what do you know?
NORM: Not enough.

It’s the same formula every time. Norm enters, he says hello as he hangs up his coat. The bartender asks him a question. He delivers a punchline.

Norm Peterson was in fact a living, breathing Man Walks into a Bar joke.

Some years ago Peacock (née NBC) released a supercut of all of Norm’s entrances into the bar. It’s an absolute delight.

The thing I find most fascinating is that the bartenders’ lines vary only a very small amount. What’s the story, Norm? What are you up to, Norm? How you doing, Norm?

Or he gets asked what he wants to drink, does he want a beer? (He always wants a beer.)

And yet, Norm’s responses always follow very directly on the exact words used by the bartender.

COACH: How you doing, Norm?
NORM: Coach, I’m on top of the world. It’s a dismal spot in Greenland somewhere.

SAM: What are you up to, Norm?
NORM: My ears.

COACH: How’s a beer sound, Norm?
NORM: I don’t know, Coach, I usually finish them before I get a word in.

We even get a clear nod at times to the bit’s underlying Man Walks Into a Bar form:

COACH: What’s the story, Norm?
NORM: Thirsty guy walks into a bar. You finish it.

The questions the bartenders ask are so general, you wouldn’t even think there was room to make a joke out of the specific language they use. But time and again the Cheers writers do it.

The other thing that’s so impressive watching the supercut is how infrequently the writers mess with the structure of the bit to get a laugh. Normally a bit like this, where there’s such a clear structure, messing with that structure becomes a whole new way of generating laughs. But by my count the Cheers writers did that maybe 4 times in 11 years. There’s one bit where Norm is so freaked out for some reason he can barely get out “Afternoon everybody” and ends up sitting on the stairs. There’s the one where he comes in and everyone calls him by a different name. And maybe one or two others.

I don’t know why the writers didn’t play with the bit further, but I’m going to guess it was discipline. I bet they thought the laugh you get from breaking the structure was unearned, because it wasn’t about landing the joke. It was the easy way, and so they refused to take it.

Again, I don’t know if that’s the case, but if it is, in a word familiar to readers of this newsletter, wow. Way to commit.

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There’s one major difference between MWIAB jokes and Norm walks into Cheers jokes. It’s how the Norm jokes begin: Rather than just walking in, he says hello, and then everyone shouts—no, not shouts, cheers—his name.

It’s fascinating to watch that happen over and over on the supercut. It’s clearly so much fun for the whole cast, this great moment they all get to share at the top of the episode. It puts a wonderful feeling in the room. (I wonder how often the stage crew had to tell the audience ahead of time, Please do not yell Norm with the cast. We know you want to. We get it. But if you don’t, we promise we’ll all yell it together at the end.)

But while the shouted line is what we all remember, that moment where this group of people brought to life exactly what the show was about, the home and welcome you find in your crazy group of friends, it’s the line that precedes it that’s actually more important. They shout Norm! because he says hello. They’re responding to him seeing them and treating them like the family he’s happy to see (as compared to his long-suffering wife Vera). If you think about it, even his punchlines are often little bits of revelation about his life that he probably wouldn’t share with his actual family.

And the other thing is, he let them delight in him. He allowed them to cheer for him. Maybe it’s just me, but I think there’s great generosity of spirit in that.

Obviously I’m thinking about Cheers and Norm right now because George Wendt died last week. He actually died on the 32nd anniversary of the show’s finale, which ended with him leaving the bar and then Sam realizing Cheers was the true love of his life.

Clearly there’s a lot more that can be said about this man than the fact that he played a barfly in a coat and tie 40 years ago. But perhaps we all hear his name and think Norm! not because we have no imagination and also the world is on fire so please don’t judge us, but because George Wendt gave us something special every week, a chance to delight in him and in doing so to somehow feel less alone, a part of a community.

Maybe that’s why the writers never wanted to mess with the format of the joke. They knew each week in his own effortless way, George was going to bring the real twist, a moment that helped us feel better about our lives.

May he rest in peace.

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I’ll be back later in the week for the June Wowmanac! And remember, four day weeks are just like five day weeks, only three thousand years longer.