Anti-Jokes
An anti-joke is a joke that sets up a traditional joke format but then delivers a punchline that is deliberately not funny in the expected way. Instead of a pun or a clever twist, the punchline is mundane, literal, or absurdly straightforward. The humor comes from the violation of your expectation that a joke will have a funny punchline.
How Anti-Humor Works
Anti-jokes are a form of meta-humor — they're jokes about jokes. When someone starts with "Why did the chicken cross the road?", you brace yourself for a pun. When the answer is "To get to the other side," the humor (such as it is) comes from the aggressive ordinariness of the answer. Your brain expected cleverness and got sincerity, and that gap is funny. This connects to the incongruity theory — the surprise is that there's no surprise. Dad jokes often operate on a similar principle.
What's red and bad for your teeth?
A brick.
What did the farmer say when he lost his tractor?
"Where's my tractor?"
What's green and has wheels?
Grass. I lied about the wheels.
A horse walks into a bar.
Several patrons get up and leave, recognizing the potential danger of the situation.
An Englishman, an Irishman, and a Scotsman walk into a bar.
They all enjoy a nice pint and go home.
Why did the boy drop his ice cream?
He got hit by a bus.
What do you call a dog with no legs?
It doesn't matter. He's not going to come.
What's worse than finding a worm in your apple?
The Holocaust.
Anti-Jokes in Comedy History
The anti-joke tradition has deep roots. Norm MacDonald was famous for his long, shaggy-dog anti-joke style (see long-form jokes). Andy Kaufman built an entire career on subverting what audiences expected from comedy. The anti-joke format is ultimately about the relationship between a comedian and the audience's expectations — it's comedy that is very aware of itself. For more on the theory, see incongruity theory.