We had a joke writing contest for our subscribers the first part of 2005. Many of our readers submitting lines used the technique of forking to stimulate their creativity. The contest was to write a line for “If BLANK made toasters then…” For example:
If Xerox made toasters, you could toast one-side or double-sided.
And successive slices would get lighter and lighter.
The trap that is easy to fall into is to start searching for different companies that could be used to create humorous lines. The trick is to break out of the tunnel vision of thinking: Wal-Mart, Target, Enron, Nike, etc. We need to take the fork-in-the-road to get ourselves brainstorming in other categories. There are many forks in the road. We had a joke writing contest for our subscribers the first part of 2005. Many of our readers submitting lines used the technique of forking to stimulate their creativity. The contest was to write a line for “If BLANK made toasters then…” For example:
When writing Toaster jokes, what other forks might there be? How about religions? If Lutherans made toasters… If Catholics made toasters… If atheists made toasters… If Buddhists made toasters…
How about celebrities? If Madonna made toasters… If Elton John made toasters… If Seinfeld made toasters…
How about politicians? If George Bush made toasters… If Clinton made toasters… If Gerald Ford made toasters…
How about people who are no longer living? If George Washington made toasters… If Elvis made toasters… If George Burns made toasters…
How about characters and entertainers for children? If Big Bird made toasters? If Mr Rogers made toasters… If Miss Piggy made toasters…
How about countries? If Japan made toasters… If Norway made toasters… If New Zealand made toasters…
Lets take a big jump. What if seasons made toasters? If Winter made toasters… If Summer made toasters… If Spring made toasters…
What you are doing is opening the range of your creative possibilities. You will not use every item you come up with, but remembering that good humor writing is a numbers game, the larger quantity of lines that your write, the more great lines you will come up with.
Here are some of the lines our subscribers came up with:
- If financial planners made toasters, the bread would pop up and down but turn out just fine in 5 – 10 years.
- If Social Security made toasters, we would worry if there would be enough people putting bread in when we needed toast.
- If telemarketers made toasters, they would work only in the middle of your dinner.
- If Mohammad made toasters, they would be for prophet.
- If Wyle E. Coyote made toasters they would char the user instead of the bread.
- If bread made toasters, they would sell them as “portable tanning salons.”
- If Cinderella made a toaster at 12 pm it would turn into a deluxe oven.
- If Britney Spears made a toaster it would be made of plastic.
- If Bob Barker made a toaster the price would be right.
- If CPAs made toasters, every crumb would count.
- If Martha Stewart made toasters they would be a good thing.
- If Harley Davidson made toasters, they would be noisy and expensive and need frequent repairs, and only the coolest people would buy them.
- If the military made toasters they would have a 100 year surplus in warehouses throughout the country.
- If airline baggage handlers made toasters, your toast would end up in Cleveland.
- If Las Vegas made toasters, you’d have to put in a LOT of bread before any came back.
- If the Mafia made toasters you would have to give them your bread or you’re toast.
Take the forks in the road to expand your creativity!
Copyright 2005 by John Kinde
By John Kinde, Motivational Humorist from Las Vegas, NV.
(702) 263-4363 www.humorpower.com