With the new year of 2024 CE kicking off, I am reminded—as I imagine we all are—of a clever joke I once heard some random comedian from the 1980s tell on late-night television. I mean, who among us didn’t watch a lot of late-night television rather than face the bleak void of nothingness and Freddie Kruger-cursed slumber?
Good comedy is timeless, even in 2024.
Conveniently, the premise of the joke is flexible enough to be updated every year. And, fair warning, I don’t remember it verbatim, but the essence of the joke went kinda something like this:
“Can you believe it’s already the Chinese Year of The Dragon? Apparently, I can’t—I’m still writing Year of The Rabbit on all my checks!”
—unknown comedian from the 80s, or maybe 90s.
To this day, that joke makes me laugh out loud. But, you know, inside my head.
Happy 2024, everybody! And yes, I realize the Chinese New Year isn’t until the second new moon after the winter solstice. Also, I don’t think that joke’s offensive to people from China, but I’ve been wrong before. Let me know in the comments. And don’t forget to Like and Subscribe!
An explainer for young people.
If you didn’t understand that joke, congratulations, you’re young and I hate you. But I’ll now try to explain why it’s funny. You see, prior to Venmo®, “checks” were tiny pieces of physical paper—handwritten, dated, and signed—that told a bank to give your money to someone else. “Late-night television” consisted of talk shows and comedy intended for broadcast after 11:00PM, when only depressed adults would be awake regretting their life choices. And, back in the 1980s, most “comedians” were white men in ill-fitting suits, raising the nations’ consciousness about the declining quality of airline food.
