Narrator: A MAN WALKS INTO A BAR explained
T-Rex: Many jokes begin with this line. It is called the "set-up", and is analogous to establishing-shots in films or first paragraphs in essays.
T-Rex: It alerts the audience that what follows is likely to be a short story with a humourous climax!
T-Rex: What is the attraction to this structure of humour? Why are there so many jokes about men walking into bars?
T-Rex: Part of the attraction to this structure may be its possibilities: most anything can happen in a bar, especially if this bar is contained within the wild and woolly world of the verbal jest.
Utahraptor: What about the joke, "A man walks into a bar... ouch!"?
T-Rex: Good question!
T-Rex: The joke assumes some sophistication on the part of the audience, an expectation gleamed from previous jokes that the bar is a drinking establishment.
Utahraptor: Go on!
T-Rex: The "ouch" is startling. How could entering a bar hurt? It forces us to now re-evaluate our most basic assumptions.
T-Rex: We must ask ourselves, "What if the bar was an bar proper, and by walking into it the man actually, physically, walked into it?"
T-Rex: It is this confusion on the part of the listener that is responsible for the humour!
