Firstly I must say I do like the joke but as a joke I have heard before gives me a chance to ask a question I have not been sure of the answer to. When using old jokes this by the number of votes is acceptable where as others have been accused of theft (sorry couldnt think of right word) from other sites, as i have often seen photos which remind me of jokes but never sure if allowed to use was wondering if there is any sort of rule or is it just a grey area which you have to decide for yourself?
This also has me baffled - perhaps people have not heard the joke before but to get 4 x creative votes for recycling I struggle to understand. The joke is the first thing I thought when I saw the picture but left it alone but then I have once or twice used an old classic gag. In short not sure what the position is. A very good captioneer - Steve Fosbraey was run out of town for lifting gags from pictures - he did very well with them, they were less well known and he did it on a lot of his best captions. Maybe if the gag is very well known it does not need a nod perhaps others should give a not to the origin - I know a comment earlier on this one mentioned Milton Jones but that has gone and many people may not know the joke, hence all of the creative votes Just thought I would check out the Paddy on the escalator gag as it seemed well crafted and found that one. Not sure what the etiquette should be.
Personally I've never heard this joke, just thought it was good so I voted for it. As for the escalator joke, I heard it yonks ago and to me it's not really a caption, just an old joke supported by a picture of an escalator, therefore I didn't vote for it. So there's your answer. Post what you want. Some people might like it and some people might not.
All well-made and pertinent comments, but I didn't actually know it was a joke done elsewhere- a snowman was the first thing that came to mind when I saw the picture of a load of carrots. I think I was remembering the old joke about the snowman asking "can you smell carrots?", but thinking that the ones in the picture looked a bit unhealthy, like stacked corpses. I didn't know anyone had commented on Milton Jones, so I've only just googled him and seen the similarity- his is much better, with a long setup to a short punch line, the perfect gag.
Personally, I feel that if people want to rewrite other people's jokes to fit the picture, it's fine, so long as they change it in some meaningful way. I don't mind if people re-use my captions if they present it in a completely different context. I always try to be as original as I can, but it's inevitable that at some point I'll have been beaten to it elsewhere. Everything has pretty much been done before in some form (probably by The Simpsons), so inevitably there are going to be similarities to other jokes. It's when it's a direct lift it becomes a problem- Steve Fosbraey was an excellent captioner, but he was criticised for just copying-and-pasting other people's jokes then claiming credit as his own.
A good example would be Ricky Gervais in stand-up, who ripped-off Stewart Lee's manner and performance style, but got away with it because he wrote his own material, as compared to Joe Pasquale, who sends hired lackeys to other comic's gigs to record them and then steal their jokes verbatim. Gervais was clever about it, going on to rip off Garry Shandling, Larry David and a host of others in a round-a-bout manner by actually reworking their material. Pasquale is a cheap rip-off merchant who makes money out of other people's work and passes it off as his own. I'm not sure where I'm going with this, since I hate both of these comics, but if forced at gunpoint to be like either of them, it would be Gervais every time. Ideally, I'd like to be as original and brilliant as Stewart Lee or Daniel Kitson, but that is never going to happen, so I just try to be as original as I can, or else quote lines pinched from famous movies. As Woody Allen once wrote of James Joyce: "To forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race, and then see if I can get it mass-produced in plastic."
In general I would agree with Mark England to post what you want and let others decide although i would not want it to be too often that tweeking an established joke gets the best votes and so encourage everyone to follow suit resulting in a list of old gags with slight changes to fit the picture..
Fitting old jokes to captions isn't what I would do personally but each to their own, there's a big difference between getting inspiration from an old joke and then adapting it and citing an old gag word for word. A nod to the original is good form too surely. I haven't voted for either the carrot or the escalator as I prefer captions that are original...but lots of others did, so it's obviously a matter of opinion.
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Firstly I must say I do like the joke but as a joke I have heard before gives me a chance to ask a question I have not been sure of the answer to. When using old jokes this by the number of votes is acceptable where as others have been accused of theft (sorry couldnt think of right word) from other sites, as i have often seen photos which remind me of jokes but never sure if allowed to use was wondering if there is any sort of rule or is it just a grey area which you have to decide for yourself?
11:42am
This also has me baffled - perhaps people have not heard the joke before but to get 4 x creative votes for recycling I struggle to understand. The joke is the first thing I thought when I saw the picture but left it alone but then I have once or twice used an old classic gag. In short not sure what the position is. A very good captioneer - Steve Fosbraey was run out of town for lifting gags from pictures - he did very well with them, they were less well known and he did it on a lot of his best captions.
Maybe if the gag is very well known it does not need a nod perhaps others should give a not to the origin - I know a comment earlier on this one mentioned Milton Jones but that has gone and many people may not know the joke, hence all of the creative votes
Just thought I would check out the Paddy on the escalator gag as it seemed well crafted and found that one. Not sure what the etiquette should be.
1:46pm
Personally I've never heard this joke, just thought it was good so I voted for it. As for the escalator joke, I heard it yonks ago and to me it's not really a caption, just an old joke supported by a picture of an escalator, therefore I didn't vote for it. So there's your answer. Post what you want. Some people might like it and some people might not.
3:38pm
All well-made and pertinent comments, but I didn't actually know it was a joke done elsewhere- a snowman was the first thing that came to mind when I saw the picture of a load of carrots. I think I was remembering the old joke about the snowman asking "can you smell carrots?", but thinking that the ones in the picture looked a bit unhealthy, like stacked corpses. I didn't know anyone had commented on Milton Jones, so I've only just googled him and seen the similarity- his is much better, with a long setup to a short punch line, the perfect gag.
Personally, I feel that if people want to rewrite other people's jokes to fit the picture, it's fine, so long as they change it in some meaningful way. I don't mind if people re-use my captions if they present it in a completely different context. I always try to be as original as I can, but it's inevitable that at some point I'll have been beaten to it elsewhere. Everything has pretty much been done before in some form (probably by The Simpsons), so inevitably there are going to be similarities to other jokes. It's when it's a direct lift it becomes a problem- Steve Fosbraey was an excellent captioner, but he was criticised for just copying-and-pasting other people's jokes then claiming credit as his own.
A good example would be Ricky Gervais in stand-up, who ripped-off Stewart Lee's manner and performance style, but got away with it because he wrote his own material, as compared to Joe Pasquale, who sends hired lackeys to other comic's gigs to record them and then steal their jokes verbatim. Gervais was clever about it, going on to rip off Garry Shandling, Larry David and a host of others in a round-a-bout manner by actually reworking their material. Pasquale is a cheap rip-off merchant who makes money out of other people's work and passes it off as his own. I'm not sure where I'm going with this, since I hate both of these comics, but if forced at gunpoint to be like either of them, it would be Gervais every time. Ideally, I'd like to be as original and brilliant as Stewart Lee or Daniel Kitson, but that is never going to happen, so I just try to be as original as I can, or else quote lines pinched from famous movies. As Woody Allen once wrote of James Joyce: "To forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race, and then see if I can get it mass-produced in plastic."
3:52pm
In general I would agree with Mark England to post what you want and let others decide although i would not want it to be too often that tweeking an established joke gets the best votes and so encourage everyone to follow suit resulting in a list of old gags with slight changes to fit the picture..
4:11pm
Fitting old jokes to captions isn't what I would do personally but each to their own, there's a big difference between getting inspiration from an old joke and then adapting it and citing an old gag word for word. A nod to the original is good form too surely.
I haven't voted for either the carrot or the escalator as I prefer captions that are original...but lots of others did, so it's obviously a matter of opinion.
4:33pm