So I’m in my linguistics tutorial the other day, and the girl next to me makes a phonological derivations joke, and we both laugh. We don’t, however, run out and publish a book of our nerdy jokes, or even tell the people who love us about the jokes, because we understand that they are nerdy (the jokes).
In the same way, half of the jokes in Plato and a Platypus are probably waaaaaaaaaaay funnier (bringing them up to the level of ‘elicits a brief grin’) if you’re a philosopher. Or if you’re an old man whose humor includes much guffawing, a bit of knee-slapping, and several aggressive elbows to the ribs.
Par example: There are three kinds of people in the world: those who can count and those who can’t. They used this joke! They didn’t just reel it off after three glasses of wine, when dad-jokes are suddenly, inaccountably hilarious, and they didn’t chuck it into the intarwebs circa 1998. They PUT IT IN THEIR BOOK!! AND THEN PUBLISHED IT!!!! IN 2007!!!!!
Interspersed between the ‘Take my wife…please!’ tomfoolery is a sort of sketch of philosophy, which I think is sort of supposed to be the point. It is, unfortunately, too brief and holey to be of any use to anyone who’s not an idiot, but I wouldn’t give it to an idiot (by which I mean, a teenager) as a philosophy primer because a third of the jokes have penises in them! And we all know that teenagers and penises do not mix (unless, of course, they have them…this is rapidly getting out of hand).
Le sigh. Promising, but ultimately disappointing.
Three caterpillars.