Dan Patrick's Monologue Joke Mondays

Wherein I over-analyze the joke at the bottom of Dan Patrick's "Just my Type" page in Sports Illustrated. These jokes are so wonderfully awful, I hope they are supposed to be a parody.

From Last Week’s SI (with a cover that I totally forget to mention):

“Anaheim shocked Detroit in triple OT in Game 2 of their Stanley Cup series. Red Wings fans were so upset, they threw the Octomom onto the ice.”

Why It Is Hilarious

For more than fifty years, Detroit Red Wings fans have thrown octopi on the ice of playoff games. It is viewed as a sign of good luck. In the fifties, it took eight wins to earn the Stanley Cup – an octopus has eight tentacles. During the long Game 2 of the Wings/Ducks series, Red Wings fans may have gotten desperate and thrown something with potentially a bit more luck than an octopus. Octomom may have been appropriate. Octomom has the prefix “octo”, as does the word “octopus”. Related!

Why It Sucks

This is the kind of joke that gets just a small spattering of laughs on a late night show. The host holds the silence for an extra long time and eventually starts explaining the joke to the band leader.

HOST: “You know? Octomom? Those crazy Wings fans throw the OC-TOE-pi (he pronounces it slowly because it sounds funny) on the ice. For luck, I guess.”

(As the host trails off into nothingness, the band leader laughs.)

BAND LEADER: “Nooo, no, no, I get it. It’s funny.”

HOST: “Well, you’re surenhe fpfht lremf (mumbling something derisive).”

(Audience laughs at the comical pairing. Host moves on.)

HOST: That Octomom stuff is crazy! … ”

(The “Octopus etiquette” section of the Legend of the Octopus Wikipedia page is quite an enjoyable read.)