Many years ago I read an article, that cited a study, about why Christmas cracker jokes are so poor. I have tried to locate it on line but have had no success. The gist of the article was that in a large group there will be many people with diverse humour. If you tell a joke that some will see as legitimately funny then some people will see it as funny but others will not. Thus, at a Christmas dinner, where you have a group that is usually heterogeneous on age and gender*, legitimate jokes run the risk of causing a schism in that group. When you open a Christmas cracker and tell a legitimately bad joke, everybody can pan it and this enables harmony within the group.* I would describe humour as social rather than biological so I believe gender to be the appropriate term - but I have been known to be wrong.
Under the tag crackers I will give my best bad jokes and attempt to explain how to achieve their maximum efficacy - or maybe this is just an excuse to post bad jokes, you may never know.
The first begins when somebody complains that they are tired. You must quickly ask, "But not like a bicycle?". Once a bemused expression has settled on their face, you can follow up with, "you're not two-tyred?". This is obviously best used to coax extra effort from a friend, team-mate,* or co-worker. When this joke becomes too-tired, you could try the response, "but not like the back end of a car? Exhausted."
*Yes, I use the Oxford comma. I think it is easier to leave a comma out (He went with his parents, Mike and Sarah) than it is to put one in (He went with his parents, Mike, and Sarah. Here Mike and Sarah are friends.) I try to use grammar for clear expression and not about separating weak proponents from the strong ones - or about timing when reading aloud.
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