It’s All Coming Back to Me
Q: “What do you call a boomerang that won’t come back?”
A: “A stick.”
Arguably one of the better-known traditional jokes – and admittedly, not particularly funny – this joke represents a completely logical, understandable idea that is told as a joke purely to find humor from the sheer obviousness of it. A boomerang is a curved, flat, wooden tool traditionally used by the Aboriginal population of Australia and is designed to ensure that it can be thrown in such a way that it returns to the thrower.
Photo by Georg Wendt/picture alliance via Getty Images
If the boomerang does not come back, it is literally just a piece of wood – i.e., a stick. The audience, when hearing the question, unless familiar with the punchline, are more than likely to expect an intelligent answer and therefore overlook the obvious one. This joke probably generates more groans than fits of laughter! There are quite a few alternative versions to this classic, traditional jokes about boomerangs, including the one-liner: “I couldn’t quite remember how to throw a boomerang, but eventually, it came back to me.” Here, this joke plays on the double meaning of “come back,” which refers to either something returning or a person remembering something.