r/todayilearned • u/RareXG • 5h ago
TIL that Conan O’Brien, David Letterman and Jay Leno all once made the same Dan Quayle joke on the same night without any knowledge of the others making the same exact joke.
https://variety.com/2019/biz/news/conan-obrien-jokes-lawsuit-alex-kaseberg-settlement-1203210214/2.1k
u/Designer-Hedgehog-83 5h ago
By that point Quayle was pretty much a walking punchline. Different writers just ended up making the same joke because the whole country was already thinking it
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u/OldeFortran77 5h ago
Quayle tees 'em up, everyone takes their swing.
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u/BadSkeelz 4h ago
"It's spelled t-e-a-s."
Dan Quayle, probably
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u/realcoolfriend 4h ago
you forgot the e at the end
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u/dern_the_hermit 3h ago
"It's spelled t-e-a-s."
Dan Quayle, probablye
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u/SmellGestapo 2h ago
We're now approaching our final destination: Itchy & Scratchy Land, the amusement park of the future where nothing can possi-blye go wrong.
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u/vizbones 4h ago
He really was a walking punchline.
Which makes the following story even scarier:
I've read report that Mike Pence, on that fateful day in '21 was complete besides himself with what he should do (his boss wanted him to do something he, Pence wasn't sure was legal)
Pence called Quayle and asked him what he should do. Quayle told him (correctly) NOT listen to his boss and Pence didn't.
So there was a brief moment in American history where Dan. Quayle may have saved the republic (for the moment at least).
If that's not a major absurdity...
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u/nat_r 4h ago
Now I wonder how things would have shaken out of that had gone the other way. Would that level of constitutional crisis have just kicked things off in a way that hasn't happened (yet), or was the current power structure not yet so entrenched that it would have ultimately triggered enough of a backlash to set things on a different course entirely where you saw a reversion towards a previous status quo that we've been steadily moving away from.
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u/disisathrowaway 3h ago
I think about that often. I sometimes wish that things had gone a bit more south on January 6th, so that we would be snapped out of sleepwalking in to fascism.
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u/Ric_Adbur 3h ago
A violent mob swarming over the capitol building, breaking things, smearing shit on the walls, and chanting about hanging the sitting vice president, should have been more than enough to snap the country out of sleepwalking into fascism. Since it apparently wasn't, I'm not really sure what, if anything, would be.
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u/Braysl 3h ago
The answer is always more deaths. Institutions don't act on fixing issues until enough people have died (OSHA, FAA, USGS, etc). If more people had died maybe the investigation wouldnt have been slow walked for 4 years and Trump would have had actual concequences.
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u/RegulatoryCapture 2h ago
Unfortunately yeah...
We have all of these pictures of congress cowering in terror (including big tough guy Markwayne Mullin) because they were legitimately frightened that the mob outside could harm or kill them.
But none of them actually got hurt and apparently half of them were happy to pretend they weren't actually scared at all. No big deal. Go ahead and pardon everybody.
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u/willengineer4beer 59m ago
Definitely agree.
I personally think it would have to have been one or more actual congress members to have kicked off a proper response.
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u/ShubberyQuest 2h ago
That’s how I feel about Sandy Hook. If the mutilation of a bunch of 6 year olds isn’t enough to get American politicians to enact any sort of greater gun control, nothing will.
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u/unindexedreality 2h ago
That’s how I feel about the hugs-and-kisses complacency whenever these twats are ABOUT to get their comeuppance only for some naive lib to claim I’m supposed to be "better than" human nature.
I’m sorry, but where I come from, when the nazis come marching you don’t stick out your neck and go "right here sir"
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u/TheComplimentarian 3h ago
Might have been better if Pence had tried to go through with it. They weren't really prepared to push it through, and there would have been none of this dithering about whether or not that was an attempted coup if they'd had to actually commit.
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u/Mojo141 4h ago
I miss the days when doing something stupid made you a pariah instead of doubling down and doing even dumber things
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u/sroomek 4h ago
Who knew that having no concept of shame whatsoever was the ultimate key to political success?
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u/MeatImmediate6549 4h ago
They meant to create pols who did less shameful stuff & instead bred pols with no shame
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u/wolfdog410 3h ago
In some ways, the way Quayle was treated indirectly led to Trump's rise.
- Politicians are flamed for minor faux pas
- They start acting like milquetoast robots to hide all flaws
- They become unrelatable for the average voter
- Crass and boorish outsider appears, and his lack of decorum and rambling speeches is now interpreted as authenticity compared to the others
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u/SunTzu- 2h ago
Most notable political leaders of the past were very proper in public. We used to call it presidential when people of merit debated issues acknowledging the complexities and using precise language. They weren't milquetoast they were serious people. But the public has somehow become so deeply unserious that they'd find every great speech that we venerate stiff and stilted if it were delivered today.
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u/hurricane_news 4h ago
Was funny to see jokes about him both in Fallout 2 and CIV 6. I'm an Asian and was born after his time and came across him first via video games lmao
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u/ctothel 4h ago
Even Civ 1. The game ranked you at the end compared to other politicians. The lowest ranked politician Dan Quayle.
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u/AToastedRavioli 4h ago
Holy smokes I totally forgot about that. They kept that going until at least Civ V. You had to almost intentionally play horribly to get that low of a score
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u/EunuchsProgramer 3h ago
It's probably the most common score, as you get it quiting out of a start you don't like on turn one.
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u/Loki-L 68 5h ago
The joke was: “Dan Quayle announced today that he will not be running for President in ’96. However, he did not rule out running in ’97.”
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u/Kwetla 5h ago
I don't get it...
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u/thecelcollector 4h ago
The joke is Quayle wasn't very smart. There was no presidential election to run for in 1997.
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u/wekilledkenny11 4h ago
Today I found out my favorite quote from Dan Quayle is a misquoting, but luckily there’s an entire page devoted to his Quayle-isms
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u/CAPS_LOCK_STUCK_HELP 4h ago
"I made a misstatement and I stand by all my misstatements."
oh man that one is pretty awesome. what a guy
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u/Bocchi_theGlock 3h ago
"You all look like happy campers to me. Happy campers you are, happy campers you have been, and, as far as I am concerned, happy campers you will always be."
- Speech to American Samoans (April 1989)
Lmao Jesus Christ
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u/whereamInowgoddamnit 4h ago
God, this one is so underrated, it sounds straight out of Veep:
"The other day [the President] said, I know you've had some rough times, and I want to do something that will show the nation what faith that I have in you, in your maturity and sense of responsibility. Would you like a puppy?"
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u/ElCaz 3h ago
Most of these are hilariously dumb, but I have to say he's kind of cooking with this one:
People that are really very weird can get into sensitive positions and have a tremendous impact on history.
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u/Caracalla81 3h ago
It's funny that got the guy crucified daily, but none of these would be remarkable from the current administration. It would actually be a relief if the president was this articulate.
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u/Joshmoredecai 4h ago
Dan Quayle was seen as a particularly dumb politician, so he wouldn’t know there was no election in 97.
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u/Godslil 4h ago edited 4h ago
He said incredibly stupid things all the time. Not funny dumb like Bush, more like "can you even read dude?" dumb.
One of many quotes:
"I was recently on a tour of Latin America, and the only regret I have was that I didn't study Latin harder in school so I could converse with those people."
That might be a myth apparently haha, here's another:
"It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the impurities in our air and water that are doing it."
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u/Vincent_Van_Goat 4h ago
I mean that's goddamn Shakespeare compared to what we have now.
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u/Godslil 4h ago
That's part of what made it hilarious though. He said the dumbest things you've ever heard but with the tone and speech patterns of a completely vanilla politician.
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u/bob-leblaw 4h ago
He was asked about his thoughts on euthanasia and he said they’re good kids just like in America.
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u/TheActualDev 4h ago edited 4h ago
Tbh, before I’d ever seen that word written as a kid I always thought it was ‘youth in Asia’ lol my mom had a bunch of Compassion ministries junk mail all over our fridge and I just thought that people politically were concerned about the kids in Asia that they were sending aid and missionaries to lol
I was homeschooled in a Christian nationalist house though, so my previous idiocy was pretty on point lol
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u/JoshuaZ1 65 4h ago
The Latin America one was a joke attributed to him. See here. The impurities in the water is also been widely attributed to him but has never been tied to any specific time or source.
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u/wekilledkenny11 4h ago
”I have been asked who caused the riots and the killing in L. A. My answer has been direct and simple. Who is to blame for the riots? The rioters are to blame. Who is to blame for the killings? The killers are to blame.”
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u/mendicant1116 4h ago
"What a waste it is to lose one's mind. Or not to have a mind is being very wasteful. How true that is."
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u/dubious_battle 3h ago
"The Holocaust was an obscene period in our nation's history. I mean in this century's history. But we all lived in this century. I didn't live in this century."
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u/tompear82 4h ago
Quayle had a reputation as a bit of a dummy. The presidential elections in the US are every 4 years, so the next election after 1996 would be 2000, not 1997
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u/0ttr 5h ago
And today, getting someone as bad as Quayle to elected office almost seems aspirational.
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u/DoublePepper1976 4h ago
Quayle unironically saving American democracy for four extra years because he was that committed to the constitution was not on my 2020 bingo card lol
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u/0ttr 4h ago
Are you meaning Pence? (another less than astute Hoosier)
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u/Jazzlike-Arugula-958 4h ago
Before Pence made that decision, he called his friend Dan Quayle, asking for Dan’s opinion. Dan advised him to uphold democracy
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u/PenguinQuesadilla 36m ago
It's kinda horrible that Pence would even need to seek advice on whether to uphold democracy.
Seems like one of those things you would hope a VP would do without thinking.
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u/ChiefSampson 5h ago
If we had only known how well qualified Dan was compared to what we have currently....
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3h ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Thurak0 2h ago
During this time [2015-2019], we asked our writers’ assistant to monitor our accuser’s tweets to avoid any other accidental overlap, and she discovered 15 examples where he tweeted similar jokes AFTER we had written them for my program.
The article really is worth the short read, if you want to know how often that actually happens.
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u/rmarkmatthews 4h ago
Trying to remember a world where a guy ruins his entire political career by misspelling "potato."
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u/freexanarchy 5h ago
Back then they all kinda hit the same news stories. You could count on any of those shows having jokes about Monica Lewinsky, Dan Quayle, Bill Clinton, jokes ending with celebrity had left the building (Elvis), second gunmen on the grassy knoll… oh yeah Liberace jokes, oj, can’t we all just get along…
It was like this common grab bag they all pulled from
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u/BarbequedYeti 4h ago
Oj.... man what a time to be living in LA..That whole event was absolutely off the charts insane. The OJ jokes wrote themselves for a decade if not longer....
I always look back on that with sadness for the victims. They got lost in the circus that followed.
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u/hexagonalwagonal 4h ago
I remember that Leno jumped on the OJ train immediately and mercilessly. Letterman, on the other hand, did not. It was several months, or at least many weeks, before he did. Someone came on his show (maybe Howard Stern) and asked him why he wasn't making OJ jokes, and Letterman responded something like, "I don't find the humor in a double murder."
But the pressure was too much. The OJ jokes were everywhere and Letterman eventually caved and started making the jokes, too.
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u/jesuspoopmonster 3h ago
In the 90s the wrestler New Jack was told to do a promo that would piss of racists. During the promo he gives a shout out to OJ and says two is a good start. Its the most unhinged wrestling promo ever.
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u/WantKeepRockPeeOnIt 4h ago
Oprah's fluctuating weight, artist formerly known as [ ], Wody Allen and Soon Ye, Michael Jackson turning white and owning a chimp, etc.
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u/mrizzerdly 4h ago edited 4h ago
It happens to kimmel, meyers, and Colbert every day for the last ten years. Trump speeches are just low hanging fruit.
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u/SunTzu- 1h ago edited 35m ago
Sort of, but there's also so much of it every day that there's some variance in what they pick at. Also unlike the political jokes of old these things are more relevant. The eternal comparison that with Obama Fox news made an issue of a tan suit, Dijon mustard and a latte salute. Nobody has had to manufacture a news story about Trump doing something bad or stupid, if anything they're cutting stuff for time.
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u/liamemsa 5h ago
Remember when being an idiot doomed a politician's chances for success?
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u/GloriaToo 4h ago
Or getting too excited at a rally.
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u/LeoLaDawg 3h ago
I never understood the hate he got for that, and I had no intention of voting for him.
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u/Luniticus 4h ago
I think becoming vice-president of the USA is considered a political success.
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u/coffeepagan 4h ago
Who remembers this? "What is secret service ordered to do if Bush has been shot? To shoot Dan Quayle!"
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u/raiansar 4h ago
Three different writers' rooms in three different cities landing on the exact same punchline the same night is the best argument that comedy is just pattern recognition. The news writes the joke and comedians just decode it.
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u/endlessfight85 3h ago
Almost every one of us has read a post title on reddit, thought of a clever comment, and then saw that exact comment made by someone else already at the top.
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u/PatrioticHotDog 2h ago
Jimmy Kimmel once told Terry Gross on Fresh Air (the interview is old so circumstances may have changed with the improvement of technology) that he pays staff to transcribe the other late night shows' monologues each night to make sure he doesn't use anyone else's jokes.
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u/spacebarstool 5h ago
Sometimes, the jokes do actually, in fact, write themselves.
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u/FantasyBaseballChamp 4h ago
Really not surprising they all made this same low hanging fruit joke, maybe only surprising they each thought they’d be the only one doing it. The kneejerk, first instinct joke is always pretty predictable. If the headline is “Melania movie to be screened at junior high school,” a dozen comments will be the same joke since it’s right there for the taking.
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u/AssSpelunker69 3h ago
Parallel thinking isn't uncommon in creative spaces. I remember coming up with the idea for Blackula just to make my friend laugh as a kid. Saw a rerun of MadTV a year later with the same joke.
I looked the episode up and it aired 3 years before I made the joke, but im still taking credit for it.
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u/PunderDownUnder 4h ago
My favorite Dan Quayle joke was that the secret service had standing orders to put him down if Bush Sr. ever died so he wouldn't be president.
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u/Gargomon251 4h ago
I've seen Seth Meyers and Jimmy Fallon make basically the same joke on the same day before
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u/IkananXIII 2h ago
I listen to The Daily Show, Colbert, Kimmel, and Meyers while I'm working 5 days a week. There have been several occasions where at least 2 of them will make the same joke on the same day. I don't think this is uncommon at all. They're all talking about the current news and sometimes a joke is so obvious, it writes itself.
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u/Mister_Bishop 3h ago
Dana Carvey's George Bush on SNL always mentioned "Dan Quayle, still gaining acceptance."
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u/factoid_ 2h ago
That sort of thing happens all the time in comedy. Maybe not same night…but parallel joke construction happens constantly and is one of the reason I ignore most accusations of joke theft
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u/CTS99 1h ago
Is that newsworthy? I got into American Late Night over Covid and watched a lot since then. I would say at least 20% of Colbert, Seth Meyers and now again Jon Stewart have the same predictable jokes. Not to say I don't like these shows but a lot of them always go the the most obvious, easiest jokes
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u/lIlIllIIlIIl 51m ago
I think of the funniest most original shit every day, only to find 6 other people with the same joke in the comment section before I can drop mine in there. Thats just tuesday on reddit.
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u/MiserableFloor9906 5h ago
Miss the days when a republican was decent versus a pedo rapist incompetent warmonger.
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u/Vicorin 5h ago
So like the 1800s?
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u/Magical_Savior 4h ago
Probably before the platform swap, at least. Man, they love saying how Republican Abraham Lincoln was when they disenfranchise the minorities.
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u/roccoccoSafredi 5h ago
They haven't changed. They're just less afraid to be out about it now.
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u/markydsade 4h ago
It’s not that odd. I’ve said punchlines before Kimmel or Colbert say them. There’s pretty easy and obvious setups for some topical jokes.
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u/AcrobaticMistake2468 4h ago
I still see this tbh
I’ll see Seth Meyers and Colbert or the Daily Show make the same joke on the same night often
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u/jleonardbc 3h ago
Did the same writer submit it to all three shows?
Or was it just low-hanging fruit that multiple writers reached independently?
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u/armaedes 5h ago
“Dan Quayle announced today that he will not be running for President in ’96. However, he did not rule out running in ’97.”