(If you see an error in a transcript, email us at hello@underunderstood.)

Billy:
Hi, before this episode starts, this is just a quick PSA that it contains some explicit language, which we don’t normally do. And also, some talk about mental health, and also some discussions about butts. So, I just wanted to let you know.

Adrianne:
This is Underunderstood.

Billy:
Hey everybody.

Adrianne:
Hi, Billy.

Regina:
Hey.

John:
Hey Billy.

Billy:
Welcome back. We’re back.

Regina:
Oh wow. [crosstalk]

Adrianne:
Yay.

Billy:
We’re back after a very long hiatus. We’re glad everyone is here with us. And because we’ve been away so long, we have a very full inbox of questions from listeners. So, how about we just answer a question.

Adrianne:
Okay.

Regina:
All right.

Billy:
This is from listener Zeke and the title of the email is Laffy Taffy. Zeke says, “I’m a big fan of your show and have listened to both Under- and Overunderstood quite a bit since I found them. It made me start wondering about everyday things I see. And while they’re usually easily googleable this one wasn’t.”

John:
This sounds like our wheelhouse.

Billy:
Yes. “I got to wondering about the jokes on Laffy Taffy wrappers and specifically how they decide which ones go on and who is in charge of reading and choosing jokes.”

John:
Is this like Bazooka gum where there’s a thing inside with jokes?

Billy:
Yes.

Regina:
I’m familiar with the candy, but I didn’t know there were jokes.

John:
I didn’t know either, yeah.

Billy:
I actually have four pieces of Laffy Taffy in front of me. They have jokes on them. They each have… At least the ones I have, which are kind of like the small ones, each have two jokes on them. Do you want to hear some jokes?

John:
Yes.

Billy:
Okay. What type of check has no money?

John:
I mean-

Billy:

Spell check.

[groans]

Billy:
What can you serve, but not eat?

John:
A subpoena.

Regina:
It’s true.

Billy:
A tennis ball.

John:
Mine was right too.

Regina:
The subpoena works though, yes.

Billy:
So, Zeke continues the email by saying, “Is it an intern thing or is it someone’s full-time job to write Laffy Taffy wrappers? I would really like to know. Thank you, Zeke.” There are actually some partial answers that you can find with just Googling. The first thing I found online was a Reddit thread and this is a Reddit thread on r/funny and the caption is, “Laffy Taffy jokes are getting kind of depressing.” And it’s a link to an image, I’ll link you all to the image here.

John:
Do you want us to read this?

Billy:
Yeah, someone want to read this for me.

John:
I’ll read it. “Benjie M., Charlotte, North Carolina. What kind of tea is sometimes hard to swallow?”

Regina:
Oh wow.

John:
The answer is reality.

Billy:
Okay.

Regina:
Wait, so Benjie M., Charlotte, North Carolina… So they’re user submitted?

Adrianne:
Yeah.

John:
Yeah.

Billy:
Yeah, so presumably this was submitted by someone. And, in the comments on that Reddit thread, a user named com4tablynumb1 said, “Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, that’s my joke. No shit, I sent that in to Laffy Taffy almost 20 years ago. Won a contest with it too.” Then he says, “Yay! I am mildly internet famous.” He went on, shortly after that, to submit his own thread to r/funny captioned, “I’m the writer of the infamous Laffy Taffy joke, number 231, now known as the most depressing Laffy Taffy joke.” And it’s the same picture, but in the comments, user SharkyRawr says, “Is there any sort of proof you have because I really hope this is true.” And the OP responds, “I have a picture of me with Gary Coleman.”

Adrianne:
It seems unrelated.

Billy:
“I won a contest with this joke, got to meet a bunch of people. Bob Saget was an asshole.”

Regina:
Also, not proof.

John:
All of these seem like unrelated thoughts, but okay.

Billy:
So then someone responds, “Let’s see it then, everyone knows Saget’s a prick. That’s nothing that needs to be proven.” And then the OP responds with this image, which I’ll share with you now.

John:
Well, its…

Regina:
I’m sorry, what?

John:
The six pixels that make up this photo might be Gary Coleman.

Regina:
There’s nothing related to Laffy Taffy or the joke. There’s nothing.

Billy:
Yeah so, to describe this photo, it’s a young man with someone else signing a paper. It could be Gary Coleman, it’s hard to tell.

Regina:
It’s a very poorly lit photo.

Billy:
Yeah. Very low quality photo. But this got me wondering about the contest that the person on Reddit mentioned, it was unclear if that was a Laffy Taffy contest that they’re talking about. But if it is, is that a thing? Their contest would’ve been almost three decades ago. If there really are these Laffy Taffy joke competitions, do they still exist?

Billy:
So, I did a little Googling around those kind of keywords and I found this from 2018. It’s a Thrillist article. And the title is, “Laffy Taffy is having a joke contest for $10,000 and the title Chief Laugh Officer.”

Regina:
Full-time job, CLO.

John:
Spelled L-A-F-F, I imagine?

Billy:
No, actually spelled like the word laugh, not their proprietary-

John:
That’s a huge bummer.

Billy:
… spelling of Laffy.

Regina:
Otherwise, it wouldn’t translate on LinkedIn. You know, you got to be able to get another job.

John:
Yeah, it’s a position.

Billy:
“Laffy Taffy is searching for a Chief Laugh Officer via a nationwide contest. And if you win, you’ll get to call yourself Chief Laugh Officer, be the proud owner of $10,000 and have the chance to collaborate on jokes to appear on candy’s wrappers.”

Adrianne:
This was 2018?

Billy:
Yeah. And they’re giving you $10,000 for a C-suite title. It seems kind of low.

Regina:
Yeah, seems a little low.

Billy:
Anyway, it continues, “To enter, submit a 60-90 second clip of you doing comedy and three Laffy Taffy jokes on the Laffy Taffy website. The public will vote to pick three finalists. And as a real hit at family reunions, you’re a shoo-in.”

John:
What?

Billy:
“And as a real hit at family reunions, you’re a shoo-in.”

John:
Okay. Just some encouraging words they’re mixing in here.

Billy:
“When you’re chosen as one of the lucky three, you’ll be flown out to Los Angeles to perform at the Laugh Factory for a special event hosted by none other than Nick Cannon.”

John:
Oh my God.

Adrianne:
Oh, I was really hoping it would’ve been Gary Coleman.

Billy:
Too late.

John:
That be difficult.

Adrianne:
Right, right.

John:
He’s not alive anymore.

Billy:
Yes. “By none other than Nick Cannon who’s own jokes are currently on Laffy Taffy wrappers as part of the promotion.”

John:
Whoa.

Adrianne:
Oh.

Billy:
“At the end of the show, the Laugh Factory and Laffy Taffy will pick the Chief Laugh Officer.”

Nick Cannon:
Yo, what’s up, y’all? Nick Cannon here. Now let me ask you a question, what sport involves the most chewing? A gumball. See, I got them all day. Matter of fact, you know what? My team at Laffy Taffy hooked me up with the opportunity to come up with the funniest jokes ever that’s going be in the new Laffy Taffy candy. And they gave me the task of finding the first time ever Chief Laugh Officer. Yes-

Billy:
Anyway, I was wondering about this contest and what eventually happened. And I found the press release announcing the winner. So, here from Business Wire- [crosstalk]

John:
Here’s Nick Cannon.

Billy:
Yeah. “Last night, Laffy Taffy named Richard Bowen it’s first ever Chief Laugh Officer, awarding him a cash prize of $10,000 and the opportunity to collaborate with the brand on creating iconic jokes listed on every wrapper. To search for a winner Laffy Taffy partnered with entrepreneur and artist, Nick Cannon, to host a night at the world-famous Laugh Factory and honor the brand’s longstanding heritage in comedy. After reviewing nearly 100 submissions…”

Regina:
What?

Adrianne:
Are you laughing because that’s low?

John:
It’s very low.

Billy:
“After reviewing nearly 100 submissions from across the country, Laffy Taffy and fans selected Richard Bowen, Joanna Goslin and Talib Babb as the three finalists. All were flown with their guests to Los Angeles to perform center stage with other comedians at the world-famous Hollywood Laugh Factory to compete for the title.

John:
These contests suck so much. “Can you do free work for us?”

Billy:
The press release continues, “‘We’re so happy to name Richard our first ever Chief Laugh Officer,’ said Juan Pablo Herrera, Marketing Associate, Laffy Taffy. Laffy Taffy has always been a brand that focuses on laughter and comedy, so we’re thrilled to partner with Nick Cannon and all the comedians to celebrate comedy with a fresh approach.”

Billy:
So Zeke’s question here was, where do these jokes come from? Is it an intern or someone actually have the full-time position of being in charge of this stuff? And it would seem that if you were going to name someone Chief Laugh Officer, that would be who’s in charge. But this guy, Richard Bowen who apparently is the Chief Laugh Officer, is nowhere to be found now. There’s not much posted about him after he had won this competition and he seems to have deleted his social media. So, my question is who’s actually calling the shots? Who’s actually writing the jokes? And I think the first order of business is finding the Chief Laugh Officer.

Adrianne:
Hi listeners, this is Adrianne. We’re really happy to be back from break, but in a way we never left. We’ve actually been releasing episodes every week on our Patreon. Our bonus show there is called Overunderstood, and you can subscribe to it and get it in your podcast app. We’re switching the schedule for the main show so it will be coming out every two weeks. And if you miss the sound of our voices, you can subscribe for $5 a month and get access to Overunderstood and our Patreon. Sometimes we do live shows, they’re fun. We have over 50 episodes there already so there’s plenty of stuff for you to listen to if you have a long car ride or you’re doing an intense workout.

We talk about stuff that’s very typical Underunderstood fare, like who invented Skittles? Why is it so hard to figure that out? A lost animatronic band from Kansas City and other stuff, like what to do if you see a city bus flashing a sign that says, “Call 9-1-1.” We’ve also aired clips from interviews that got cut for time and talked about extra stuff that couldn’t make it into the main episodes. And you can hang out and Discord with us and other fans of the show. $5 a month, patreon.com/underunderstood. It’s easy and you can support the show. Thank you so much.

Billy:
Hello.

Regina:
Hey.

John:
Hey Billy.

Adrianne:
Hey.

Billy:
We’re back and I have great news right off the bat. I found Richard Bowen, the Chief Laugh Officer.

Richard:
Hello.

Billy:
Hi Richard.

Richard:
Hey Billy.

Billy:
Thank you for doing this by the way.

Richard:
Yeah, no problem.

Billy:
You were kind of hard to find.

Richard:
Yeah, how did you find me?

Billy:
Here’s my journalism secret, I literally just guessed your email address.

Richard:
Hah!

Adrianne:
Why is this person, who is a comedian, trying to hide? Aren’t most comedians just constantly looking for attention.

Billy:
Well yeah, and he did have a much more of a social presence. At one point he had a Instagram that he was trying to make popular, but I think that’s a misconception about people who are comedians, at least with him, he didn’t necessarily want attention. He is not a super social guy. It seems what really drew him to comedy was simply the jokes.

Richard:
I remember being a kid and hearing jokes. I thought that jokes came from like God or something. I’m like, there’s no way that a person came up with this. Like this is just too good.

Billy:
But as he got older, obviously he realized that jokes don’t come from God necessarily. They come from people, they come from comedians.

Richard:
I was a huge Mitch Hedberg fan. I heard some interview with him and they were like, “Oh, like what advice do you give to comics?” And he said-

Mitch Hedberg:
Write down anything funny that comes to your head. Don’t be lazy.

Richard:
“Write it down. Don’t be lazy.” And so I just started doing that.

Billy:
So Richard bought a notebook from the drug store and he quickly filled it up. So he got another notebook and then he got another and writing in these notebooks became a daily practice for him. And he sort of became obsessed with it. It was something he needed to be able to do all of the time.

Richard:
I’m a carpenter. I built a house in Vermont and if it wasn’t really feasible to get my notebook out and write something down… I wrote some jokes just on the sheathing of the house.

Billy:
Oh, wow.

Richard:
Yeah, and then on my lunch break, I would walk around the house and look up and read the idea, or whatever, and then transfer it into my notebook.

Billy:
But this passion for jokes, he never really had a clear pathway for turning it into a job. He never really lived in a city where there was a big market for comedy. He grew up in Alaska and in rural Vermont. He’s a skateboarder who is working odd carpenter jobs for money.

Adrianne:
I mean, being a carpenter is just awesome, sorry.

Regina:
Yeah, it’s such a cool job.

Adrianne:
I really need more friends who are carpenters. I have a couple and I feel like I hit them up too much.

Billy:
Yeah, he’s really laying down the framework to imply that he’s Jesus, right? He’s like, “Well, I’m a comedian, I think jokes come from God, also I’m a carpenter.” I don’t remember the part in the Bible where Jesus is a skateboarder, but I can see it. I can totally see it. Anyway, there was no standup scene where he lived most of his life, but he really tried to do standup regardless.

Richard:
What’s up Vermont Comedy Club…

Billy:
He would just do standup wherever he could. He would do it for little kids’ birthday parties. He would do it at prisons. He would do it at skateboarding events and he would do it on construction sites full of construction workers in full construction gear while they were all on their lunch breaks. Maybe for obvious reasons none of that gained a ton of traction until someone from the skateboard industry who followed him on Instagram, sent him a link to a Laffy Taffy joke-writing competition, of all things.

Richard:
And as soon as I read it, I was like, “I definitely could win this.” I just had that feeling. And I was like, “I should definitely do this because I could definitely win.”

Billy:
But by the time Richard got serious about the competition, he looked at the deadline and realized, oh it’s only like 46 hours away. So he basically just had to sprint through getting stuff ready. But as he started to look around at what other people were submitting, he only felt more confident.

Adrianne:
How did he know?

John:
Oh, these were open submissions.

Billy:
Yeah, it was just a website where basically, it seemed like there was no moderation at all, anyone could go to and upload their submission.

Regina:
What year was this again?

Billy:
2018, long after God invented internet moderation tools.

Richard:
Dude, there was a guy on there, the whole clip was like him talking about like eating ass or whatever. And I was just like, “Is this like a joke?”

Billy:
But yeah, he said there was basically no moderation tools and anyone could record a video and submit it.

Richard:
I watched most of the videos that were submitted and there were only like 25% of the submissions that met all the criteria.

Billy:
So yeah. So of course he was selected as one of the three finalists and each finalist was sent on an all expenses paid trip to LA, for themselves and one other person. Once they got there they were tasked with performing in front of an audience and a panel of judges to be appointed Laffy Taffy’s first ever Chief Laugh Officer.

Richard:
You had to do four minutes at the… Which one was it? Not the good one…

Billy:
The Laugh Factory?

Richard:
Yes, the Laugh Factory. Not the cool one, the Laugh Factory. The studio… No, what’s it called? The comedy…

Billy:
The Comedy Store?

Richard:
The Comedy Store, yeah. It wasn’t at the Comedy… Because I’d been to LA a few times and I had gone and watched stuff at The Comedy Store and then, it’s funny, I never even noticed the Laugh Factory really, but I feel like it’s a totally different vibe in there.

Billy:
So venue-vibe aside, the vibes in general were weird, at least to Richard. He quickly started to notice that everything had sort of a bit of a fake facade to it.

Richard:
They’re like, “Okay, you got to arrive for dress rehearsal at such and such a time. And then we’ll take you out to lunch and then you can go back to your hotel for a while and then you need to be back at the Laugh Factory by seven o’clock. And we’re going to have a cocktail hour before the show so you can mingle with everybody.”

Richard:
And so, I go to that and it wasn’t even open bar. I went to get a drink and they’re like, “Do you want to open a tab?” And I was like, “Oh, I’m like on the show,” And they’re like, “Yeah, do you want to open a tab?” And I was like, nah. I didn’t get anything. And then Nick comes in, that’s the first time I’ve ever been around a celebrity where it was at the same event or I’m part of the event or whatever, you know what I’m saying?

Richard:
So he comes in and he has a stylist and he has an entourage with him. And you just couldn’t talk to him, he didn’t talk to anyone. He just went through the party and then he went to some booth or whatever and then that was it. And then we didn’t get to meet him before or anything. It was right before they were about to start the show. I really couldn’t tell you a single thing that he said because at that point I obviously was super, super nervous.

Billy:
Yeah. So then you won, right? So what was that like?

Richard:
Yeah, but then I fucking won, dude. It was awesome.

Billy:
So, Richard gets on stage and he immediately starts doing really well.

Audio:
You know, one time I went to a drive-in movie and it was so bad, I walked out. [laughter]

It’s like, “Hey Pixar, why’d you call it Finding Nemo? Way to ruin the ending. Should’ve called it Looking for Nemo or Desperately Seeking Nemo, or Nemo, Where Did You Go?”

[laughter]

Billy:
It was like-

Adrianne:
[laughing] It’s so stupid.

Billy:
Right? But this was the perfect venue. It was like Richard had finally found the audience for his brand of comedy. He’s doing clean, punchline driven jokes and the audience is eating it up.

Audio:
The school, I was walking out and I saw a car with a Transformers bumper sticker and I was like, “Yeah, right.” But then they put the top down and I was like, “Okay.”

[laughter]

Billy:
Up to this point, everything about this competition felt a little a bit off, but in this moment, in this set, almost everything was perfect.

Richard:
Kind of right in the middle of the set, I did this rhyme-y Laffy Taffy joke.

Audio:
Why did Donald Duck bug Bugs Bunny for some money? Because he wanted to go halfsies with Daffy on some Laffy Taffy.

Richard:
And they fucking… Ah man, they blew… “Oh!” You know, it was like some 8 Mile shit…

Audio:
I never said that out loud before.

Richard:
They loved it. And it was just shit like that. It was like it, I just… I had been really working towards something like that without really thinking about it. And then when that opportunity… What do they say, luck is when preparation meets opportunity or something like that.

Billy:
Yeah, luck is when preparation meets opportunity.

Richard:
Yeah, and it fucking… It works. I always had that focus of I want to always be writing clean stuff, not as a chore, but something I was excited about. And so there, it was… It just works.

Billy:
So obviously you know where this is going, right?

John:
He became an employee of Laffy Taffy?

Billy:
Well, he won and he is now Chief Laugh Officer.

Adrianne:
Wait, he still is?

Regina:
Yeah, is he still?

Billy:
Well, maybe. So for winning the prize was…

Richard:
Just $10,000. I shouldn’t say just $10,000, but I mean, I’d say just $10,000 because they sort of build it as you would win $10,000 and you would get to write jokes for Laffy Taffy. And obviously I was really stoked to win $10,000. That was really cool, but I was really excited to have a writing job, even if I would just send them 10 jokes a month or something.

Billy:
So yeah, they build it as you will get this title of Chief Laugh Officer. So what was ultimately the deal with that? Is that a real title that you held or hold currently?

Richard:
No. And that’s what I asked specifically at the dress rehearsal. And I was like, “Okay, so what is that, is it going to be a writing job? What is actually going to happen with that?” And they were like, “Oh, well, if you are to win, you’re basically going to, let’s see, you’re going to win the opportunity to work with the brand to possibly create some jokes for the brand.” They just… They were just super vague. And I remember the three of us looking at each other and just being like, “Okay, that doesn’t mean anything.”

Billy:
Yeah.

Adrianne:
Him and the two other…

Billy:
The two other finalists, yeah. And he said at that point he wasn’t going to back out, but I think he got a lot more suspicious of what was actually going to result from this.

Billy:
Richard didn’t really have any money to his name, he didn’t have any savings. And $10,000 was really great, it was a really good thing for him, but it quickly went away. He paid the taxes on it and he used the rest to tour doing comedy out of his van and trying to visit all of the states that he hadn’t done standup in yet. But he would still regularly check in with the folks at Laffy Taffy about this Chief Laugh Officer role. And usually he would get some kind of vague promise that wouldn’t pan out and would be followed up with an even less satisfying, vague promise.

Richard:
I emailed whoever my contact was and they were like, “Oh, we’re not sure.” And then they emailed me again and they were like, “We’re thinking that maybe next year you would write jokes for our social media page.” And then I was like, “Okay, cool. That sounds great, let me know.” And they were like, “Well, are you doing any shows soon?” And I was like, “Yeah, I do shows all the time, what’s up?”

Richard:
And they’re like, “Well, can we send you some Laffy Taffy to hand out at your shows?” And I was like, “Nope. Yeah, what’s up with the job?” And they were like, “Oh, we’ve decided not to go forward with that next quarter,” or something like that. And I just was like, “Okay, well I’m not just going to hand out your candy. You do realize that 90% of the shows I do, there’s like eight people there.”

Billy:
Right, like you start giving them candy, how is that going to look?

Richard:
How’s that going to look for either of us like, “Hey, thanks for coming to the show tonight. Hey, want some Laffy Taffy?” Oh my god.

Billy:
From your standpoint, is the title Chief Laugh Officer even real?

Richard:
No, hell no.

Billy:
They even give you anything that says Chief Laugh Officer on it?

Richard:
I mean, they gave me a trophy.

Adrianne:
That’s cool.

Billy:
Yeah, it actually is a pretty cool, you could see photos of him with it.

Adrianne:
Oh, the absurdity.

Billy:
No, he said they wouldn’t even give him an unwatermarked version of the photo and he looked into the licensing and it was hundreds of dollars. If he wanted to be able to show a festival, “Hey, here’s a photo of me and Nick Cannon holding a trophy.”

Adrianne:
I can’t believe Laffy Taffy found someone so perfect and didn’t seize it.

John:
Yeah.

Richard:
It really was a big disappointment for my home club and like all my comedy buddies and, shit, everyone was pretty bummed. Because I told people and they’re like, “What? You don’t get to write the jokes?” And I’m like, no. And they’re like, “But you’re like the Chief Laugh Officer. So what do you do?” And I’m like, “No, I don’t do anything, its nothing.” And they’d be like, what? And I’m like, “Yeah, I know. It sucks. I’m bummed too.”

Billy:
So Richard ended up moving to Seattle because he figured of all of the cities with any sort of comedy scene, it was maybe the one that he could afford. He said that he lives in a warehouse with a bunch of other skaters, but eventually he realized things with standup just weren’t working anymore.

Richard:
And I just wasn’t really making any progress here. And I just got… I was already super burnt out from traveling. That kind of exacerbated some mental health issues that I’ve always had an issue with. And I like checked myself into the hospital in February 2020. To really try to be a comedian, it’s like… The ups and downs are so intense and I really wasn’t doing well. So I went to the hospital and then I started taking medication and that really helped. And then COVID hit. And then it really was like a huge relief for me because I just literally couldn’t do comedy, even if I wanted to.

Billy:
Richard Bowen, the first ever Chief Laugh Officer quit, he quit comedy. He stopped writing in his notebooks. He started focusing on carpentry and slowly his health and his wellbeing.

Richard:
So yeah, now I just have been having a pretty normal life. Just, like I said, just doing carpentry and I get to do some creative skate park projects on the side and I started building a tiny house a couple months ago and…

Billy:
Yeah, would you say you generally feel better now? Do you feel healthier?

Richard:
Yeah, definitely. I’m like the… Yeah, this is the most stable I’ve been. I’ve never worked full time for this long in my life, so that’s cool. I have money all the time. I can buy tools and, I don’t know, pay my rent and go out to eat. But you know, before that it was… It just always was a… More of a struggle than it had to be.

Billy:
Yeah.

Adrianne:
Okay, so they threw away this person who is obviously perfect for writing their jokes. What is their system for getting jokes? How are they sourcing? Who is actually writing these lame jokes that are on the wrappers now?

Billy:
Well, the lore around these jokes is more or less that they come from regular people.

Adrianne:
So this is UGC, user generated content? That’s their current model. Of course, like every company they’re like, “Why would we pay someone whose brilliant when we could just have randos write our jokes for us and who cares?”

Billy:
I think so, I mean, that seems to be the consensus. Just talking to people on the street about it. There doesn’t seem to be any clear infrastructure for submitting jokes either. There’s nothing on the wrappers about it. And there’s nothing on the Laffy Taffy website about it. But there is a general inquiry’s phone number for Ferrara Candy, the company that now owns and distributes Laffy Taffy. So I had an inquiry, generally speaking, so I decided to give them a call.

Audio:
Thank you for calling Ferrara, the home for Laffy Taffy, Lemonheads, Now and Later, Red Hots, and so many more. Please hold for the next available representative. Your call may be monitored or recorded.

Customer service rep:
Hello, thank you for calling Ferrara, my name is [inaudible]. Who am I speaking with today?

Billy:
Hi, this is Billy, how are you?

Customer service rep:
Wonderful, Billy, how are you?

Billy:
Good. I have a slightly strange question.

Customer service rep:
Okay.

Billy:
I’m wondering if there is currently a way to submit jokes for Laffy Taffy wrappers?

Regina:
What if she was like, tell me the joke?

Customer service rep:
Sure, so you can go ahead and let me know the joke and then I can go ahead and submit it, if you’d like?

Billy:
That’s what she did!

Regina:
Joking, I was joking.

Billy:
Oh, I can submit jokes over the phone?

Customer service rep:
That is correct.

Billy:
Oh wow.

Adrianne:
Oh God. Now you have to say a joke.

Customer service rep:
Fancy, schmancy. Now we’re getting new age now.

[laughter]

Billy:
Yeah, I wasn’t expected to be put on the spot like that. I don’t know if my material is quite ready.

Regina:
Oh my God.

Billy:
Okay. Well I [crosstalk] might-

Customer service rep:
If you can’t do it now, if you’d like you could always call back with your jokes?

Billy:
Okay, thank you, that’s a relief. Anyone one can submit jokes to be on Laffy Taffy. It used to be a PO box and now you can call them and tell them a joke, or there’s an email address. We’ll put those in the show notes.

Adrianne:
You just call them and you’re like, “Hey, I got a good one.” It’s like 3:00 AM.

Billy:
Well, yeah. I mean, I just called them and they were like, “Shoot your shot kid.”

John:
Okay, funny boy.

Regina:
Let’s see what you got.

Billy:
But then I also called back again later because I wanted to ask them directly who is responsible for the jokes? How do the jokes end up on the wrapper? Who’s responsible for that?

Audio:
Thank you for calling Ferrara, the home for Laffy Taffy, Lemonheads, [crosstalk 00:33:41] Now and Later-

Billy:
The very nice person that I talked to on the phone told me that the jokes come from normal people. They come from consumers.

Customer service rep:
They are actually jokes that people submit.

Billy:
And I clarified, “No, I’m aware that you can submit jokes and those jokes can end up on the wrappers, but how is it actually decided what jokes are printed?” And that was a question where she had to actually check in with someone else to be able to get back to me with the definitive answer.

Customer service rep:
I’m going to have to reach out for that one.

Billy:
But the answer is sort of predictably boring.

Customer service rep:
Okay, so it’s marketing that basically decides what jokes get put on the wrappers.

Adrianne:
Mm. Frank in marketing…

John:
Even this person sounds disappointed in the answer.

Regina:
Yeah, they’re like, “It’s marketing, you’re not in good hands.”

Billy:
Yeah, and it’s a shame. No one’s going to shake up the Laffy Taffy joke game on the marketing team. Surely they have bigger things to worry about. And meanwhile, like you said, over here is Richard, qualified, he’s vetted, he’s ready to help take Laffy Taffy jokes to the next level.

Richard:
I’d love to dust off the stack of notebooks and date back through them and send some stuff out there. I mean, because I still of think about it all the time and I know people take breaks from shit all the time and I still have all my notebooks.

Billy:
Like I said, Richard stopped writing in his notebooks, but he didn’t stop writing jokes. Him and his friend Max — Max is actually the one he brought to LA with him — Richard and Max still text each other one-liners they’ve come up with all the time.

Richard:
I actually just thought of one… I thought of one the other day, it’s like… Okay, I got a new bed and it looks like a car. Have you seen those beds that look like a car?

Billy:
Yeah.

Richard:
Yeah, it’s a com-fortable.

Billy:
That’s good.

Richard:
Oh yeah, I fucking love it, man.

Billy:
I feel like you’re falling back in love with the idea of comedy in real time.

Richard:
Yeah. And man… And to do it to a whole room full of people is… It’s just insane. God, it’s like… Oh man, it’s such a good time.

Billy:
Yeah, maybe we need to find a better candy for you to write jokes on.

Richard:
Well, for a minute there, I was thinking of trying to shop it out to some dispensaries.

Billy:
Oh, that’s smart

Richard:
Because there’s so much legal weed out on the West Coast. I feel like dispensaries would eat it up.

Audio:
You know, sometimes I tell people I want to do this for a living and they laugh at me. And I’m like, yeah.

[laughter]

I do think I could do it though because the worst part about stand up comedy is bombing. And the only thing worse than bombing is every job I’ve ever had, right.

[laughter]

Billy:
It seems that even though he was never paid full time to write one-liners, joke writing is the one job that Richard can never, really, truly quit. So, if there are any weed dispensaries out there that have room on their payroll for a Chief Laugh Officer, hit us up. I think I know the perfect candidate and I can save you the trouble of having to guess their email address.

Adrianne:
Underunderstood is Billy Disney, Regina Dellea, John Lagomarsino and me, Adrianne Jeffries.

Regina:
If you’ve got a question the internet can’t answer, we want to hear it. Email us at hello@underunderstood.com. And it may wind up on the show.

Billy:
The four of us make this show in our spare time and if you want to support what we’re doing, we have a Patreon, patreon.com/underunderstood. $5 will get you access to our bonus show, Overunderstood, that we do every week. There are over 50 of those there, currently, for you to listen to.

John:
Thank you so much for listening, we will be back with a brand new episode in two weeks.

Billy:
You can take the Chief Laugh from the officer, but you can’t take… You can take the officer… You could take the officer from the chief laugh…

John:
They should print this on the Laffy Taffy.

Billy:
But you can’t take the laugh from the chief officer.

Adrianne:
What if you did it like, you can take the C out of the CLO, but you can’t take the L out of the… CLO.

Billy:
Yeah, you can take the C out of the LOL, but you can’t…

Adrianne:
But the L is always going to be there. Something like that.

John:
It’s such a privilege to watch the masters at work.

Billy:
You can take the… You can take the C out of the CLO, but you can’t take the LOL out of Richard Bow-en.

Adrianne:
Wow, he has no Ls in his name.