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A running gag is a literary device which often takes the form of an amusing joke
Joke

A joke is a short story or ironic depiction of a situation communicated with the intent of being humour. These jokes will normally have a punch line that will end the sentence to make it humorous....
 or a comical
Comedy

Comedy as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse generally intended to amuse, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western culture origins are found in Ancient Greece....
 reference and appears repeatedly throughout a work of literature
Literature

Literature is the art of written works. Literally translated, the word means "acquaintance with letters" . In Western culture the most basic written literary types include fiction and non-fiction....
 or other form of storytelling
Storytelling

Storytelling is the conveying of events in words, s, and sounds often by improvisation or embellishment. Stories or narratives have been shared in every culture and in every land as a means of entertainment, education, preservation of culture and in order to instill moral values....
.

Running gags can begin with an instance of unintentional humor
Unintentional humor

Unintentional humor is the act of making other people laugh without actually meaning to. There are several different kinds of unintentional humor that arise out of various situations....
 that is repeated in variations as the joke grows familiar and audiences anticipate reappearances of the gag. The humor in a running gag may derive entirely from how often it is repeated, the (in)appropriateness of the situation in which the gag occurs, or setting up the audience to expect an occurrence of the joke and then substituting something else (bait and switch).






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A running gag is a literary device which often takes the form of an amusing joke
Joke

A joke is a short story or ironic depiction of a situation communicated with the intent of being humour. These jokes will normally have a punch line that will end the sentence to make it humorous....
 or a comical
Comedy

Comedy as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse generally intended to amuse, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western culture origins are found in Ancient Greece....
 reference and appears repeatedly throughout a work of literature
Literature

Literature is the art of written works. Literally translated, the word means "acquaintance with letters" . In Western culture the most basic written literary types include fiction and non-fiction....
 or other form of storytelling
Storytelling

Storytelling is the conveying of events in words, s, and sounds often by improvisation or embellishment. Stories or narratives have been shared in every culture and in every land as a means of entertainment, education, preservation of culture and in order to instill moral values....
.

Running gags can begin with an instance of unintentional humor
Unintentional humor

Unintentional humor is the act of making other people laugh without actually meaning to. There are several different kinds of unintentional humor that arise out of various situations....
 that is repeated in variations as the joke grows familiar and audiences anticipate reappearances of the gag. The humor in a running gag may derive entirely from how often it is repeated, the (in)appropriateness of the situation in which the gag occurs, or setting up the audience to expect an occurrence of the joke and then substituting something else (bait and switch). Running gags are found mostly in sitcoms
Situation comedy

A situation comedy, usually referred to as a sitcom, is a genre of comedy programs which originated in radio. Today, sitcoms are found almost exclusively on television as one of its dominant narrative forms....
, but also appear in other places, such as video games, film
Film

Film encompasses individual motion pictures, the field of film as an art form, and the film industry. Films are produced by recording images from the world with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or special effects....
s, book
Book

A book is a set or collection of written, printed, illustrated, or blank sheets, made of paper, parchment, or other material, usually fastened together to hinge at one side....
s, and comic strip
Comic strip

A comic strip is a sequence of drawings that tells a story.Currently in the Western world, most comic strips are written and drawn by a comics artist or cartoonist, and many such strips are published on a recurring basis in newspapers and on the Internet....
s.

A running gag can be verbal or visual and may "convey social values by echoing belligerent speakers with a barrage of caricatured threats." (e.g. - A character may present others with a proposition that is so ridiculous or outrageous it is likely to be self-mocking to the point where the original request has little or no chance of actually being carried out and results in a humorous effect.)

Bibliography



See also

  • Gimmick
    Gimmick

    In marketing language, a gimmick is a unique or quirky special feature that makes something "stand out" from its contemporaries. However, the special feature is typically thought to be of little relevance or use....
  • In-joke
    In-joke

    An in-joke is a joke whose humor is clear only to those people who are "inside" a social group or occupation; an esoteric joke. They may be colloquially referred to as "You had to be there" moments, as in "You had to have been there when it happened to think it's funny"....