- So what's the difference between a cat and a comma?

A comma is a pause at the end of a clause, a cat has claws at the end of its paws.

When I first found out about the pun competitions, I felt like I just stumbled into a portal into another world.

(upbeat music playing) - A pun is a play on words, and sometimes that makes us wanna groan and sometimes that make us wanna laugh.

Can we all collectively groan together?

(audience groaning) Awesome.

And then that's all laugh together.

(audience laughing) All right David.

Come on up here!

All right, David is gonna talk to us about ducks.

- I went to a swan-ky dive bar at the beak-inning of a Fly-day night.

But without a friend to egg me on, my resolve quacked.

I couldn't decide feather to find someone who's down to fluff.

(audience cheering) - [Announcer] Oh shit, we're starting off with a mother fucking ten over here!

(audience cheering) - A guy named Ian was working at a pizza parlor and it was his first day, but he served up a really good pizza.

And the customer goes, that crust aced, Ian.

Okay.

(applause) - [Announcer] Things made out of cotton.

- I'm shorts on material for this one.

(audience laughing) - I could give you a few Q-tips on that.

- I don't have a GPS so I use a garment.

(applause) - Oh gosh, I think I'm running out of these.

You've swayed me.

- I hope I do better than President Knit-son.

(applause) - [Announcer] At the restaurant.

Okay, I'm gonna brainstorm some menu ones for this.

I think that went a tahini bit over their heads.

(applause) - If you would like Max get his bar tab comped, yell and scream at me.

(audience screaming loudly) Alright, if you would like Elle to get her bar tab comped- - There are at least 15 different regional competitions all across the US where people can go to exhibit, or cram down your throats, puns of one sort or another.

We are culturally conditioned to shy away from puns because, well known, they're the lowest form of humor, but they are humor.

- When you first hear about it, you're probably like, that's a really narrow niche audience, but it's like a baseball game, you know, like you just kind of go there and soak it in, and you know, eventually you get tired and have to leave.

- Every single show, something like wild and unpredictable happens.

- They can't jump off the stage.

There's no nudity.

I don't want to go into detail, but let's just say, no longer is there nudity.

All right.

- It was a wild event, like everybody was like screaming.

I mean, I felt like I was at like a Chippendales show for punning.

It was so weird.

- And you can't throw out dollar bills, that that was another issue.

- That's just a free for all.

Like, all things can be subverted, all words can be played with.

- Everyone can have one thing about their personality that is unsavory.

This is the only unsavory thing about my personality.

- Any pun show worth its salt should get people afterwards saying I've been looking for this all my life.

Like these are my people, this is my community, thank you so much, kind of thing.

(lively music playing) - I can't stop them, and I can't always find an audience for them.

And that's the, oh the most frustrating thing, is to have a pun and no audience.

- Yellow ladies and magenta-lmen, welcome black to the gray-ist show on earth-tones.

(applause) (upbeat music playing) - To start, I wanted to ask how you found out about pun slams in general and how you came to create your own.

- I was home in Madison visiting my dad.

He was really sick.

He had gotten stable and I was like, okay, now I'm gonna start seeing my friends.

And so we looked in the Isthmus, and it was like, "Pundamonium- Pun Slam," and I was like, that sounds cool.

The energy immediately was just, these are my people, like I need to do this.

At the end of the show, Art, who created Pundamonium, was set up at a table and I approached him and said, this feels like family, I need to do this.

Can I do this in Seattle?

And he just was like, yeah, sure.

I hyper-focus.

Like, when I get excited about something, I'm like, yes.

And then I'm like, that's what's up.

I tried to shop it around town and got like clips from his shows that he had, and reached out to bars.

So it was hard to find a venue, but then I found Peddler.

We agreed to try it for three months.

You kind of have to build a following.

- So, you're at a pun slam, in case anyone needs a reminder about what a pun is.

An example is, have y'all been reading the news lately?

Because I'm seeing there's a lot of billionaires going into space, and they're definitely astro-nots.

So, thank you.

(audience cheering) (laughing) - It grabbed a part of me that was like, here it's okay to spend more than three minutes thinking about puns.

- It started off about a year and a half ago.

I see on Facebook "Pundamonium: The Pun Slam."

- And as somebody who loves puns, I thought, oh that'd be cool.

- And so I went to it and it really just captured my imagination.

- I was gonna just go, just to like see what it was like.

My friends were like, you should just do it.

Like, we're already here.

So I decided to compete the first night that I was there.

The rest is history.

- Two things that I see that I think are really pleasurable.

One, we're watching people upend this linguistic convention and maybe also social or cultural norms.

And the other, is that there's something just very impressive about watching people that are very lexically dextrous.

- You guys are gonna go ahead and talk to us about plants.

Plants.

- Should I get started, or should I leave it to you?

- I wood come up with something good, but I've just got nothing.

- Do you have any plants at home?

Because I haven't botany lately.

(audience cheering) - What I learned when I went to the pun off, is that there is kind of a disease of punning, which I know that I have.

- What is it about my brain that makes sense, that allows it to make sense?

It might blow your mind when I tell you.

So be prepared.

You ever watch a TV show where a character's doing like really intense brainstorming and you see the like words pop off the chalkboard or off the whiteboard and start to sort of rearrange themselves?

That's how my brain works.

And of course it annoys the crap out of people.

- I'll say it, I'll blurt it out.

I can't help myself.

It's like it's there and I have to just get it out into the world.

Whatever the reaction is, I'll take it.

I'm fine.

It's, I have no shame.

- When normal people are like having a conversation and thinking about what the person is saying, I'm thinking about what I can take from what they've said and turn it into a pun.

Which is like not super great because it takes away from the active listening skills.

- I have to tell myself, do not, just do not; let them keep talking.

- Like, sometimes they're just too good and they'll like, push in the forefront and I have to say something.

- And most people roll their eyes.

I think I'm insufferable in general so I don't know.

It's hard to pull out what is the pun and what is just me.

- Whenever people need like a team name for trivia or whatever, like they're always like, hey I need you to think of something, and I'm like, again?

Like, I should start charging for this service.

And then it's like, do you have to step up to the challenge anyway or like can you just not sometimes?

Like, it's a lot of pun pressure.

- My mom's from the Philippines, my dad's from Hong Kong, and in our multilingual household there was a lot of like ESL.

There were a lot of words we were bringing back home into the household.

We often made puns inter-linguistically amongst each other.

Like, we'd make fun of our parents' accents and that's like, the sort of play around language I think that started really early for us.

And I think like, now that I think about it, it was one way that we were all mediating our identities as like American born children of immigrants.

Trying to make light and find humor in all of those moments of friction.

- I'm Jewish and growing up, and even now, like I don't have very many Jewish friends and so when I would go to Israel with my family I was like, oh, like you're kind of, you don't have to explain anything.

You know, even though I've never been religious, it's like, I don't have to explain like all of our, you know it's called hummus, it's not hummus.

Like, that's kind of how it felt to be at the pun-off.

Like, you kind of don't have to explain yourself.

You're just with your people and you can kind of just be.

- [Narrator] The definition of a pun is the humorous use of a word in such a way to suggest a different meaning or application.

These quipsters strut their stuff on the subject of horses and racing.

- Well, I'm saddled with a problem here.

- Ah, well it's a cinch, you'll have a good time though.

- My friend Sean sent me a video and he was like, look at this.

And it was a video of the pun-off.

It was kind of funny to watch cause people had mullets.

The fashion was funny and the video quality was bad.

And then I googled it and I was like, this is still happening and this is an annual event.

And finally it occurred to me that we could go.

We had no idea what it was gonna be like.

- There was this woman named Tina who was killed in this horrible accident when one of the golden arches at a McDonald's fell on her, and it was an arch on Tina.

- I would guess it's several hundred people.

So it's kind of just a big pun festival.

It's a competition, but it's also sort of- - it's a celebration.

(lively music playing) - There are sort of the people who do well every year, and there are the ones that everyone kind of recognizes.

There are like, mini celebrities within the pun scene.

So there are the people who are just really strong and so you see their routines and you're like, try not to be in awe of them when they go up before you or after you.

- I just loved Gary, the organizer.

I mean, talk about throwing yourself into it.

I mean, that guy is like a non-stop punner.

He was wearing an American flag button up shirt and he's just a character.

- Let me introduce some of our emcees over here.

This is Gary Hallock.

(applause) - So, for Punniest, you choose your category 'cause that's sort of the monologue.

And so basically that's like entirely prepared.

You've written it yourself, you've learned it.

And so there's no improv, there's no ad-libbing.

- You ready?

Go.

- I wanted a boyfriend so I went where there's a shwarma guys, Tinder.

Now, I don't know the medium well, but most just want T-bone.

We're, well done.

Tartare.

Bye son.

I'll beef frank, I'm scared but maybe I don't need a gyro.

Turducken right I don't, because in life, I am game to rabbit by the horns, goat for broke, lamb on my feet, because braise the Lord, I am stroganoff on my own!

(audience cheering) - The stars aligned the day my fiance went back to prison.

I had just been to the Gemini, parked my Mercury Capricorn-er from our favorite Paleo restaurant where we were having Cosmos.

But it was perfect.

It was the morning I engaged the nefarious.

(audience cheering) Let the pun shine!

I'm a recent widow, my husband passed, it'll be six months this month and this is something we'd already talked about, we always talked about doing, and when I lost him I decided that it was time to take the bull by the horns and do some things that I had planned on.

He didn't get to do some of the things he planned on.

And so I dyed my hair pink and I entered the pun off and I'm gonna learn to fly a plane and I am going to tell people I love them and I'm learning to live life, and live my best life.

Even without him I can still be somebody.

I just have to figure out who that is.

And this was part of it for me, and I did it.

- At the head-to-head one, where you have sort of just quick hitting, one after another puns back and forth, one liners, that's more improv-like, I think.

If you don't have the improv background, you kind of, you can freeze when you get on stage or you can kind of go blank and not know how to bring yourself back to think of something.

- The categories were hard.

The two people that went on the longest went for I think 30 or 35 minutes and that's with only five seconds between each turn.

That's a lot of puns.

- You know sometimes, when in my dating life I get to the bottom of the barrel, I'm just a real guy-scraper.

(applause) - I have been really jumpy for this event.

My legs is moving a lot, and I have to be like stay, shin.

- Does anyone have a place where I can protect my ass?

I need a bum shelter.

- This part of my leg finally stayed still.

I'm a lady, but sometimes you just need a man shin.

(audience laughing) - Yeah, speaking of men, I won't have sex with a man unless there's a condom on him.

(audience laughing) - But you have to start speaking within a five count.

If you fall silent for five count, then you're out.

If you reuse a cue word within that same topic, you get a strike.

- So you have to be paying attention to what they're saying while thinking of your stuff.

And so that's again kinda like improv, where you have to be paying attention to stuff around you but also thinking about what you're gonna do next.

- I got a stadium old pun to get some time here.

- Strike.

- Has stadium been used yet?

- Yes, stadium is used.

That's a strike.

- I like how when you kind of hang a glass thing from the wall, it's, it's a really good prism.

(audience booing) - What is your word?

- Prison.

- Prison, yes.

- Prison is a building.

- Yep.

- Oh, prison.

Okay.

All right.

Well, jail let that one go.

(audience booing) - Oh you already said jail.

Oh no, that's my last strike!

Oh, no it's my second one?

No, I can't see it.

- What we've done for all of you that love puns is found a place where you can find the highest puns happening at the highest level made by kind and creative people.

And I know in my own personal life I'm less injecting stupid wordplay to derail a conversation because I now have a place where instead of groaning or breaking up with me, people will cheer and give me prizes.

- You can't pun that much in regular life.

And so after 72 hours of nonstop punning, you kind of have to like, tone yourself back down again.

- It's fun just meeting people and sort of hearing about the different scenes.

- Looking back over the last 8 to 10 years or so, I am so glad I have been coming back 'cause the quality of the contestants that we are seeing in these recent years has just really grown, tremendously grown, ha, "groan" tremendously.

- I think I came in right at the beginning of a shift where there were more people coming from further away places.

I think the proliferation of things like YouTube made that possible where we could see a video of a competitor and say, that sounds like a place I should be and I want to go to that place.

Those are my people.

I belong there.

In one way, it's changed because there are more people from more places, and more diverse voices and further reaches of the country and the world.

But in another way, it's the same thing as it's always been in my experience 'cause it's people finding their people.

- My dad and I competed at the O. Henry Pun-off, in whatever year it is when you google our names and find that YouTube.

- Sondheim ready.

Can you Handel this?

- I'm under a lot of Strauss.

I feel like Haydn.

- This is our Texas debut, see?

We're gonna be Mozart-istic.

- Recycling classic puns gives me Ives.

- This is Austin, everything is compost.

- I went back to San Francisco, just lit up with the idea that I saw that there wasn't a pun-off in really anywhere else that I knew of.

One of the things I like is puns.

One of the things I like doing is making puns with my friends.

So the first one was 44 people and then they told enough of their friends and then it like jumped outside our community.

(upbeat music playing) - We are so happy that you're here.

We just did our 50th and 51st show in San Francisco.

- Who here has been punished for their word play?

Or you've said, no pun intended, but you actually did intend it.

- This place is for you.

This event is for you.

These are your friends.

- Life is like a box of chocolates, but I got cavities.

So I went to the dentist.

I asked for her name.

She said "Jenny."

I said, "Jenny, do you fix teeth?"

She says, "No, for us, gums."

- There was this little girl, she was like 10, her name's Madison and her teeth were so fucked up.

She lives in this place all alone.

Finally, a dentist found her and he fixed her teeth.

He said, "These are the Bridges of Madison's County."

- You know, one day we had some really violent student come in.

He came in with, you know, some really small knives.

He was running.

But I finally got a call from the principal.

"I hear there's some guy running with scissors."

He said, "No, there's a Blade Runner."

- So, in this case that literally means what it means, right?

- Yeah, but it also- - But it's also the name of a movie?

- It's also the name of the movie too, so isn't it a pun?

- No.

You're using the words in the name of the movie like, for the meanings that they have.

Like, blade means blade, and runner means runner.

Is that accurate?

- That makes sense, yeah.

(audience cheering) - At the moment when someone would most likely be like (sighs), we give them a "parting is such sweet sorrow," some kind of like, a piece of chocolate or something or an actual parting shot.

- So a bunch of us are still scratching our head, what's a pun?

What's a joke?

What's wordplay?

Honestly, it's like 50 shades of gray area for me.

- You must use the majority of the syllables, so 50 shades of- - So, 50 shades of, kind of means what it means.

- And then gray was the one and it was a good joke.

Henceforth, we will call more strictly.

Okay.

- We are extremely clear about the structure of our show.

You need more rules than just simply the definition of a pun.

- Puns are really just one category of word play and there's so much else out there that we've been, that people use at Pundamonium, that they don't even realize they're not technically puns.

- A pun is the humorous use of a word or words in such a way as to suggest different meanings or applications, or words that have the same or nearly the same sound, but different meanings.

- Puns operate in a variety of ways.

One is homophony.

So a word sounds like another word.

- The bride, carrying her wedding cake, the top fell off, she shed a tear.

There are homonyms.

So those are both spelled and sound the same.

If Led Zeppelin needed a replacement musician, they'd need to be on the same Page.

Jimmy Page.

And then paronyms.

Ahh, I'm scared of dogs.

They're terrier-izing.

- The main distinction is there's reference, and a pun.

So reference is like if the topic is hospitals, and you say I'm allergic to this situation, that's not a pun, it's a reference.

But if you say like, oh I appreciate your hospital-ity, that's like maybe a pun.

And then if you like, say, my favorite Winnie the Pooh character is E.R., that's like definitely a pun.

- I was listening to the radio today and the DJ was talking about this music festival coming up and it's called the Freak Out Festival.

And then she said if tickets sell out, people are really gonna freak out.

And then she paused and she went, oh my god, I didn't even realize that wasn't meant to be a joke.

No pun intended.

That's not a pun.

'Cause they're both called freak out.

- You totally intended that pun.

I've never said "No pun intended."

(laughing) I would never.

- This is probably my dorkiest punning kind of moment, is I have to try to not say like, you used that expression wrong.

- I look forward to just going home and spooning my wife.

- Are you sure?

Cause I might put your hand on a platter.

There should be apps for this.

- Yogurt, girl.

- So often, I see posted on the internet what people think are puns and they're not puns.

And then of course if we don't take them in the pun-off, sometimes we get booed, and it's like that's not a pun.

We're doing a pun contest here.

- I disagree a little bit with the O. Henry hosts about like, what is a pun?

I just find puns like they are in Shakespeare, like really political, really radical, they make you interpret something in two ways at once.

Which to me is the way that I wanna see the world.

You know, I never wanna like deal in absolutes.

- Sometimes people will come and a lot of people have told them that they're great at puns.

Their friends misinformed them because they're great at word play.

- I want to dispel the notion that it is just a pun scene.

It is a word play scene.

If you limit it to puns, then you end up with a stick up your ass.

- I wanted to make sure I didn't straight too much.

- Um, straight is an adjective that could be applied in any context.

We're gonna give you a strike on that one and give you a chance to make a real pun.

- There was kind of a juxtaposition.

I felt like the way it was set up was very informal but then there was a formality to the judging and how strict they were about kicking you out if you didn't say a pun.

- I think like, this is a very traditionalist view of what a pun is, and to me what people should know about puns, is that it's not just this.

It's kind of a way to like, align language and blend ideas.

And it's like, actually fuckin' cool.

- The Pundamonium at the bar is definitely more sort of crowd reaction and cheering, whereas the one in Austin is a little more strict, and you know, that could be good or bad depending on your perspective.

- Were it not for Forest, it'd be a very different experience.

If you had somebody, for instance, who was very rule bound, who was like, we're not gonna give anybody five seconds extra to wrap up their final pun, it wouldn't be the same free-wheeling and fun event.

It would feel clinical and weird.

- It's been so much more fun and playful and like, less competitive.

Like, I've definitely been able to foster that.

I think I like, weed out those hardcore competitors pretty quickly.

They come like, "What the fuck?

This isn't a pun."

It feels fine 'cause it's, it's my thing, so I don't have to stay within like the lines of the thing that was created.

- When I went to the Seattle pun-off one time, it was challenging because they don't have any clear criteria and the audience are the judges.

They're judging me based on whether they like what I said.

If they like what the next guy said more, but he only made two puns, and I just made 40 puns in 2 minutes, I feel frustrated.

- So when we're doing it at Pundamonium, and you know, they're just like making reference, references, it was just like, that wouldn't count in Austin, but the crowd seems to like it here so I better just deal with it.

- From the competitor perspective, the rules thing is like about knowing what you're getting into and knowing how to get treated fairly.

We have found that the structures that we came up with are yielding better and better puns and like, generate better comedy.

- Comedy is like learning how to work with your audience and understanding when there's a push pull, and when you just have to talk.

It's fun when they laugh with, and at you, sometimes.

- I've stopped looking at it as a competition because it's, it's fun.

- I've punned quite a bit on the radio, to mixed results, not from listeners, but from the hosts on the shows that we're on.

Some are like, do not, please don't do that again.

I work at KIRO Radio and I'm a feature reporter and I host a podcast called "Your Last Meal".

- Nice to see you.

How have you been?

- I've been good.

- Good to see you.

- How you doin'?

- We've been doing this thing called TV Club.

Almost the same group of people.

We get together and we watch, usually eighties or nineties sitcoms and then we make pun food to go with it.

It's been at least a year and a half since we've done it.

So we're coming back with "Mork and Mindy."

It's kind of just a good opportunity for us to get together as this particular group.

You know that you have a solid group of punners.

So I got some lemonade 'cause I thought it could be kind of like an Arnold Palmer, but when you mix the lemonade with the mint tea, it becomes a Robin Will-yums.

Everyone in the group appreciates a pun.

There's no eye rollers in the group.

There was one and he doesn't come anymore.

He removed himself from the group.

Sometimes people don't make a good effort and they don't do a good pun and so I have to hold it in when people don't do a good pun 'cause I'm like, you had one job, but I have to really keep it inside because like, we're here to hang out.

So I made a Mork and mint tea.

- I did pork and mint-y.

This is gonna be a recurring theme, I think.

- I made these Nanu Nanu potatoes.

Ariel made shazbot-cho.

- I made a Vietnamese Mork, with Na-noodle salad.

- I made Mork calling orzo and spinach salad.

There's some feta, Sean, which I know dairy isn't always your friend, but feta is pretty low lactose.

- I'm feta up with this.

(laughing) - You know, I'm going hardcore prawn with this.

(laughing) - You're shrimply the best.

- There's not mush-room for anyone else.

- This is such a good pun, this one.

Pork and minty.

Come on.

- If Sean was in the show, they'd call it Dork and Mindy.

- Yeah, that's, that's true.

- It's wordplay, and so I think that it's people who like language.

I love kind of how words string together and I like wordplay as much as I like punning.

- Somebody that's a judge that's got a PhD in linguistics or comparative etymology and waxes eloquent on whether the pun's good or bad, we don't know nothing about that, you know?

You'll know it when you see it.

(cheerful music playing) - Let's go back to 2011, my daughter's a comedian in New York, somebody tells her that there's a pun competition in Austin.

The O. Henry Pun-Off, and she, that they attended, and she says, well maybe I ought to have a, a pun competition.

She calls me and she says, "Dad, how would you do a pun competition?"

Well I'm not used to being an asked how would I do anything.

You know, I get the eye rolls.

Well neither of us are punners.

I said, "Well you know, what you really need is a human clap-o-meter."

She says, "What are you talking-" "Hey, hey, stay with me here."

A human clap-o-meter, it's a way by which we engage the audience, not just an outside judge, but the audience decides.

And that's when we got started.

Anyway, one thing led to another and here we are at the 132 show.

(audience cheering) - We're gonna start with the warmup round.

You see your buddy named Jack on an airplane.

You don't want to yell out what?

- (audience yelling) Hi-jack!

- Right back there.

There you go, somebody.

The method we've come up with to determine who wins the dome, is the human clap-o-meter.

(audience cheering) We're gonna ask Molly to ascertain the score from 1 to 10.

She's gonna evaluate how loud, how long the applause is and we'll come up with a number.

Tell you now about the preliminary event, it's called the Pun Battle Royale.

The topic for the Pun Battle Royale is .... summer.

- Beach ya can't find a better pun than this first one.

- I may have a few puns about summer, but I don't want to be-Labor at the moment.

- Summer are good, summer bad, they're all puns.

- I really hope you can under-sand what I'm saying.

- Oy, stirrin' in the pot there.

- I'm scared or you're a-claws.

(audience cheering) - The topic for the first preliminary round of the Tournament of Pun Champions is babies and making babies.

- What's also different from the punderdome, we don't use real names, okay?

- You know when you're at a urinal and they're just not using it at all?

Come on, fill all pee in tubes.

- Punamerican Activities!

- So I was hooking up with this girl, never heard of ketchup in her life.

She didn't know what a condom meant.

Because you know, I told her I come to this all the time.

I was like, I go to the Punderdome.

She was like, "Oh really?

Pun inside me."

- Pun Like Hell.

- Let me tell you a story about my goat.

I was going out to visit this farm, they kept me in the guest station.

I really wanted to be a rancher, and I was like, "Can I try, mister?"

They were like, "You want to do some crafts?

Do you want make some fabric?

Do you want to dye a frame?"

(audience cheering) - So that's the kind of thing you gotta be able to really, not just say here's a pun, but integrate it into a story, set up punchline.

But pick that, do that in two minutes prep.

I guess what we want people to do, in sum, we want 'em to have a fun experience.

We would like people to come back because they're inextricably linked with the outcome and if they can have fun with it, we want to break down the barrier between stage and the audience, which is now the stage.

(music playing) - I bought it in March and then it came here and I started working on it.

I actually have high hopes that I can call ahead and host pun slams in cities, and so travel around and like, stop and host a pun slam in the city and like make some money.

If I start one, when I start one in Olympia, so that'll be two and then yeah if I can kind of have 'em be close to each other in timing, you know I can come back here to host those too.

And then yeah, come on in.

It came with the bathtub in it, so it's gonna be like my glamour hippie bathtub and then this is gonna be my giant awesome closet and then this is my bed.

Yeah, so this is all like scraps.

I found this sink on Craigslist for 10 bucks, got this oven for free, and these are bus seats that came with it that I refurbished.

It's been really cool.

Yeah, if I could go around and like, once a week host a pun slam and like make enough money doing that, that would be amazing.

So that kind of just came to me recently as my latest dream.

I don't know, I mean I know like dancing, dance troops that do that and you know.

I don't know.

Why not be a traveling puns-tress?

Cause I'm breaking away from the the Pundamonium.

I mean, I'll still be doing that one, but I don't wanna just keep doing Pundamoniums everywhere.

I want it to be a little more interactive and a little more like, trying to get like, ladies involved, and like, queer folks and like, not have it be so bro-y.

I mean it goes back actually to having gone to LA last summer and going to comedy clubs there.

It was a lot of just kind of like low brow making fun of audience members and just being like, saying like kind of like, homophobic and like, classist- like, it blew my mind that that was still happening.

It really threw me off and I was like, I'd really like to do some comedy in Olympia, free from all that stuff.

Just the longer I'm here and the more people I meet and people find out I host a pun slam in Seattle and they're like, you should host a pun slam in Olympia.

Like, I would totally go to that and enough people kept saying that where I was like, okay, yeah, I should host a pun slam in Olympia.

I just wanna have it be more, more of an inclusive space.

I get uncomfortable and I feel protective of my, you know, participants.

Yeah.

I want people to feel safe and encouraged to come up on stage.

- Language isn't just language, it's actually the site of social struggle.

The fight over what words mean what, or what jokes are funny.

If I told you that your joke isn't funny, I don't think people would look at that judgment and say that that's a political or social act but it, it actually is.

We are re-contextualizing like, who gets to laugh at what, what topics are utterable and unutterable.

Also that, why are people making those jokes in this day and age at this moment?

I don't know.

- So I read this really interesting quote yesterday from Sarah Silverman that was talking about how comedy evolves and she was saying that there's jokes that she made 10 years ago that she wouldn't make now and that doesn't make her a bad person or a bad comedian but it's important to make sure that your comedy and your story is evolving as like, culture is changing and evolving.

I think there's a really fine line between telling jokes and making fun of people.

- We like to define the culture, so we have something I read every Punderdome, and that's a no hate policy.

And one of my pet peeves is when you go to a comedy show and you have a comedian whose job it is to bring somebody down, that's bullshit.

Not on my watch.

- Forest has been doing this now for several years and I think that as she has grown as a host, you know, she's found ways to influence that that aren't specifically laying down ground rules but just making it clear in subtle ways that there's certain language or types of jokes that aren't gonna fly.

- We prefer our comedy to punch up or across, not down.

We're not gonna kill anyone.

We're just gonna say as lovingly as we can, yeah, maybe not like, let's try that one again.

- That's hard 'cause then it's, I don't think they should get a point, but then it also becomes like a mini tar and feathering 'cause you're on stage and I mean, they shouldn't allow it, but it's kind of like, I guess when people's mouths are going, you just find out what's inside.

- A lot of people say things that shouldn't be said and they'll use humor as an excuse to do that.

But I think that at the end of the day, like, anything that you say is something that you've said and so you have to be like, very careful that even if you're doing that through a lens of comedy, it's still something that you aren't ashamed of.

- It's wordplay but it, it can used for good or evil I guess, is what comes down to.

- And like, you can tell poop jokes, like that's funny.

Farts, poops, body stuff.

Yeah, totally funny.

Like you know, you don't have to be like high brow or whatever.

You don't have to be a jerk either.

- We just want everyone, both on stage and offstage, to have fun, or have pun.

Just to use a stupid pun.

- Mining.

Mining.

- You ready to get drilled?

- I would just like to say that women are great and men are all trash.

Mineral trash.

(audience laughing) - This is rigged.

- I feel like you led me on.

- That was good.

What did you type for your query?

- Do you like Washington, man?

Because I like Oregon better.

(audience cheering) - You know, being able to play with language indicates that you're really at a level where you understand what rules in language can be bent.

It's really underappreciated, you know, it's a form of humor that has a certain amount of stigma attached to it.

- I actually used to really dislike puns.

When I was younger, both of my parents would pun.

They would call it punning, and ultimately it was more wordplay, and not very good.

Like if I ever said, and I only said it a couple times and I would never say it again, "I'm just bored," and my dad would say, "Oh, well I'm saw."

I just hated that so much.

- How do you tell if an ant is a male or a female ant?

You drop it in water, and if it floats it's buoyant.

I hate that one so much.

- It's not a pun per se, but the first dad joke I remember is when we'd be out at a restaurant and the server would say like, "Oh would you like another lemonade, sir?"

And he'd go, "Oh no thanks, I'm driving."

- The like, dad joke that I remember is like, did you get a haircut?

No, I got them all cut.

- What do you call a confused chicken that crosses the road and crosses right back again?

A fowled-up double crosser.

- I just want to tell you something.

As a dad, I love dad jokes.

Do you love dad jokes?

What?

Do you have any favorite dad jokes?

- No.

- Yeah, me neither.

I want to bring Sawyer out at some point cause I do have a pun for Sawyer.

Sawyer's a Boston Terrier.

He's a, well he's a Boston Terrier so he doesn't bark, he bah-ks.

He has a food allergy.

He can't eat, he can't eat meat.

He like, breaks out when he does, so I call him, He's a vege-terrier.

Right?

Pretty good.

- You delivered that painfully slow.

- You're right, I did.

It's a work in progress.

- Which made it even worse than it was before.

They're painful when they're bad.

I guess that's the groan, right?

- You don't like any of my jokes.

- For my head shake of all of his puns.

I am shocked I leaned into it so much for our wedding.

- My wife and I both came up with these together.

So it was a collaborative effort on puns.

By the, like the food station for snacks, there's the pun, "Yum and Only."

By where the cake is, "After dinner there's desert," 'cause we got married in the desert, and it's, uh, cake.

"Don't go bacon my heart."

That one's pretty groan worthy.

"Will you mariachi me?"

We didn't have like mariachi music or anything, it just felt right.

Also next to the food, "I chews you."

This is by the bar, "Start spreading the booze."

We punned it up for sure.

My day job is I'm a TV producer, I work on "The Bachelor" and like, that whole franchise, every now and then you hear punny things that are said in an interview maybe.

And that's a result of you know, my brain sitting down with another creative person who's on the show who are just talking about what's going on in their life.

And I'll say something, and they'll say something and we'll both have a laugh about it and it's like, oh there it is.

Like you just said- - I'm here for the flight reasons.

- because you're dating a pilot.

That's totally silly.

Puns are sort of the bread and butter that keep the lights on around here.

As a lifelong lover of puns, every time I make a pun in my head and say it out loud and it gets a laugh, I write it down.

I've always had doing an open mic night on my bucket list.

I just wanna take the risk and just share the few puns that I've been holding onto that I think are somewhat universally funny.

I want to give it a shot and tonight's the night.

Thank you for coming, Bill.

- Yeah, of course.

- I'm excited to work on this with you.

Let me get a pen.

This is Bill, he's an actual comedian.

I'm doing an open mic where there'll be other people that actually have real standup comedy to do, but I'm only interested in doing puns tonight, so.

- I think you're overestimating the quality of what an open mic is gonna be.

It's like a workout room.

It's to get onto a stage and to say this stuff out loud and there's gonna be like a lot of other things.

You're gonna get up there and you're going to realize the light is brighter than you thought it was.

You're in a room full of a bunch of people you don't know.

It's the first time somebody says, "Coming to the stage is a very funny guy Adam Mansfield."

- Coming to stage right now, make it loud for Adam Mansfield!

- This could be the first time you've talked into an amplified microphone.

- That's Sam laughing in the background, by the way.

- Do you want to actually run it?

- Sure.

- Coming to the stage is a very funny comedian, please welcome Adam Mansfield.

- I wanna start a jazz cover band.

I wanna start a jazz band that plays covers of only, I wanna start a jazz band that does only covers of lullabies.

It's called the circadian rhythm section.

What do you call, what do you call a transformer who sees life as half glass full?

Who sees life as glass half full?

Optimist Prime.

- Do that.

- Yeah.

- 15 More times.

And you do this once, and then you do it four times a day, every day for six years, and then uh, nothing happens.

It could be so bad, - That it's- - Hysterical.

- Okay, you guys ready to get this mic started?

Let's see who's biting the bullet.

Adam Mansfield!

(applause) - Have fun, dude.

- Thanks dude.

Hi everybody.

Can everybody in the back hear me?

Okay great.

I want to start a charity that makes, that installs strip clubs in poor neighborhoods.

It's called Habi-tits for Humanity.

I'm gonna open a comedy club that's also an S&M dungeon.

It's called Quips and Chains.

Right.

It's a wild west themed teddy bear company called The Good, the Bad and the Snuggly.

Marshall Mathers opened a company, started a company, that makes suppositories.

They're called Emen-enemas.

Thank you guys for listening.

(audience cheering) It's a great question.

Why is there hatred for puns?

- Why do people hate puns?

I think I hate puns, but I love them.

- It seems like the more somebody hates puns, the more my brain can't stop making them.

- This is the contradictory thing.

It's cringey and it's pleasurable.

- I think a lot of people feel obligated to groan.

You know?

I think they don't even think that it's so bad but it's just like, oh it's like a dad joke.

Like wah-wah.

- I guess there's two different camps, so maybe like not getting it, or laughing and then being upset that you laughed at something so corny.

That's generally what I see more often.

You say something super corny and then they're like, blah and they're immediately like, ugh, I didn't laugh at that.

That was dumb.

Like, that was like a little kid joke or something.

And so then they claim not to like puns 'cause they're like too cool for school.

- To me, it's, it's very enjoyable.

So like, I don't have a good answer for why it's a negative.

I kind of miss that a lot of the time.

- What I would say to them if they told me they hated 'em, I would just be like, you need to just let yourself get goofy 'cause that's what's really going on here.

- People think that it's the lowest form of humor but it's not, because everybody can't do it.

- I think there's some amount of like jealousy of like, Damn, I wish I had thought of that.

- I want to meet a person who hates puns and ask them why they hate puns.

- Why couldn't the sesame seed leave the poker table?

Because he was on a roll.

- Oh my god.

- Why did the can crusher quit his job?

It was soda pressing.

- Oh this is awful.

And I think I don't like 'em because I don't understand them.

My brain doesn't just doesn't work.

I remember having to go to like a speech specialist to understand like how to pronounce certain letters and stuff and so I always struggled with, I guess words in general.

So like, definitely not being able to understand them in a way that they're not supposed to be used.

It's not that like I'm anti-pun.

Pun away.

Just realize that it's going on deaf ears essentially.

- This has been a cat-astrophe.

- Luna, this is ridiculous.

- I think everybody just wants to connect and then people wanna have a back and forth and so maybe it's the people who can't pun, like it doesn't come to them easily so they think it's kind of cheesy, but they can't throw one back at you.

So it's almost like, stops the conversation or it stops the joke.

- We are trained to hate puns and make fun of people that are making puns.

They're transgressing this thing where we are taught that these words mean this.

Yeah like that's such a fundamental violation of this very simple thing which is how to speak.

- It co-opts a part of your brain that you weren't trying to activate.

So it makes sense to me when people are like please stop punning.

- There are different registers at which people will play with language.

Some of us are geminis and academics and just talk a lot and like are very comfortable inhabiting language.

It's our way of signaling to each other, there's a person in here that yearns for expression even though we are shackled by the Oxford English dictionary and all these other conventions about language.

If people hate that, then I don't know.

I don't know what to tell them.

They probably aren't hanging out with me if they hate my puns so much.

Nonstop verbal diarrhea.

- I think this would be a good spot, right?

There's like a stage there.

Are you who I would talk to if I wanted to host an event here by any chance?

My name's Forest.

I'm dressed as a shrimp on a bobby, and I want to host a pun competition here so I was like, oh stopping by while I'm wearing my punny outfit.

- Tomorrow he opens at 11 o'clock.

- Yeah.

Hope to see you again.

Thank you.

Do people know what bobbies are?

Is it common knowledge?

- I have no idea what your reference is.

I've been too scared to ask.

- Oh, okay good.

I'm glad that we're having this talk.

A bobby, that's what they call the police in London.

- Oh.

- And so this is like their hat and their total like little outfit like when people are like, oh have another shrimp on the barbie.

So it's really shrimp on the barbie, like shrimp on the barbecue.

And there's also, oh Octapas I think is like that way.

- Hi, how are you?

Yeah, I was thinking about maybe hosting a pun slam here through Roxy like, so I was like I was kind of wanna check out the- - Peek your head in.

- Okay.

I'm a shrimp on a bobby is what- (laughing) A shrimp on a bobby.

(laughing) Awesome.

I love it here.

Awesome space.

I will see you again.

Thank you.

Everyone loved the outfit.

That seemed to be really a great.

Thank you.

Shrimp on a bobby.

- Oh my god.

(laughing) - Thank you.

I think this is it.

How's it going?

Shrimp on a bobby.

(groaning) Are you who I would talk to if I wanted to host an event here?

A pun slam.

- A pun slam?

- Yeah, I host them in Seattle and yeah so I'm just kind of testing the waters around town.

- Seated, we're just under 200.

- Oh dope.

- But like- - Okay.

(jazz music playing) - 2016 I went to the world championships and I was just enthralled with this whole world that existed of people who compete with puns.

So, it's surprising that they call toilets Johns 'cause it's always jackpot.

Jack's pot.

(audience cheering) I knew going back to home to Spokane, that nothing existed and so I thought well you know, if it doesn't exist, let's make it exist.

(lively jazz music playing) So this is our third birthday (applause) and we're all here for love of words, for that word play, for those groans.

Let's hear some groans.

(audience groaning) So I modeled it after the improvised portion of the O. Henry.

So people go up two by two and I give them a topic and then they pun back and forth.

We want The Punderground to be an accessible safe space for everyone, so you know, there's no homophobia, racism or sexism here.

Just get ready for having a lot of pun tonight.

But who's ready for round one of the Punderground?

This category is ... art and artists.

- My friend Dave had early onset eczema, but he was- (laughing) Dave's itchy.

Dave's itchy.

Dave, Davinci.

(audience laughing) - I tried to get into glass art, but I really blew it.

(applause) - Next up can I get Rita and Tad to the stage please?

- So I'm glad that this guy is really personable because most of the guys that I meet are very a-loaf.

- I was a little nervous to come up here and I said I want muffin to do with this.

- That was actually really, a really good one.

But I, I think I have better buns.

(laughing) Good job.

(applause) - Drag queens have a lot of pun names that they enjoy.

My name is Rita Fine because I redefine myself when I get like this.

It's one of the things that has kind of helped to create my identity and helped me to be able to perform, present, do things like these pun competitions, without any fear, without any worries about, you know, the craziness that happens in this world.

So.

- If anyone wants to come up here and just say some puns in an open mic style.

Let's do, I like my lover like I like my books.

- I like my lover like I like my books.

When I'm able to catch her in the eye.

- I like my lover, like I like my books.

He's a little bi-ble.

- I like my lover like I like my books.

She's a real page turner.

- I like my lover like I like my books.

Willing to choke me until I turn the color purple.

(audience laughing) - That's a good point to wrap up the improvised punning round.

We do have a birthday cake for our third anniversary.

It's been three years.

(applause) Who's ready to sing happy birthday to The Punderground?

♪ Happy birthday to you ♪ Happy birthday to you ♪ Happy birthday dear Punderground ♪ ♪ Happy birthday to you (cheering) I'm just, I'm so grateful to Boots and to the punning community here in Spokane and to just get to pun and be silly with words once a month for three years.

(applause) - So one of the things I think that draws me to this is just that it's such a wonderfully eclectic mixed group of Spokane.

I really appreciate that.

I feel like it's a fairly queer space in Spokane.

I feel like it's a fairly racially diverse space in Spokane.

I feel like it's all ages, and it's nice to have a space like that.

- For like, people who are like, you know, just sports fans or like with more common interests, it's kinda like society gives you plenty of things to enjoy and do and you know, bars to be at and stuff.

But when you have like you know these kind of quirky, random, esoteric interests, it's like, there's Comic-Con, there's LARPing in the park or like, there's The Punderground.

- I think that it's easier for shows that are just starting out to purposefully create the environment that welcomes people.

- One thing that you know I've run into and I think some fellow competitors have run into is sort of the lack of gender diversity, you know, racial diversity that exists in the competition, in the judging, et cetera.

- I do remember it being really white but I didn't think of it at the time or notice it.

I would notice it now I think because of the movement we've had in the past year.

- When I first started Pun Slam, there was like one woman and it was Rachel.

Slowly, yeah there's been more regular women but it's, the ratios are always like more guys than girls.

- It's a little bit of a chicken and egg kind of thing.

Like we need more women in comedy so that more women will feel inspired to exist in that space.

But then like how do you get those women to be more comfortable in that space?

- Give it up for Rebecca!

One of only two ladies.

I mean ladies y'all should sign up.

- I think it's like nice to call that out but at the same time like I just want to be a comedian.

Like I don't really want like gender to play a role in who I am or how that shapes my story, but it does.

I want people to laugh 'cause I'm funny.

I don't want them to laugh 'cause I'm like the only female competitor.

Those aren't brownie points.

Like, if people don't laugh then it wasn't funny.

Which is good, 'cause then I'll say something next time that is funny, so I like wanna know like, what's real and what's not.

- Not like a pity chuckle?

- Yeah, I don't want a pity chuckle.

Unless I'm totally bombing, in which case I don't want dead silence.

- Comedy, like every other thing, is having a reckoning right now about representation.

Especially in a post "Me Too" moment.

Especially in this post George Floyd moment.

We think that the pun is this innocuous, apolitical, benign little activity that people are doing, and maybe laughing at, or not.

The judgements we make about which puns are funny or not are also completely loaded and ways for us to re-articulate our place and position in the world.

- Puns are a very unique channel, right?

They split something in two so it like breaks through the barrier of like, oh I know what I'm about to hear.

And so I just think it's that that is what makes political punning so important is it's like this unique opportunity to cut through, a way of speaking to people that actually accesses them.

- When there are horrible things going on in the world, it's okay to talk about in, in a comedic sense.

In my mind, that deflates the evil a little bit.

- When I write a pun routine, I want it to really say something.

Pun for good, not for evil, is kind my motto.

I've been a community organizer for years and so talking about anything else wouldn't feel that fun to me.

So last year, I did a routine about the "Me Too" movement and accused sexual predators' names, and those are what I was using for puns.

Hashtag me too.

They say that with lemons, make lemonade, but can Weinstein-y grapes be anything but sour?

No, this is not a Thrush to judgment or a Rose-t.

This is calling out an Affleck-tion.

Examining what could the Cos-by?

What Ailes our culture that allows for such Lauer-ed expectations of human decency?

I'll give her more Spacey, he says, Batali really wants are ways to Halperin to the bedroom.

Did he help me put together Ikea furniture out of the goodness of his heart, or Woody Allen wrench his way into your pants?

You think, you think O'Reilly, that happens?

You have the Seagal to say that.

Listen to the Tambor of my voice.

We're being Franken every story we share, when being Franco's against our safety and security.

We're Dustin Hoffman-y conversations long neglected.

Like do not call a female a f-Louis C.K.?

Or a s-Trump-et.

No one has right to dest- Roy Moore of our lives.

Guys, it's time to be Masterson calling this out.

If there's a Ratner midst, take care of it.

Russel Simmons folk to help make things right.

Toback to the drawing board.

Piven-tually, you'll understand the Harmon can do.

We're not Romans building a Garrison.

We're not the appalling Schneiderman, fighting any guy who Brokaw a piece of our dignity.

Go to any woman and Nasser, she'd agree.

We want this problem stopped before it ever Landis blow.

And to our critics who tell us to grow a pair, Oliver Stone's R. Kelly it right now.

We're speaking out.

We need our allies to do the same, but we need more than words.

Ansari doesn't cut it.

I guess hashtag times up.

(applause) - I've got 10, 9, 9, 10, 10, and 10!

- I think this is so interesting that it's like, all happening at the the pun slam.

(music playing) - Hey everybody, welcome to Pundamonium!

It is our five year anniversary.

Yes!

And it is the first time ever, in the history of Pundamoniums all across the world that we have a pun slam band!

All right, they're gonna talk to us about genres of music.

- Have you seen my new wave?

- Well I was laying over there in the bluegrass.

- With my friend Ray?

Cause reggae.

- Ray may be pretty gay, but I don't have a grunge about it.

- Awesome.

Good game, good game!

Thank you, Chapin!

Mac, stay up here.

Star Wars.

- You have like a comforting presence.

Will you like, sith with me?

It's a little Darth out.

- Yoda I will.

- You're playing mind tricks.

(applause) - I'm gonna take this moment to tell you I'm also coming up with a name for a new, a new name for the pun slam.

This very pun slam will have a different name.

Please come up, and give me ideas.

I'm just taking it in a different direction and when I started planning the Olympia one and just thinking of all the things I was gonna implement and how it was gonna be different, it made me like less stoked about coming to this one.

And I kinda wanna start my big pun empire.

- Why the name change?

- Oh, because, a guy made up Pundamonium, and I'm starting another one in Olympia and I'm doing- - Oh, so you're not gonna be hosting this one anymore?

Oh, no, I'll be hosting.

It's just different now and I've made it my own thing and I just want my freedom to pick my own prompts and like, have a band.

- Makes sense.

Makes sense.

Pun, Forest, Pun.

(laughing) - The Nintendo Power was a magazine that Nintendo put out, covering their games and this is volume 126, which is from November of 1999, Harvest Moon 64, which is a game where you're a farmer, had a little blurb on it, in the front of the magazine.

"Buy the farm and gain a little more respect for old McDonald in the process, as you learn to cultivate bumper crops and successful relationships with the local ladies.

E-I-E-I-O-yeah."

And that was the first pun that like, ever blew my mind.

I played a chess tournament in Israel and lost in the last round and was very salty.

So I bought a salt and pepper shaker to commemorate the experience.

Mickey Mantle is a famous Yankee and this is, some artist in Austin made Monkey Mantle.

I played a lot of chess as a kid, and I am an official chess master.

I play tournaments, so I do competitions for that too.

And there's a big part of chess: puzzles.

When you're trying to think of a pun on stage, it is more like solving a puzzle.

So like, I really get into it.

The one thing that I've kind of had a hard time with, especially recently with the pun scene, is the emphasis on competition.

And I'll save, that's a hot take.

I'll save, I'll save the hot take for later, if we need it.

- We can.

What's the, what's the hot take?

- The hot take is, I think this year at O. Henry, a lot of people forgot their lines.

(indistinct) - Um.

- I wanna- - People viewed it as the world championships, which is, it's been calling itself for a long time, but people like, really saw it that way.

People put pressure on themselves and like really on each other and people were making routines that they couldn't memorize in time.

It didn't work.

And having to judge that kind of sucked and made me not really enjoy it either way.

I think the reason people forgot their lines this year is 'cause people felt like they had to memorize something period.

You can't just get up there and read something, even if it's something brilliantly written 'cause you'll get a point knocked off.

And so people went ambitious and they forgot their lines and that wasn't ideal for me.

And so I think the level of pressure is higher than I would like it to be.

And this is like the dark side of the pun competition world.

Like, this is how the sausage is made.

But yeah, that part's tough.

Anything I could get my hands on, I would do.

I spent a lot of time writing monologues by myself and didn't even enter O. Henry for a while once I had one written.

Then, as I've kind of done competition and done Seattle's competition, gone on podcasts about puns, been a judge at O. Henry, I've found that I kind of enjoy the puns more than the competition.

It's just about the humor and having fun and when I'm with a friend and I make a joke or they make a joke and it's like there's a good thing that happens when you add rigor and like, study to something, but for me, I've kind of lost a lot of my zeal to outplay people at most things.

And like I'm looking back at my long life as I'm being like, well like I used to be in pun competitions like a whole six months ago.

My stomach for the intensity of competition has decreased.

I mean I think if you like flip on the pun documentary and this guy's like, it's too cutthroat, like I can't, I can't cut it in the pun scene, like, they might be surprised.

When I think about chess and I think about video games which I also play competitively, the people who enjoy it the most are usually not the people who are the very best.

When you're doing something at that high of a level and you feel like you have to keep doing it at that level, it just is a very different dynamic than playing a game of chess with your friend.

- It's basically like all these people who are just like super weird in their everyday life who like now come together and are competing against each other, but then also, there's this weird kinship, right?

You're rooting for people 'cause again, like it's a really friendly crowd and you like want people to do well but then at the same time, like you wanna win.

It's a weird, fun little group of people.

- As far as like community and including people, like, I feel like I've frequently been like, not included or left out of things and so I really don't want other people to feel that way.

I just want everyone to be included.

Like yeah, I could cry right now.

Yeah, I just think it's really important that everyone feels included.

I heard it on this, on a radio show one time, a story about a, like a, a movie director, and him and his wife had been in a car accident and she died and he said, um, he said that she had the ability to make everyone feel like they were her best friend.

And I just, that like, just really touched me and I just, I want to be that way.

I just want to make everyone feel like that they have a best friend, you know?

Like, I like to just make people feel comfortable and like, like, heard and loved and celebrated.

- It's always so like, rejuvenating to be in the pun community and just, all of these word nerds and like everybody supports each other in this and I love it.

- I think the competitive pun community are people who are not afraid to appear foolish in public because you're doing a thing, you're putting yourself out there.

- They're playful, they love language, they love knowledge and they're really welcoming and I love that so much.

I mean a lot of these people I only see once a year but it's like no time has passed.

- The secret agenda of the pun off is that we're a community project, housed in a comedy show.

- If you want to be part of a community, you have to help foster community.

We do it to have fun, to have pun if you will.

- This is the genie bottle.

I'm Lebanese and so Josh just studied Lebanese architecture and so the idea is to have this here and then to be able to like lower it down and just fill this with pillows.

This is my bedroom.

I realized today I have a lot of friends in my bed.

Oh you might recognize this shrimp from such places as shrimp on a bobby.

Yes, this is my outlet house.

My closet, that was supposed to be the costume area, but it got expanded.

I guess that was kind of the fast version, but- I have traditionally always hated being alone and was really worried about moving into the bus.

Who am I if no one else is around and I don't have to like shrink myself down to not be in people's space or puff myself up to feel safe in my own space.

I grew up in Madison, Wisconsin.

When I was born, my name was Erica Campbell and then I got married by accident on the beach in Maui one time.

When you get unmarried, you can just change your name.

I just didn't feel like an Erica.

So I became Forest Erica Isla Ember.

My previous self would be like super stoked.

It's very cool.

I wrote some limericks and then she's like, I love limericks, and I'm like oh my god, will you write me one as like the instructions on how to pun slam?

Will you read the limerick for us right now?

- Are you a chronic literary offender recovering from a wordsmithing bender?

Get off your buns and sharpen your puns 'cause here comes a fabulous Forest Ember.

The task before us is clear.

Ten of you must volunteer for three rounds of fudges from five esteemed judges while the rest of us laugh, drink and cheer.

- Yay!

- This is the first person that's ever been like, oh my god I want limericks.

'Cause everyone else is like, why did you do this?

(laughing) Like I didn't want, no one asked for this.

- Alright, you guys ready?

One of the owners at Peddler, Haley, sent me a message and asked if we could have a phone call and she said, "Hey, like we've decided to sell the brewery," and it felt like a breakup, and then I was, you know, realizing like most of my time in Seattle, I've been hosting pun slams at Peddler and so she's like, the last show is gonna be February.

It was like three weeks away and like, and I wasn't allowed to tell anybody.

Sorry I'm crying.

Oh yeah, maybe a drink of water will help.

(upbeat music playing) - Hey everybody, welcome to the very last pun intended pun slam at Peddler!

Woo!

(applause) - And these mic stands are shit!

Like seriously, what's going on?

There's gonna be a lot of shenanigans.

So let's make sure y'all know how to groan let's collectively groan.

(audience groaning) Yeah, you got it.

And then how about everybody cheers this time, let's cheer.

(audience cheering) I asked Rachel if she could write a song for this last slam.

We never practiced, obviously.

♪ So you're a word guy ♪ Needing to be heard guy ♪ Some might say a nerd guy ♪ I'm a pun champ ♪ Brighter than a headlamp ♪ First class just like a postage stamp ♪ ♪ Making your panties damp!

- I did theater when I was in high school and college but since then have not had a place, you know, to sort of be goofy and have that be okay.

- People feel embarrassed about vocalizing, like they feel deep, deep shame to be on a stage like displaying their voice to everybody.

The questions I would ask for these people at the pun slam would be like, and what are you doing in your world?

And like do you feel like you can play actually with words?

- Did your teacher ever complain you were talking too quietly and they'd be like don't mutter.

- Quite the opposite for me, in fact, it was a lot of "Sit, shut the fuck up, stay."

- I just wanna say all ale the pun slam.

We will miss having it here at Peddler.

- Yeah, it was really the most tea-rific event here.

- Being gay isn't that bad.

I promise it gets cheddar.

- I went on a date recently, he was a real meunster but at least he wasn't my Wis-cousin.

(laughing) - It's the final slam, so I'm really puffin up my chest.

I'm gonna need some good laughs out, out there from the crowd feather you like it or not.

- Okay, I just wanna say I've been up here and won before and I know you're just jelly.

- A wise man once said, you are not my anemone.

- That may be, but I'm still angling for a win.

- Oh.

Life's a beach.

I'm outta puns, man.

- Yeah, sometimes we can't kelp it.

- I just wanna say thank you to all the contestants.

You had some killer puns.

It's been a whale good time.

- Now I'm gonna start my Olympia one, finally.

I'll have more shows 'cause I have like symposium that I'm working on and who knows what the fuck else.

I'm thinking of making like a pasta sauce.

I also have a game I'm working on, a pun slam game.

I don't know, puzzles.

I'm working on puzzles.

Right now, it's a sole proprietorship, but I'm working on making it an LLC.

It's called Forest Emberprizes.

(laughing) Yeah, so that's the goal.

So I'll be reaching out to more places.

Yeah, the pun empire grows.

My pun empire!

- All right, this is for the final win at the final show at the final pun intended pun slam at Peddler so, choose accordingly.

- Can I, can I stop this?

(laughing) I have been thoroughly out punned by you.

(laughing) It wasn't even fucking close.

(cheering) - Rachel won the very first ever pun slam.

That was actually seven years ago this month.

I got so wrapped up in the thing closing, I forgot it's our seven year anniversary this month!

(applause) And it's so fucking fitting that Rachel won the first one, I'm gonna cry and now here's, here's your 40 dollar gift card.

I love you.

- I love you too.

(audience cheering) - Wait, give it up for Forest!

- Forest!

Forest!

Forest!

- Yeah, it's great that there is this participatory culture where like, people are validated for playing.

The truth is, in the past three centuries or whatever, like we've all stopped going to church and that's like the last institution in society where people could go and feel completely supported.

Seattle is this very secular place.

Nobody goes to church, but we don't have places where we can go and feel supported unconditionally.

So that's like a really important thing for the universe and society, and we need environments where we can go and feel like we can be the most ridiculous versions of ourselves and not be completely cast out and rejected.

- The people here are um, top notch and they're as interested in your welfare as you are, and that perhaps is the most glowing endorsement I can give.

- Humor and laughter is one of the best ways to cope with the world.

This is the most innocent and joyful thing in a world that is very dark and very painful a lot of the time.

And being paralyzed about like my fear of death and everything like that, a pun literally like stops time.

Humor is so important as it just takes you out of the space of like, I'm gonna die.

Does that, I'm so sorry.

- If I can make somebody laugh, then that out does winning a million dollars or owning a company.

My level of success is making somebody smile.

- I think Carmen and I have both been traumatized in our own ways by the zero sum competitive nature of late stage capitalism, let's say.

But we've gotten more comfortable with that because we figured out how to celebrate that not winning is part of playing.

- There is the community of people who perpetrate, appreciate, propagate, and revel in puns and word play.

You are not alone.

- We all do need places where a group of people agrees to accept you, and so many people are missing that.

- I've had people ask me, how does your brain work?

How does it, how does it, can you switch it off?

I say, I've never tried.

It is my lifeblood.

It is my reason for smiling.

- I would say it's as painful for us punners as it is for the people listening, to constantly be making puns.

If I could turn my brain off from doing that and just like, actually listen to what people are saying, like that would be awesome.

So if anyone knows a cure for that, I would definitely love it.

But I mean, it's gotten me here, so maybe I don't want to change it.

- Oh, I don't know.

Is that a pun?

Have I told you about the Metallica cover band that I wanna start?

So Metallica is really famous for like, sending cease and desist like letters to people who are just like being Metallica cover bands and like, I don't know, like when Napster was big and people were downloading their music, like they were just like suing like individual like, people at home just downloading their songs.

And so I think it would be really amazing to start a Metallica cover band called Mew-tallica and we're all dressed in cat outfits and we just meow all of their songs.

I don't know one of their songs.

It would be like Meow, meow, meow.

Meow, meow, meow.

Meow, meow, meow.

Meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow.

And then get a cease and desist and then become famous because, 'cause Metallica cease and desisted Mew-tallica.

(laughing)