last night on late night

A Very Funny Joke About a Very Dead Horse

It’s bad to beat a dead horse, but to tell a joke about one!? Well, that’s a different story. Especially if it’s this story by very good comedian Nate Bargatze from last night’s episode of The Tonight Show. Sure, he must’ve talked about more than a single dead horse, you might be thinking. And, ooh boy, you’d be so freaking wrong. Wow. That’s it. A dead horse and the mountain it was near. It’s a risky move, telling essentially one five-minute joke, opposed to a bunch of faster jokes, because what if the premise turns people off (in this case, people who think horses should never die), then you never give yourself another chance to win them over. Picture it like this: Comedians are the living horses running a race and then whatever strategy they have going in is the race they’re going to run, even if another horse gets to the rail first, or whatever. Or think of the audience as the living horse. You can bring it to water (joke), but you can’t make them drink (laugh). Well, last night, Bargatze had them lapping it up.

A Very Funny Joke About a Very Dead Horse