Desert island jokes are jokes about a person or group of people stranded on a desert island. The setting is typically used to play on expected or stereotypical behaviors of the people present.[ citation needed ]
The trope is also popular in cartoons. Bob Mankoff, cartoon editor of The New Yorker attributes the strips, which began appearing in the publication in the 1930s, to the popularity of Robinson Crusoe. He notes that earlier cartoons had a larger island, with a ship sinking in the distance as a hint to the context, and later cartoons merely showed one or two people on a tiny island with a single palm tree. [1]
The following old Jewish joke makes fun of Jewish congregational rivalry and splitting: [2]
Folklorist Alan Dundes notes that a desert island joke is a conventional setting for what he calls "international slurs". [a] (among other scenarios). In this scenario, marooned people of several ethnicities act according to their purported ethnic stereotypes: [3]
Several people of various nationalities were marooned. The Americans went into businesses, the French built nightclubs, the Germans started an army... The Englishmen were not introduced to each other. [3]