9/11 humor is black comedy or off-color humor that aims to make light of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York City, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. A number of scholars have studied the ways in which humor has been used to deal with the trauma of the event.
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Researcher Bill Ellis found jokes about the attacks from Americans the day afterwards, and Giselinde Kuipers found jokes on Dutch websites a day later. Kuipers had collected around 850 online jokes about 9/11, Osama Bin Laden, and the Afghanistan war by 2005. A notable early public attempt at 9/11 humor was done by Gilbert Gottfried just a few weeks after the attacks. During a comedy roast for Hugh Hefner at the Friars Club his 9/11 gag did not go over well with the crowd. One audience member at the club yelled out "Too soon!", which has since become a common response to jokes told in the immediate wake of tragedies. Gottfried then improvised and performed "The Aristocrats" routine, which released a great deal of tension and got rousing applause from the crowd.
In contrast to these early jokes about 9/11, late-night comedy shows and humorous publications did not appear for several weeks following the attacks. The Onion, a satirical newspaper, cancelled the issue that had been scheduled to be released on September 11, 2001, and then returned to print with a special edition on September 26, 2001, which was devoted to the attacks. When the issue was released, the newspaper staff felt trepidation over making light of such a tragic event. "Everyone thought this would be our last issue in print," according to one staff writer. However, The Onion staff was quickly inundated with comments from readers, the vast majority of which were positive.
One of the first 9/11 jokes made by a major American comedian in the UK was one told by Joan Rivers in London in 2002. The joke concerned the widows of fire fighters killed in the attacks, who Rivers said would be disappointed if their husbands had been found alive as they would be forced to return money they had received in compensation for their late spouses. The joke received condemnation from Harold Schaitberger, General President of the International Association of Fire Fighters.
In literature
"The Zero" (2006) by Jess Walter is a post-911 satirical novel which features a New York City cop who shoots himself in the head and forgets it minutes later; his brain damage accounts for gaps in the story. The postmodern novel “United States of Banana” (2011) by Latin American author Giannina Braschi treats the entropic scenes of disaster on September 11 with black humor; the work describes New York City without the Twin Towers as a mouth unwilling to laugh because it is missing its two front teeth.
In 2016, comedian Billy Domineau uploaded a spec script to the Internet that he had written for Seinfeld, which had aired its last episode in 1998, set in New York during the days after the attacks. He said later that it had started when he suggested "a 9/11 episode of Seinfeld" to a student as an example of "an exercise in bad taste" for a class. In his episode, the show's four main characters follow plotlines typical of them, all related to the attacks: Jerry becomes convinced that dust from the fallen towers is contaminating his food; Elaine, initially relieved that she won't have to break up with a boyfriend who worked at the Twin Towers, finds herself engaged to him when he unexpectedly survives; George basks in the glory after he is mistaken for a hero who rescued people, and Kramer attempts to recover the high-quality box cutter he loaned to Mohammed Atta. Popular minor characters, such as George's parents and Newman, also make appearances. "[It] is indeed in bad taste, but it perfectly captures the self-obsessed way these characters would handle such a crisis," wrote The Guardian.
In animation
In the Family Guy episode "Back to the Pilot", broadcast in November 2011, Brian and Stewie take a trip back in time during which Brian tips off his past self about 9/11 so that the old him can play hero and stop the terrorist attacks. This causes George W. Bush not to be re-elected, meaning a Second Civil War starts that leads to nuclear attacks on the Eastern Seaboard. The Daily Mail reported on the episode, writing "Nothing is ever off limits for Family Guy and its creator Seth MacFarlane. No topic is taboo, not the Holocaust, not drunk driving and not even abortion, but last night's episode may finally have crossed the line." A Time critic also wrote of the episode, "It sounds custom-made for a 'too soon' label, and it probably is. But avid Family Guy viewers live for "too soon" moments, no matter how sensitive the material." Other news organizations, including Aly Semigran of Entertainment Weekly, also thought the show had gone too far with the reference. Deadline also commented that it "squeaked past the Fox standards and practices department but is sure to raise as many eyebrows."
However, perhaps reflecting how the acceptability to mainstream broadcasters of jokes referencing the 9/11 attacks has evolved only gradually, the DVD release of the earlier season five Family Guy episode "Meet the Quagmires", first broadcast in 2007, contained an extended scene which was removed from the episode as first broadcast. In the deleted scene, while traveling in time back to 1980s Quahog with Peter, Brian is confronted by the boyfriend of a woman he has been hitting on. In response to the boyfriend's challenge that he will fight Brian 'anywhere, any time', Brian invites the man to meet him "On top of the World Trade Center, September 11th 2001 at 8am", to which the boyfriend replies "I will be there pal. You think I'll forget, but I won't!". Additionally, the season seven episode "Baby Not On Board" features a scene in which the Griffin family visits Ground Zero, which Peter erroneously believes is "where the first guy got AIDS."
To improve the chance of an Oscar award, a 9/11 joke was cut from Jean Dujardin's 2012 comedy film The Players. The deleted scene featured a man seducing a woman in a New York apartment while an aircraft crashes into the World Trade Center in the background.
A 2014 viral video depicts a scene in Toy Story in which Buzz shouts, "We're not aiming for the truck!" After that the video cuts from the movie scene, to a clip of the second plane crashing into the South Tower.
In advertising
In the days before the 15th anniversary of the attacks in 2016, Miracle Mattress of San Antonio, Texas, briefly ran a commercial promoting a sale themed around the occasion. In it the daughter of the store's owner, in conversation with two employees who stood behind her, explained how the store was recalling the Twin Towers' collapse by selling all its inventory at the price of twin-sized mattresses for the weekend with the slogan "Twin Towers, Twin Price". At the end of the ad, she inadvertently pushed the two employees into twin piles of mattresses behind her, one of which was topped with the American flag; both collapsed. After briefly expressing shock and horror, she turned to the camera and said "We'll never forget".
The company soon pulled the ad, but copies were saved and uploaded to the Internet, where it and Miracle became the subject of intense and vociferous criticism. Entertainment Weekly said it "might be most offensive commercial ever". Its Yelp! and Facebook pages filled with disparaging comments and calls for boycotts; the store itself also received death threat. Owner Mike Bonnano, whose daughter had, as the chain's head of marketing, conceived the commercials and starred in it, apologized profusely but eventually decided to close the San Antonio location "indefinitely" pending disciplinary measures and donations to the 9/11 Foundation.
Online
Memes have become a rather popular way of distributing jokes about 9/11. A lot of these memes play with or make fun of 9/11 conspiracy theories such as "Bush did 9/11" or "jet fuel can't melt steel beams".