Dinosaurs-with-little-arms jokes.

Jokes about dinosaurs with little arms are eating shit.

There was a short time when society thought it was absolutely hilarious that Tyrannosaurus rex, the dinosaur, had very short front arms.

Though dinosaurs have been popular with children for generations, this observation about T. rex limbs seemed to have never been made prior to a decade ago.

Once it was, you couldn’t escape it. Children’s movies, internet memes, museum exhibits, TV commercials, graphic T-shirts. . . creators were practically tripping over themselves to throw in a joke anywhere and everywhere about little T. rex arms. What a crazy juxtaposition: the ferocious, fearsome carnivorous dinosaur — rendered harmless, and even adorable, by its inability to reach, grab, or hug with its miniature appendages! What a novel, whimsical insight! And one that should keep being made over and over! God forbid Blue Sky Studios think of something else to joke about, they may have actually stayed in business!

Pretend, for a moment, that you’re over the age of three. Was this observation ever actually funny? Do these children’s movie trailer jokes or Facebook memes shared by grandparents really elicit genuine laughter?

I realize that there is a big market for animal humor (“doggos”, Grumpy Cat, “trash pandas” as a nickname for raccoons, honey badgers, the blobfish, etc.). . . but as hamfisted as all of that is, at least it cycles around a bit. You don’t hear about any one of these animals for too long before a new one pops up. But the entertainment world was REALLY pushing the T. rex nonstop for a few years there, as if the species’ anatomy was only just discovered. It also came during a time when memes were commonplace in mainstream culture, but culture itself wasn't varied enough to be able to escape them.

What’s more, none of the vehicles pushing T. rex arms seemed to add anything new to the discussion. They all laid out the same setup quite plainly: there was a dinosaur. With little arms. And the punchline? That its arms were too small, in a comically inconvenient way. Period. No further character development. No other layers to the joke. I mean, even children can and do appreciate complex, layered jokes.

It’s just not funny. The T. rex has small arms, we get it. Isn't humor supposed to be the subversion of expectations?

And that’s the crux of these blog entries; we KNOW things aren’t funny and yet people mindlessly consume it all anyway. No one cares or does anything to dismantle the system. This sentence is funnier than the concept of T. rex having little arms. Yes, that one. Now, I’m tired. ✍︎