A friend sent me a joke. It wasn’t great, it was ok. But it was on Mars. Here it is.
A man goes to a restaurant on Mars and notices a fly in his soup.
"Waiter," he exclaims, "there's a fly in my soup!"
The waiter responds, "you ordered the eel soup, right?"
"Yes."
"Yeah, that's an eel."
"Have you been to Earth?! Eels look nothing like flies!"
"Yes, but this is a Mars Soup Eel."
I gave it a lol emo. Not too impressed but it was a joke and I was bored.
It inspired med to do some research. I read all the jokes about Mars I could find on the internet. There are not that many. Most are not great. Have you heard about the restaurant on Mars? The food is great, but the atmosphere is lacking. What do you call it when you get your Mars rover stuck in a crater? A fourth world problem.
So I decided to create some of my own. After all, it should be trivial: You take a well known joke, then set it on Mars. Instant funny. Or maybe not. Here is what I came up with.
First colony on Mars, life is tough, colonists are some rough dudes.
Two grunts are out walking far away from their rover when one of them collapses. He’s not breathing, and his eyes are glazed. The other guy whips out his sat phone and calls Mission Control.
“I think my friend is dead!” he yells. “What can I do?”
The operator says, “Calm down. First, let’s make sure he’s dead.”
There’s a silence, then a shot. Back on the uplink, the guy says, “Okay, now what?”
It's a classic. I think it works if you don't think too much about it. Here is another classic template. This time with an extra twist.
Richard Branson, Elon Musk, and John Carter bet who can travel to Mars.
Branson spends ten years building a rocket that explodes on launch then files for bankruptcy.
After ten years, Elon Musk sends a Tesla into orbit, then buys a social media platform and goes bankrupt.
John Carter jumps off from the highest mountain on earth and flies three times around Mars. Then Disney buys the movie rights and cancels the show.
The third one has more storytelling and exploits a well known event in our shared history.
It’s some time into the future, humans are colonising Mars. It’s still a long journey but travelling to Mars starts to appeal to the masses.
A business man sees an opportunity and decides to build a luxury space cruiser that carries 1500 passengers while ensuring not one of them are bored.
It’s designed with safety as a top priority. However, just for PR reasons, they decide to name it Titanic II.
Three quarters of the journey to Mars, the ship strikes an asteroid, killing all passengers and crew.
In the last moments, the captain looks at the last remaining crew with a smile:
I know what you are thinking: At least we are not sinking!
I also created one from scratch. What is special about Mars yet familiar to most readers? Ok, this is the best one.
First colony on Mars, one month into the mission, the colonists throw a party to break the ice.
After plenty of whisky on the rocks, the base is a mess.
Next morning the head of the party committee enters with a heavy hangover and finds the facilities depressurised and shouts in the intercom, voice in panic:
Who forgot to close the door?!
A calm voice answers, I just wanted to start with a quick vacuum cleaning…
I don’t know, what do you think? Don’t quit your day job? Ok, thanks. Try come up with some of your own then. By the way, we really should look into colonising Mars. If you look at the studies, 100% of deaths occur on earth.
I created a story game about Mars. It’s about people who go on a one way trip to Mars to create humanity’s first colony. It is serious in tone but there is room for fun and laughter as well. Check it out.