Two Muffins In An Oven Joke
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About
The Two Muffins In An Oven Joke is a humorous remark that traditionally goes, "Two muffins were sitting in an oven. One turns to the other and says, 'Hey, it's pretty hot in here, isn't it?' The other turns and shouts, 'Oh my god a talking muffin!'" The joke, sometimes considered an anti-joke, has been shared online since as early as 2004 and became the subject of webcomics and memes throughout the 2000s.
Origin
While the exact origins of the joke are unclear, the earliest known instance of the joke online was posted to the Ars Technica[1] forum by user ranxerox on May 24th, 2004, in a thread titled "Stupid jokes you find hilarious." In the post, they wrote:
Two muffins are in the oven. The first muffin says, "is it hot in here, or what?" The second muffin says, "holy shit!! A talking muffin!!"
Spread
The joke gained viral spread online throughout the 2000s, inspiring numerous comics and memes referencing it. The earliest known comic depicting the joke was posted to Deviant Art[2] by user inuyouki on October 2nd, 2005, with Deviant Art[3] user boredom-and-doodles posting another depiction of the joke on October 27th, 2006, garnering over 5,600 views in 19 years (shown below).
On March 13th, 2007, Discover[4] published an article by Sean Carroll about whether or not the joke is funny. The article offers an explanation of why the joke is funny by Jack Balkin, who wrote:
"The muffin joke is funny because it is self-undermining. The punch line undermines the suspension of disbelief that the joke’s narrative presumes. It is kind of like breaching the fourth wall in drama. It’s like the line in Dr.Strangelove 'You can’t fight in here. This is the War Room!' or the Atheist Hymn we came up with in high school: 'There is no God, there is no God, He told me so himself.'"
On March 25th, 2024, X[5] user @zyreonfyre posted a photo of a version of the joke printed on the package of a cheese string, writing, "what kind of joke is this??" The iteration of the joke reads, "Two muffins were sitting in an oven. One says, 'geez it's hot in here.' The other screams." The post gained over 5,900 likes in under a day and was reposted to the subreddit /r/PeterExplainsTheJoke,[6] garnering over 11,000 upvotes in the same span of time (shown below).
Various Examples
Search Interest
External References
[3] Deviant Art – boredom-and-doodles
[4] Discover – Sean Carroll
[5] X – zyreonfyre
[6] Reddit – peterexplainsthejoke
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