Wrapper 34: No quarter

141. Tessa W., Jema, LA

What gives a ghost the right to scare you?

Ghosts care not for your human laws.

141. A haunting license.

I wonder if I could have parsed this fully as an eight-year-old. Maybe in rural parts of the country where even kids would be familiar with the concept of a hunting license it's not an issue.

142. Tiffany M., Churchville, NY

How come the Buffalo Bills went to the bank?

This is obviously about "getting their quarterback." I know Tiffany M. is from Churchville, NY, which is a little ways outside Rochester, thus making the Buffalo Bills her nearest NFL team. But I don't know if I would have used a specific team here. It's just sort of confusing since it makes you wonder if the punchline will actually be Bills-specific.

142. To get their quarter back.

And of course the punchline is not Bills-specific. I know this isn't really Tiffany M.'s fault - Laffy Taffy should have edited it, or picked another one that just said "the football team" since this joke is so old you know a thousand kids mailed it in. It's that little extra bit of dopiness that truly makes a Laffy Taffy joke.

Wrappers 11-15: End of Halloween blowout

Okay, none of the remaining five is quite terrible enough for me to keep doing just one per post. I got a new bag of classic Laffy Taffy so it'll be back to the twofers, where you're virtually guaranteed one awful one per wrapper. So let's just clean these out.

What do you call it when the Easter Bunny shows up for Halloween?
Debbie L.

This is not the worst example of the form, but another thing that happens a lot with these jokes is quite a bit of straining in the setup just so the punchline makes sense.

A hoppy Halloween!

I also hate it when they repeat key words from the setup to the punchline. Never the hallmark of a good joke.

How do witches keep their hair in place while flying?
Cindy O.

I think a better question would be how they keep those pointy hats from flying off, but sure, whatever.

Scare spray

At least they trust you to get the rhyming joke here. Other than that, feh.

How do you fix a jack o'lantern?
Silvia D.

I'm getting a little suspicious that they're just making these names up. Two kids named "Silvia," really? With that spelling of it and everything?

With a pumpkin patch

One of the better puns we've seen so far, though of course it's still terrible.

What is a witch's favorite subject?
Katherine N.

Katherine N., quit bogarting the wrappers. First she rips off someone else's joke, now this?

Spelling

Not really a subject per se, is it? But I guess the punchline couldn't exactly have been "English."

Who mans a ghost ship?
Maureen H.

Ghosts?

There's a skeleton crew.

This one's not too bad, as these things go. I mean, it's not funny, but it's sort of clever, and actually relatively sophisticated. In fact I dare say it's arguably too sophisticated, in that children reading these things are unlikely to be familiar with the expression "skeleton crew," or at least not enough to get the double meaning. That's right: this joke might just be too good for a Laffy Taffy wrapper. Never thought I'd find myself saying that. Don't worry. This new bag is bound to be full of jokes for which I'd never consider saying it for even a second.

Wrapper 3: A g-g-g-ghost car!

Because they came from a Halloween-themed bag, the Laffy Taffy wrappers I've been using to this point - and will until I run out of them - are officially branded as "Howlin' Laffy Taffy," to go along with Skulls & Bones SweeTarts and Spooky Nerds. (Which might be the silliest of the three. My God! These Nerds are all white! I'd better run in place in mid-air for a second, my legs turning into a large white circle, and then sprint away, Scoob!) But for reasons surpassing my understanding, the jokes on the strawberry wrappers were otherwise normal - I know there was that skeleton one, but I've seen it before. However, the jokes on the banana wrappers are (a) entirely Halloween-themed, (b) unnumbered, and (c) single. That's right, just one joke per wrapper! What a rip-off. They also don't give you the submitter's location. Perhaps these are newer jokes that were submitted online rather than mailed in? Alternately, who cares.

What kind of car does a ghost drive?
A. Ockles

It wouldn't need to drive a car, because, being a ghost, it can travel by means of spooky ghost propulsion, or floating, or whatever. Oh, this is just a setup for a horrible pun? No kidding.

A Boo-ick (Buick)

I really appreciate that once again the people at Laffy Taffy assume you're way too dumb to figure out the punchline. "A Boo-ick? Like, a scary gross car? Is that supposed to sound like something? I don't get it."

Anyway, this sucks, of course, but at least it sucks in a pretty conventional way. And it got me thinking about what other car brands you could use in this type of joke. I think the best one, though probably a bit harder to parse, would be a Haunt-da. That or a Mercur-eek!