The three wishes joke (or genie joke) is a

joke A joke is a display of humour in which words are used within a specific and well-defined narrative structure to make people laughter, laugh and is usually not meant to be interpreted literally. It usually takes the form of a story, often with ...

format in which a character is given three

wish A wish is a hope or desire for something. In fiction, wishes can be used as plot devices. In folklore, opportunities for "making a wish" or for wishes to "come true" or "be granted" are themes that are sometimes used. In fiction In fiction a ...

es by a supernatural being, and fails to make the best use of them. Common scenarios include releasing a

genie Jinn ( ar, , ') – also romanized as djinn or anglicized as genies (with the broader meaning of spirit or demon, depending on sources) – are invisible creatures in early pre-Islamic Arabian religious systems and later in Islamic mytho ...

from a lamp, catching and agreeing to release a

mermaid In folklore, a mermaid is an aquatic creature with the head and upper body of a female human and the tail of a fish. Mermaids appear in the folklore of many cultures worldwide, including Europe, Asia, and Africa. Mermaids are sometimes asso ...

or magical

fish Fish are aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish as well as various extinct related groups. Approximately 95% of li ...

, or crossing paths with the

devil A devil is the personification of evil as it is conceived in various cultures and religious traditions. It is seen as the objectification of a hostile and destructive force. Jeffrey Burton Russell states that the different conceptions of t ...

. The first two wishes go as expected, with the third wish being misinterpreted, or granted in an unexpected fashion that doesn't reflect the intent of the wish. Alternatively, the wishes are split between three people, with the last person's wish inadvertently or intentionally thwarting or undoing the wishes of the other characters. An example of the three wishes joke runs as follows:

Variations

One variation on the theme has the protagonist turning the tables on the genie, who for some contrived reason has placed a condition on the wishes that would result in an opponent of the protagonist also benefiting from the wishes. An example of this joke was used in ''

The Simpsons ''The Simpsons'' is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical depiction of American life, epitomized by the Simpson family, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, ...

'' episode, "

Homer Simpson, This Is Your Wife "Homer Simpson, This Is Your Wife" is the fifteenth episode of the seventeenth season of the American animated television series ''The Simpsons''. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on March 26, 2006, and was watched by ...

". There, a character tells Marge Simpson a joke in which a genie promises to grant a man whatever he wishes, with the caveat that the man's wife's lover gets double whatever the man gets. After first wishing for a house and a car, the man wishes to be beaten "half to death" — which Marge doesn't understand. A very early version of the joke is found in an 1875 book of Scottish anecdotes. There, a Scottish highlander is asked what his three wishes would be. He first wishes for a lake full of whisky. His second wish is for a similar quantity of good food. When asked for his third wish, after a moment of indecision, he asks for a ''second'' lake full of whisky. A variation attributed to

Denis Norden Denis Mostyn Norden (6 February 1922 – 19 September 2018) was an English comedy writer and television presenter. After an early career working in cinemas, he began scriptwriting during the Second World War. From 1948 to 1959, he co-wrote the ...

shows three people being granted three wishes, with two making very good choices, and the other making comically bad choices. Yet another variation is the one where the first wishes go wrong and through the last one, the protagonist(s) end up exactly the way they were from the beginning. An example of this is the following, taken from

Charles Perrault Charles Perrault ( , also , ; 12 January 1628 – 16 May 1703) was an iconic French author and member of the Académie Française. He laid the foundations for a new literary genre, the fairy tale, with his works derived from earlier folk tales ...

's story

The Ridiculous Wishes The Ridiculous Wishes or The Three Ridiculous Wishes (french: Les Souhaits ridicules) is a French literary fairy tale by Charles Perrault published in 1697 in the volume titled ''Histoires ou contes du temps passé''. It is Aarne-Thompson type 7 ...

In fiction

The format is not always used for humor. In "

The Monkey's Paw "The Monkey's Paw" is a horror short story by English author W. W. Jacobs, first published in the collection '' The Lady of the Barge'' in 1902. In the story, three wishes are granted to the owner of The Monkey's Paw, but the wishes come with ...

", a horror

short story A short story is a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest ...

by author W. W. Jacobs, the

paw A paw is the soft foot-like part of a mammal, generally a quadruped, that has claws. Common characteristics The paw is characterised by thin, pigmented, keratinised, hairless epidermis covering subcutaneous collagenous and adipose tissue, ...

of a dead

monkey Monkey is a common name that may refer to most mammals of the infraorder Simiiformes, also known as the simians. Traditionally, all animals in the group now known as simians are counted as monkeys except the apes, which constitutes an incomple ...

is a

talisman A talisman is any object ascribed with religious or magical powers intended to protect, heal, or harm individuals for whom they are made. Talismans are often portable objects carried on someone in a variety of ways, but can also be installed perm ...

that grants its possessor three wishes, but the wishes come with an enormous price. In the story, the recipient of the monkey's paw wishes for £200, only to learn that his son has been killed in a terrible work accident, for which the employer makes a goodwill payment of £200. Later, the mother asks that the dead son be wished back to life. Upon hearing strange sounds and a knock at the door, the father realizes that the thing outside would be a horribly mutilated body, and wishes it away with the paw's final wish.

References

{{reflist Joke cycles

Variations

In fiction

See also

References