Although Ghostbusters: Afterlife arrived in cinemas nearly two years ago, one crucial joke in the film has taken over social media and continues to be trending, “What Do You Call a Dead Polar Bear?”. Interested in learning more about this joke? Here is everything you need to know.
‘What do you call a dead polar bear?’ punchline
The punchline to the “What do you call a dead polar bear?” joke is “Anything you want, it can’t hear you now.”
In Ghostbusters: Afterlife, a kid with a microphone named Podcast asks one of the main characters of the film, Phoebe Sprengler, to tell him a joke. In response, Phoebe nervously asks him “What do you call a dead polar bear?” much to the kid’s confusion.
Phoebe then reveals the punchline, “Anything you want, it can’t hear you now.” Hearing this, the kid laughs and tells her that both the joke and Phoebe herself are funny.
This joke is one of Phoebe’s dad jokes in Ghostbusters: Afterlife. The rest of the jokes, along with their punchlines, are:
- Why can’t you trust an atom?
- Because they make up everything.
- What does a hamster have in common with a cigarette?
- They’re harmless unless you stick them in your mouth and light them on fire.
- What do you call a fish with no eyes?
- A fsh.
- A grasshopper walks into a bar and the bartender says, “We have a drink named after you!”
- The grasshopper responds with, ‘You have a drink named Steve?’
‘What do you call a dead polar bear?’ joke explained
The joke ‘What do you call a dead polar bear?’ employs dark humor and plays on the common ‘What do you call’ jokes, which usually leads to a pun or wordplay. However, in Ghostbusters: Afterlife this joke takes a dark and literal turn by stating that since the polar bear is dead, it cannot hear a person, and therefore, said person can call it anything he/she/they want.
This joke is brilliant as not only does it subvert audience expectations but also gets to the blunt and literal truth of the punchline.
For more Ghostbusters: Afterlife content, check out the poster for its upcoming sequel.
