RABruce Jenner cul-de-sac
Conan O'Brien , compared with Robert "Alex" Kaseberg
Towns with streets named for Bruce Jenner must rename them Caitlyn, so a Jenner cul-de-sac gets a "sack" pun.
“Some cities that have streets named after Bruce Jenner are trying to change the streets' names to Caitlyn Jenner. If you live on Bruce Jenner cul-de-sac it will now be cul-de-no-sack.”
Conan (TBS) monologue, 2015quote source ↗find on YouTube ↗
“Three towns, two in Texas, one in Tennessee, have streets named after Bruce Jenner and now they have to consider changing them to Caitlyn. And one will have to change from a Cul-De-Sac to a Cul-De-Sackless.”
Blog / Twitter, 2015quote source ↗find on YouTube ↗
Same news, same cul-de-sac angle and same sack pun; the final coined word is worded differently.
- Premise 38/40
- Structure 26/30
- Punchline 21/30
- Premise38/40Both start from towns renaming Bruce Jenner streets to Caitlyn and go to a cul-de-sac pun.
- Structure26/30Same build: renaming news, then narrowing to a Bruce Jenner cul-de-sac for the wordplay.
- Punchline21/30Same sack pun on cul-de-sac, but different coinages: cul-de-no-sack versus cul-de-sackless.
Setup
Cities with Bruce Jenner streets want to rename them for Caitlyn.
Setup
Three towns with Bruce Jenner streets may have to switch to Caitlyn.
Turn
Zooms in on someone living on a Bruce Jenner cul-de-sac.
Turn
Zooms in on one street that is a cul-de-sac.
Punchline
The cul-de-sac becomes a cul-de-no-sack.
Punchline
It changes from a cul-de-sac to a cul-de-sackless.
In the words themselves
46% of the meaningful words are shared · longest identical run: “have streets named after bruce jenner”. Shared words are highlighted in the quotes above.
Scores and beats are our editorial reading of the public record, not a ruling.
Context
When and where
Kaseberg posted it on his blog at 11:05 a.m. and on Twitter at 11:31 a.m. on June 9, 2015. Conan writer Kutner submitted the joke at about 1:34 p.m., and it aired that night. By then Kaseberg's lawyer had been corresponding with Conaco since March.
What followed
Kaseberg sued O'Brien, his writers, TBS and Time Warner in July 2015; a federal judge let this joke go toward trial, finding it "virtually identical" but only thinly protected. The case settled in May 2019, weeks before trial, on undisclosed terms; O'Brien wrote in Variety that his staff had never heard of Kaseberg and settled to avoid a costly trial.
Receipts
Photos via Wikimedia Commons: Conan O'Brien by Montclair Film, CC BY 4.0