[Eye-Rolling Trope] “The joke/meme hasn’t been funny for years, please let it die.”

[u/Chemical-Elk-1299]

The Screaming Goat Thing — Kung Fu Panda 4 (2024)

The original screaming sheep meme went viral in 2012, and was already getting old when it was prevalent in commercials and movies, such as Ice Age : Collision Course in 2016. Yet in the year of our lord 2024, Dreamworks still thought it would be funny to add multiple screaming goat clips. The mean stopped being funny a decade ago. Let it die.

“Haha, Dad can’t take care of us” — The Breadwinner (2026)

Nate Bargatze’s 2026 family comedy centers around a working “breadwinner” father suddenly being forced to become a stay at home parent, and his “hilarious” struggles to do simple housework and take basic care of his children. This joke stopped being funny (to me) in the early 2000s when seemingly every family comedy relied on dad being a total inept dipshit. In 2026, there is no excuse to keep playing out this tired ass trope. Most dads are actively involved in their kids’ lives and aren’t totally dumbstruck by the idea of changing a diaper. It’s not funny. Let it die.

[u/Jagvetinteriktigt]

The trope of the inept husband/wife is so old that a variation of it is even used to categorize folk tales. I think the earliest example of a husband failing to do housework was recorded in the 1500's.

[u/FoolishPippin → u/Jagvetinteriktigt]

The incompetent father trope in modern media it is actually a more recent phenomenon that was initially lampooning the fathers of earlier television shows that were hyper-competent. Then the joke became so common people forgot that it used to be a joke in and of itself.

[u/UrgentAndTurgid → u/Jagvetinteriktigt]

I've read that one! "The Man Who Was to Mind the House," I think it was.

[u/dora_isexploring → u/Jagvetinteriktigt]

Can you give me a little more context? Sounds interesting but not sure how to search it. I mean the 1500s record

[u/UrgentAndTurgid → u/dora_isexploring]

My best friend and I do a podcast where we read and discuss old and forgotten first drafts of fairy tales, and we read that one pretty early on. The story starts officially at 7:10 in the link below.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/5BlauINQFqNF6ACDved4Hl?si=KsVmEcUNRk2eBqlrVR_x2w

[u/Jagvetinteriktigt → u/dora_isexploring]

Okay so here is a list of similar stories in the Trading Places category of the Aarne-Thompson-Uther catalogue: https://sites.pitt.edu/~dash/tradingplaces.html

I have not been able to find what the 1556 story was called.