2013-05-26
Explanation
A child asks his father, "Dad, what is love?" The father responds with a poetic and paradoxical definition: "Love is a burden that lifts, a bind that frees, a delicate glass that strengthens when dropped." The child then innocently asks, "Then how come Mom went out tonight without you?" The father, clearly deflated, responds: "Love has really shitty taste in movies."
The humor comes from the sharp contrast between the father's lofty, philosophical attempt to define love and the mundane reality of his relationship. He starts with beautiful paradoxes worthy of romantic poetry, but when his child points out the simple fact that his wife chose to go out without him, all that poetic grandeur collapses into a petty complaint about differing movie tastes. The joke suggests that real love is less about grand paradoxes and more about the small, everyday frictions like disagreeing on what film to see.
The votey panel shows the child excitedly asking "So now we can watch Barney again?!" while the father says "Dammit!" This adds another layer, revealing that the father's romantic evening alone has been replaced by being stuck watching children's television, making the mom's escape seem even more strategically brilliant.