2014-05-24
Explanation
The Joke
A man in what appears to be an antique shop or museum tells a child, "Hey kid, you wanna buy the hat Lincoln wore at the Battle of Fort Dearborn?" The child enthusiastically agrees, saying "Sure, mister!" But the child then corrects the seller: the Battle of Fort Dearborn happened in the War of 1812, and the fort was decommissioned 21 years before the Civil War, so Lincoln could not have worn a hat there. The seller angrily tells the kid, "You fed up, Billy. You fed up hard." In the final panel (labeled "Later"), Billy got an F in history, and when asked how, he says "You wouldn"t believe me!"
The Humor
The comic subverts expectations in two ways. First, the initial setup looks like a con man trying to sell a fake historical artifact to a gullible child, but the child turns out to be surprisingly knowledgeable about history. The twist is that instead of the con man being exposed, the seller turns the tables and blames the child for getting the facts wrong -- even though it was the seller who made the false claim. The final panel reveals the absurd consequence: the child somehow got an F in history, implying either the teacher believed the fraudulent seller over the child"s correct historical knowledge, or that the child"s encounter with the con man somehow led to academic failure. The joke plays on the frustrating experience of being right but not believed.
References
- Battle of Fort Dearborn (1812): The Battle of Fort Dearborn occurred on August 15, 1812, during the War of 1812, when the garrison evacuating Fort Dearborn (in present-day Chicago) was attacked by Potawatomi warriors. Abraham Lincoln was only three years old at the time.
- Abraham Lincoln: The 16th President of the United States, who served during the Civil War (1861-1865), decades after Fort Dearborn was decommissioned.