Rush 3: Freud and Chaplin

One example in The Great Dictator of a decidedly "bad" joke is when the officer Schultz tells Chaplin's character, "I always thought of you as an Aryan," and Chaplin replies, "I'm a vegetarian!" with a totally straight face. This is a classic sound-association pun. There is no implied parallel in the inner meanings between Aryan and vegetarian. It qualifies as one of Freud's bad jokes, or a "groaner" in American lingo. Of course, it's still quite hilarious and absurd. I think part of this humor derives from the fact that there is no actual connection between Aryan and vegetarian, yet the gag is delivered as if there was. This pretense goes along with an underlying commentary in the film that shows how ridiculous and arbitrary the Nazi ideology is. Being Jewish should not actually be any more of a ground for genocide than being vegetarian. The two are in reality just as irrelevant in determining how to treat an individual. When cracking a joke that seems to make a pseudo-connection between these two categories, it forces the audience to think about just how insane it is to judge a person on one but not on the other. So this is a "bad" joke which, in its contextual usage and delivery, is actually quite witty and brilliant.