The characters found in jokes are forced to act out the jokes every time they are told.

When his cowriter of many years vanishes into thin air, a TV writer realizes he may not know his closest companion at all.

A deceased man’s friends and coworkers try to come up with the best way to mourn him and comfort his widow, even though it seems like she doesn’t need it.

Al Roosten, a local business owner always second-best to his competitor, Larry Donfrey, contemplates returning to an anti-drug charity event to ensure that Donfrey is able to help his disabled daughter.

When a Soviet state official attempts to coerce a celebrated poet into apologizing for a political joke he made, the official gets a taste of his own predatory medicine at the hand of the poet's vengeful wife.

In 1960s Boston, a Jewish deli owner who struggles to come up with his newest joke stumbles into a scam with more ramifications than he could have ever dreamed possible.

A man suddenly realizes that he hates his wife, and resolves to free himself.

In an increasingly inappropriate recorded message to a customer, a department store clerk compares their product complaint to kangaroos he saw at the local zoo.

A man living on a TV show struggles to reconcile his privileged, wealthy lifestyle with the American-driven horrors occurring elsewhere in the world — especially when they begin to show up in his backyard.

A young man who went broke moves back to Chicago and lives in his aunt's basement. Meanwhile, he becomes a roofer where he is exposed to a spectrum of poverty, racism, and power among his colleagues.