Weird 80s-90s Jokes

The 80s and 90s had some running gags that, not even don't hold up well, but also didn't really make sense in the first place.  I classify these as more "recognition" jokes than "surprise" jokes, because people only laughed out of a sense of "hey, they did the thing."  (Think along the lines of someone pulling out a rubber chicken.)  If any of these jokes were inserted into a modern movie or show, and shown to an audience who wasn't familiar with the gag, they would almost certainly not get a laugh.  And yet, in the 80s and 90s, television and movie writers just couldn't resist the urge to do them over and over and over.  Here are some of the ones I can remember:

*  A woman walks up to a man and tries to flirt with him.  The man immediately says or does something stereotypically gay.  Pause for laughter.  (Alternatively, a gay man may simply be acting stereotypically in a scene for no reason.)

*  An American character is introduced to an Asian character.  The (usually white, but sometimes black) American immediately starts talking to the Asian in Japanese (apparently, the only Asian language).  The Asian character turns to the person next to him and says, "What's he talking about?" with an exaggerated American accent.  No pause this time.  Onto the next joke.

*  Someone uses the phrase "once a month," and someone euphemistically implies that it's kind of like women's periods.  This goes absolutely nowhere.

*  A man has to talk to a woman about something important, but instead of talking to her like a normal person, he creepily follows her for a while.  She rolls her eyes, and threatens the man with pepper spray or karate or something.  THEN the man starts talking about the important thing, and the mistaken-for-a-stalker gag is never mentioned again.

*  A man sees a person from behind, who is obviously a woman, but she happens to be wearing a hat.  When she turns around or removes her hat, revealing long hair, the man is dumbstruck, and possibly exclaims "You're a woman?"  Brief pause for laughter, and then move on with the story.  (I think the thing that bothers me the most about this gag is that it's not so much a joke on the stupidity of the man, but that it's framed like a joke on the audience.  As if I, the viewer, also thought she was a man.  Also, keep in mind that this joke was commonly used at a time when long hair on men was fashionable.)

*  A white man says something without swearing, and a black man replies with a PG swearword (usually "shit" or "ass").  Pause for laughter is optional.

* A white person says or does something stereotypically black (usually awkwardly).  A black onlooker shakes his head and rolls his eyes.

*  Catch-phrases (usually advertising slogans) such as "where's the beef?" or "I've fallen and I can't get up," followed by a (usually long) pause for laughter.

*  Someone says something sentimental, and then immediately announces they have to take a leak.  (Actually, now that I think about it, this gag is still being used.)

* Someone gets flipped upside-down for some reason, and whimsically says to another character, "I guess I'm head-over-heels for you."  Minimal pause.  (The thing that irritates me about this one is that the person's head is specifically NOT over their heels when they say this.)

*  Person A tells person B off, and then dramatically exits the room, closing the door behind him.  Person B says, "That's a closet."  Person A has to sheepishly exit the closet and then leave through the correct door.  Okay, I'll admit that this joke was funny once, maybe twice, but after a while, it just got way overused.

* Someone works in the phrase "thirteen o'clock" or "February the 30th."  Minimal pause.  This one is mostly applied to children's shows.

* Either a nerd or a foreigner attempts to use a colloquialism, but uses one wrong word, usually an antonym.  Another character immediately corrects him.  No pause.

* A person who doesn't "get" what the other person is enthusiastic about starts muttering a list of (usually three) relevant singular nouns to himself, but pluralized.  End of scene.

* A woman tells a man to "man up" or "grow a pair" or some other emasculating remark.  Pause for laughter and heavy applause.

* A person (usually a woman) is completely incompetent throughout the movie/episode, then does something brilliant, skillful or badass right near the end.  Everyone else looks stunned.  Long pause for laughter and applause.

* Someone works in a very specific reference to "Star Trek," usually the original series.  Minimal pause.

* A woman says or does something aggressive or otherwise stereotypically masculine.  The man observing her says something like, "Oh, I like her."  Brief pause.  (Again, we still see this one occasionally.)

* A group of people set up a fake miracle, haunting or UFO sighting.  Afterward, one minor aspect of the hoax was revealed to have been unexplained and presumably real.  Long pause as the characters stare blankly upward.

* A man fails to or misses an opportunity have sex with an attractive woman.  (It is not necessary that having sex with this woman was ever his stated goal.)  Optional wah-wah sound effect.  Movie/episode ends.

* Someone, without any provocation, insults, belittles, or physically assaults a mime.  Pause for laughter.

* The main character lies down in a bed and immediately assumes that the previous events were all a dream.  Alternatively, the main character wakes up from a dream, but then finds lingering evidence that it was not.

* A child runs to an adult to ask for help.  The adult assumes that the child is lying.  This causes a delay in getting help for about five seconds, and then is not mentioned again.  (This is more of a 60s/70s gag, but it did come up later occasionally.)

* And older and/or sophisticated person makes a disparaging remark about either rock and roll or rap, for no apparent reason.  No pause.  On to the next scene.

* A stereotypical nerd says a stereotypically nerdy thing.  Pause for laughter.

* The entire story is told in flashback.  The teller finally reveals that the story was not true, then in the next scene, reveals to the audience that it was true.  Typically, these types of stories don't need to be told in flashback at all.

* Everyone repeatedly and brutally insults the fat person.  Pause for laughter every time.  For some reason, the fat person is still friends with these people.  (Actually, this joke has probably been around since time immemorial.)

I'll probably add more to this list as I think of them.

Future of the Economy

If we ever to become a fully-automated economy (and I think this is very likely), how will businesses profit? Sure, they'll save money by not having to pay employees, but who will they sell products and services to? If everyone is unemployed, then all your customers have no income. Let's look at some of our options:

A) Keep going the way we're going, and eventually wind up with a bunch of automated factories making only enough products to sell to other factory-owners. A small community of owners getting by on just what they need, while everyone else slowly starves to death, or gets put into prisons.
B) Give everyone universal basic income, creating a welfare state. Since no one is doing any actual work, then no one can increase their earning by working overtime or doing a good enough job to get a raise. The super rich are grandfathered into a life of luxury, while the general public are now locked into a lower-class lifestyle. (Not ideal, but at least in this scenario, no one is starving.)
C) Total communism. All the people who build the now-automated industries now no longer own them. All goods are services are free, provided by the machines, and money doesn't exist. Those in power would NEVER go for this idea, but if they did, we would have to completely rethink our philosophies on individualism. (If I ask the machines to give me a product, do I really own it? Can I trade it? Is stealing even a crime? So many questions.)
D) Ban all new technologies. Revert to a pretechnological society (like the Amish), so that no one loses their jobs to machines. This would solve one problem, but create a whole bunch of new ones, relating to travel, medicine, communication, and how to even regulate something like this. Most people would never go for this idea, but at least pollution would decrease.
E) Create work programs. Have the government or some other nonprofit organization create "busy work" for people. The problem with this is that if you're going to use public funding to pay people for work that doesn't need to be done, you can just as easily pay them without giving them work. In a way, we're back to option B.
F) Force employers to hire more people than they need. This would, first of all, create problems for small businesses. Include them, and you could bankrupt them from over-hiring; exclude them, and you could be taking away their best workers. Second, you would have companies keeping employees standing around with nothing to do for much of the day. (This is already a problem for many companies, which guarantee workers a certain number of hours.) Employers would be spending money on overhead just to keep the lights on in a building where workers aren't working. Counterintuitively, it would be cheaper to pay employees NOT to come in to work. Of course, this raises another set of questions. How much does everyone get paid for not working? Do they all get paid the same, or is pay rate based on the value of the work they would have been doing? And what's to stop someone from claiming that they would be doing a great job, when in fact, if they had come in to work, they would have been slacking off?
G) Capitalism-communism hybrid. Basically, remove all wealth that is already established, then give everyone an "allowance" to spend on whatever they want. (This runs into some of the same problems as in option C, but not all.) The big issue here is that some people are going to want to trade with each other, and when that happens, it's only a matter of time before a second wealth imbalance starts to emerge. Sooner or later, someone is going to end up in debt to someone else to the point where even the allowance can't keep up, and we're right back where we started.
H) Agrarian sanctuaries. Let the rich and powerful live their lives as they wish, but give the poor and unemployed free parcels of land, so they can start growing vegetables and so on, becoming self-sustaining. First problem with this is that it's still unfair and locks people into a class system. Second, not everyone is cut out to be a farmer. And third, eventually, the agrarian societies would improve their own technology and return to where we are today.
I) Matrix. Total emersion in a virtual world, where the problems of society can be programmed away. The big problem here is that any hacker would now have the power of a wrathful god.
J) Wipe out humanity. Let evolution start over. (Let's call this a last resort.)

Those are all the ones I can think of. Any more bright ideas from anyone else?