When you have a blog that covers three different topics, albeit all related to my family’s history, it’s not always easy to use prompts that alert other bloggers in the same niche that you share their interests. For example, Geneabloggers, an extremely helpful site that brings together more than 2,800 (!) genealogy bloggers, offers a series of daily blogging prompts that includes Matrilineal Monday, Wedding Wednesday, and Surname Saturday.
I can fit some of my Genealogy posts into the site’s categories, but when it comes to Psychology and Meat, I’m out of luck.
So I decided to create my own prompts to help me focus and to give you, gentle reader, something to anticipate each week — starting with Funny Freud Friday.
I thought it would be be fun to get some end-of-the-week comic relief, especially since I often have to touch on the Holocaust here, but perhaps there’s some deeper meaning in my creation of this feature, some father issues. I’d better look into Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious by Sigmund Freud.
What’s So Funny About Freud?
I’ve come across a surprising number of funny Freud items, from the coffee mug pictured here to Freud break dancing videos and photoshopped images of Freud and Jung. There’s something about the familiarity of the figure — beard, round glasses and cigar — combined with the familiarity of his concepts that make Freud funny.
I believe we’re laughing with Freud, not at him.
All thoughts about the proliferation of Freud humor are welcome — especially from psychoanalysts.
Today’s Freud Funny: The Freudian Sips mug
You’d be surprised how many Freudian sips mugs there 
are on the market but my favorite comes from The Unemployed Philosopher’s Guild, who blurb it as follows:
What’s a Freudian Sip? When you say one thing but mean your mother! Have no fear about saying what’s really on your mind when drinking out of one of these. They’re chock full o’ nuts!
You know you want one.
An Invitation to Participation
I invite you all to alert me to examples of Freud humor — or create your own for me to post at my discretion (which sounds better than saying arbitrarily). Who knows? Perhaps there will be Freud humor contests in the future, with Freud prizes. There’s no restriction on media types, from products to videos. I only ask that an image of Freud or a mention of Freud by name be included. Otherwise I’ll be inundated with New Yorker cartoons about psychoanalysis.
Great idea! Have you set up a Google alert for “funny Freud”? I’ll keep my cybereyes open for Freud humor, plus I have a few other ideas. (Glad you found a use for that silly image of Freud with the red glasses (-: )
Ooh, I haven’t set up a Google alert yet — great idea, Laura! And yes, I was hoping you’d notice that I found a use for your Freud with red glasses. Sooner or later, every icon you designed will turn up ~
My favorite Freudian sip:
My mother said to me admiringly after I returned from one of my hair-raising adventures: “You live under a lucky cloud!”
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Oh my. Now was that supposed to be “sip” or “slip” in the first sentence, Diane? It’s a slippery — or sippery — slope…
That is a funny idea! Last Sunday’s CBS Sunday morning had a segment on Freud with clips of movies about him. I didn’t mention it to you at the time because it seemed insubstantial, but there was one comic movie included–and of course I have NO memory of the title (suppressed?)
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I’ll see if I can track it down — thanks for the lead!
Funny Feud Friday … I love it!
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Thanks, Amy! Be on the lookout. You never know what funny Freudian dog items you might come across….
Great post–nice idea to assign Fridays to the humorous side of things. Great mug.
I hope you’ll show the Freud Action Figure here–I spotted it in an office window and I think it’s pretty funny, because the extent of Freud’s action must have been to sit pretty still most of the time.
Thanks, Lydia. I think I need to order the mug; I’m really very taken with it.
And yes, come to think of it, you really started this section with your tip about the Freud action figure. I found several good versions of it and it’s been used in some funny ways, including a Freud dance video. So thank *you.*
This sounds like a lot of fun. Perhaps a fictional conversation between Freud, Pavlov, and Skinner would be in order considering the nature of your ventures? One could imagine them discussing their interpretations of their dogs begging for scraps. 🙂
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That *would* be an interesting conversation, wouldn’t it? There’s actually a serious post about “Jewish” dogs and Konrad Lorenz — who was in the Nazi party — that I’m contemplating thanks to my Freudian dog training pal Lee Charles Kelley but I don’t know that I’m quite ready to go there…
I thought you might like this for Funny Freud Friday http://goobeetsa.com/papertoys/
It was posted yesterday by the APA. I found it very curious that a serious institution like that would put something like this on their facebook.
What a wonderful find — thank you! I’d like to use it and give you credit if you want to identify yourself. If not, I’ll just call you an “alert reader.” Let me know.
Of course! use it! and Kathyfr is just fine.
I was doing some research on pages with psychoanalytic content and I found yours. I read every post and I love to find out personal things about Freud. Congrats on a great research. And I’ll keep telling you if I find other things.
I have to confess I have the Freud doll…there’s million things in this page http://www.philosophersguild.com/Freudiana/
Thank you on all counts! I’ll post Zombie Freud tomorrow and I’ll look forward to your future finds.
Now here’s a funny coincidence: A friend of mine saw my Freudian slippers post and told me that the sons of a good friend of hers (whom I met) started the Philosophers Guild! Small world, eh?
Very small, indeed! Tip my hat to them, it’s a great page.