running joke

Definition

An ongoing joke, one that is regularly repeated or continued.

Example Sentences

• "“I Love Lisa” opens with one of my favorite underappreciated running jokes from The Simpsons: the passive-aggressive, quietly contentious relationship of radio jocks Bill and Marty, whose mindless happy talk regularly gives way to charged exchanges that betray the simmering resentment and disappointment perpetually lingering just under the surface of their relationship."
• "These deadpan repeated phrases that cannot quite decide whether they are part of a running joke or a half-abandoned philosophical dictum produce, as Michael Wood has argued, a comedy of the intellect that becomes a comedy of ignorance: […]"
• "Her obvious favoritism has become a running joke among the staff. A joke that I'm the butt of. She's at least twenty years older than me, not to mention married."