In Soviet Russia

Common card · No. 327198

"In Soviet Russia", also called the Russian reversal, is a joke template taking the general form "In America you do X; in Soviet Russia X does you". Typically the American clause describes a harmless ordinary activity and the inverted Soviet form something menacing or dysfunctional, satirizing life under communist rule, or in the "old country". Sometimes the first clause is omitted. Although the exact origin of the joke form is uncertain, an early example is from the 1938 Cole Porter musical Leave It to Me!, with book by Bella and Samuel Spewack ("In Soviet Russia, messenger tips you."). Bob Hope used the form at the 1958 Academy Awards. In the 1968–1973 television show Laugh-In, a recurring character, "Piotr Rosmenko the Eastern European Man" (played by Arte Johnson), delivered short jokes such as "Here in America, is very good, everyone watch television. In old country, television watch you!" This joke alludes to "telescreens" from George Orwell's dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four...

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