71 Light Bulb Jokes: The 1998 Retro Edition

In 1998, the world was bracing for the “Y2K bug,” Google had just launched in a garage, and Armageddon was the biggest thing in theaters. It was the year of the Furby, the iMac G3 (the blue one!), and the legendary “Baby One More Time.” Humor in ’98 was a mix of end-of-the-world anxiety, boy band fever, and the first real steps of the Google era.

THE 1998 TOP 10: Y2K READY

1. The Y2K Expert: One, but they’ll charge you $5,000 to make sure the bulb doesn’t explode on January 1st, 2000.
2. The Google Founder: None. They’ll just help you find 1,452,000 other people who already changed their bulbs.
3. The Furby: One, but it’ll start talking to the bulb in “Furbish” at 3 AM for no reason.
4. The Armageddon Astronaut: None. They’ll just land a drill on the bulb and blow it up with a nuke to save Earth.
5. The Britney Spears Fan: “Hit me, baby, one more time… with a 60-watt bulb!”
6. The iMac G3 Designer: One, but the bulb has to be “Bondi Blue” and translucent.
7. The Bill Clinton Aide: “That depends on what your definition of the word ‘light’ is.”
8. The Harry Potter Reader: One, but you have to wait for the owl to deliver the replacement.
9. The Dawson’s Creek Teen: They don’t change it; they just sit on a pier and talk about their feelings toward the darkness for 45 minutes.
10. The Star Wars: Episode I Fan: None. They’re still standing in line to buy the bulb… a year before it comes out.

THE FULL 1998 ARCHIVE (EXTENDED LIST)

11. The Backstreet Boy: Five. They screw it in while doing perfectly synchronized choreography.
12. The South Park Fan: “Respect my authori-tah… and change the bulb!”
13. The Titanic Survivor: “I’m the King of the World! …Wait, it’s dark. Where’s the bulb?”
14. The Pokémon Trainer: “I choose you, 75-Watt!”
15. The Zelda: Ocarina of Time Player: You have to play a specific song on a flute before the light socket opens.
16. The MP3 Downloader: One, but it’ll take 4 hours to “download” the light into the room.
17. The Teletubby: One, but they have to watch the video of the bulb being changed on their tummies first.
18. The Godzilla (1998) Director: One, but the bulb is much bigger than expected and looks like a giant iguana.
19. The eBay Bidder: One, but they’ll pay $40 for a used bulb just because it’s “vintage.”
20. The Buffy Fan: One, but the bulb turns out to be a demon in disguise.
21. The Big Lebowski: “The bulb really tied the room together, man.”
22. The Nokia 5110 Owner: They don’t change the bulb; they just play Snake in the dark.
23. The Half-Life Player: One, but they have to fight off headcrabs with a crowbar to get to the socket.
24. The Spice Girls Fan: “I’ll tell you what I want, what I really, really want… a working filament!”
25. The Truman Show Star: They don’t change the bulb; they just realize the “sun” is actually a giant studio light.
26. The Rollerblader: One, but they do it while wearing baggy JNCO jeans that get caught in the ladder.
27. The Discman User: One, but if you bump the ladder, the light skips for 10 seconds.
28. The New Yorker: “Hey! I’m walkin’ here! Change your own bulb!”
29. The Cyber-Goth: One, but they’ll replace it with a blacklight and neon glow-sticks.
30. The Fugees Fan: “Ready or not, here comes the light!”
31. The Adam Sandler Fan: One, but they have to shout the instructions in a weird baby voice.
32. The “Got Milk?” Ad: One, but they can’t say anything because their mouth is full of cookies.
33. The Austin Powers Fan: “Oh, behave! This bulb has lost its mojo!”
34. The Virtual Pet Owner: “My Giga Pet died because the light went out!”
35. The Boy Band Manager: “I need five guys who look good in white to hold the bulb.”
36. The X-Files Skeptic: “There is a perfectly scientific explanation for why this bulb is dead.”
37. The Mall Goth: “The darkness is just a reflection of my soul.”
38. The Early Blogger: They don’t change the bulb; they just write a 2,000-word post about how annoying it is.
39. The “Snake” Champion: One, but they’ll grow longer with every turn of the bulb.
40. The Rugrats Fan: “A baby’s gotta do what a baby’s gotta do!”
41. The Jerry Springer Guest: One, but then the socket starts a fight with the ladder and throws a chair.
42. The AOL Chatroom User: “A/S/L? (Age/Socket/Location?)”
43. The Beanie Baby Hunter: “Don’t touch the bulb! You’ll ruin the mint condition!”
44. The Starbucks Barista: “One tall, non-fat, decaf 60-watt coming up!”
45. The Pro-Wrestler: One, but they have to “Stone Cold Stunner” the old bulb first.
46. The Mulan Fan: “Who is that bulb I see, starting straight back at me?”
47. The Blade Runner: “All those lights… will be lost in time… like tears in rain.”
48. The Scientist: “We’ve cloned a sheep, surely we can clone a working light bulb!”
49. The Skater: One, but they’ll try to grind the edge of the lamp shade.
50. The “That ’70s Show” Fan: One, but they’ll just sit in a circle and talk about it in a cloud of smoke.
51. The TRL Host: “And at Number 1 on the countdown… it’s the 100-Watt Halogen!”
52. The Surgeon: “Scalpel… Suction… Light bulb!”
53. The Tourist: One, but they’ll ask someone else to take a picture of them holding the bulb.
54. The Librarian: “It’s not burnt out, it’s just ‘checked out’ indefinitely.”
55. The Gym Teacher: “Give me twenty laps around the dark room!”
56. The Optimist: “At least we still have the moon!”
57. The Pessimist: “The moon is just reflecting a sun that’s going to burn out eventually too.”
58. The Chef: “I’ll change it, but it needs more salt.”
59. The Detective: “The bulb didn’t burn out… it was murdered.”
60. The Pilot: “We’re experiencing some slight darkness, please fasten your seatbelts.”
61. The Sailor: “A smooth sea never made a skilled light bulb changer.”
62. The Magician: “And for my next trick… illumination!”
63. The Poet: “The light has fled, the glass is cold…”
64. The Gardner: “If I plant this bulb, will a lamp grow?”
65. The Bus Driver: “Back of the bus! No, wait, it’s too dark to see the back!”
66. The Bodybuilder: One, but they’ll flex in the dark just in case anyone is looking.
67. The Weather Reporter: “Cloudy with a chance of burnt-out filaments.”
68. The Reality Star: “I’m not here to make friends, I’m here to screw in this bulb!”
69. The Fast Food Worker: “Would you like some extra light with those fries?”
70. The Ghost: “I preferred the old bulb, it had more… spirit.”
71. The 1998 Legend: One, but they do it while wearing a visor backward and a pinstriped baseball jersey.