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AH.com has so many running jokes that trying to present a comprehensive list would be madness. Therefore, here it is.
The Forks: Originally devised by Michael back in 2004, the Forks are called for whenever a soul-scarring incident occurs on the board, such as The Mists of Time showing off his photo collection.
Blaming Thande: Because Thande is the cause of all the world’s evils. See main article.
Hermanubis and Imajin are the same person: Deduced by Thande.
MrP and Fellatio Nelson are actually black: Deduced by John Reynolds, revived for the MEJ fiasco. Rattslinger and Hazazel later unearthed the fact that they both sing backing vocals for a black supremacist heavy metal band called Cracker Annihilation, under the stage names “Milk Wrath” and “Cookie Death”.
Leej is Landshark‘s illegitimate son: Developed by various people after a comment by Thande.
Floid Country Demonyms: After a drunk Fellatio Nelson asked Floid if he was “Sudanases”, using -ases as a country demonym has caught on. Other uses include ‘Chineases’ for China and ‘Hondurases’ for Honduras.
Archangel Michael is VulcanTrekkie45‘s grandfather: Because they both came from Colorado, which doesn’t exist.
Scottish Aircraft Carriers: Based on the model for an independent Scotland’s navy drawn up by a loony in the Outer Hebrides, but mainly associated with the mainstream Scottish National Party in order to mock them - an independent Scotland would apparently have around 34 aircraft carriers (but, strangely, no aircraft).
Universal Healthcare Debates: A subject which has been so often argued in Political Chat that the threads have now descended to self-parody. Essentially, the Americans are convinced that receiving free healthcare is tantamount to worshipping Stalin, while everyone else thinks it’s a good idea.
Gun Control Debates: A subject which has been so often argued in Political Chat that the threads have now descended to self-parody. Essentially, the Americans are convinced that depriving any man, woman or child of their right to own a lethal weapon is tantamount to worshipping Hitler, while everyone else thinks it’s a good idea.
Global Warming Debates: A subject which has been so often argued in Political Chat that the threads have now descended to self-parody. Essentially, the Americans are convinced that depriving any man, woman, child or global mega-corporation of their right to churn out enough Carbon Dioxide to put out the Sun is tantamount to worshipping Mao (we’re running out of loony dictators, chaps), while everyone else thinks it’s a good idea.
Education Debates: A subject which has been so often argued in Political Chat that the threads have now descended to self-parody. Essentially, MrP & Thande are convinced that vote-grubbing British politicians have doomed us to a future of post-apocalyptic nightmare (including the spread of the dreaded Grocer’s Apostrophe), while Justin Pickard and Kit believe that the system is splendid, n taht poepul r nu briter then evar. See also Campaign to Overthrow and Undermine the teaching of Glib History; British Education System.
xyz gone mad #123456: A running joke in thread titles. Started with and usually still is “Political Correctness”, with the number of course being random but high. Such threads include a totally asinine story that derives its craziness from the thread title’s topic, for example political correctness. Other examples include Health and Safety or EU Bureaucracy. On the occasion when a PC-gone-mad idea is actually shot down, it is customary to post the news with the title “Common Sense Gone Sane Part #34” with a much smaller number. A recent addition to the list, courtesy of MrP, is “Chavez Thread #2353543453”, in which we learn the everyday happenings of the cheeky chirpy crack-smoking socialist dictator of Venezuela.
The Germano-Russo-EU Alliance of Doom for Poland: Germany, Russia and the EU are all conspiring to dismember Poland and kill all the Poles, as evidenced by the behaviour of mid-nineteenth century German settlers on the American Plains. An idea originally propounded as serious by HurganPL, and subsequently cited by everyone else as evidence that Hurgan’s from an ATL.
Fake Spanish: Popularised by Thermopylae, the Fake Spanish language is often called upon when presenting new media for a TL, especially “El Mappo!” whenever a new map is made. (Real Spanish would be ‘La Carte!’ or “¡El Mapa!”) Fake Spanish is also often used with respect to the Heterosexual Reconquista.
The Inevitable Republic of Deseret/Inevitable Kingdom of Burgundy: A term coined by Imajin for Deseret and then modified by Thande for Burgundy, to describe how those two states often pop up in maps of North America and Europe respectively with little explanation. Also inspired the name ‘Inevitablid Caliphate of Europe’ (see below).
The Space-Filling Empire: Another map term invented by Imajin, to describe how inexperienced mapmakers often fill up areas they have no ideas about (usually Africa or Central Asia) with a poorly defined empire or union of some kind.
The Inevitablid/Obligatid/Randomid Caliphates: Originally a term for the common future history cliche of an eeeeeviiiiiil Muslim-immigrant caliphate taking over Europe, it evolved into something of a running joke when refering to both caliphates appearing in alternate history and future history. There are three rival dynasties, each purportedly named after their (made-up) founders as named by fortyseven:
Is any of us really real? Someone once suggested that Doctor What was the only real poster, and the rest of us are just Ian typing really quickly to give the impression of hundreds of people. fortyseven suggested that we are all Ian’s sockpuppets and that Ian has an extreme case of schizophrenia. In similar fashion, HARRY suggested that all the posts were really made by Turtledove sockpuppets, except for the innuendoey ones which were the work of Stirling.
The Nonexistent States of America: Most of the Britons on the board firmly believe that the Dakotas, Wyoming, Colorado etc. are entirely fictional, and were only invented by American airline companies in order to make their planes seem faster than they are on flights from the east coast to the west coast. This is strongly denied by most of the American posters, especially those who believe they live in the said nonexistent states: on the contrary, according to the Americans, it is Delaware that is fictional.
euio‘s maps are dipped in tea: Deduced by Thande.
luakel is actually FBI agent Sam Ferguson: Deduced by Diamond, Doctor What, Grimm Reaper and others. This has since been expanded to include the idea that luakel is demonkangaroo‘s dad.
The Germans' obsession with obscure political debates: Especially true of Steffen and Susano. Steffen’s famous comment is that one time at a bar he rather would discuss reforms to the welfare state than watch the topless dancer, and was even rather annoyed by her.
The Germans are a hive mind, and again especially Steffen and Susano and their political differences just a ploy, or a form of schizophrenia. Kabraloth is also assumed to be part of this hivemind, which is mostly named for Susano. Hence, Kabraloth and Steffen had their respetcive user titles be “Not a Susano” for a while, while Susano’s was “Also Steffen and Kabraloth”. Since then, Susano muses who else could be part of his hivemind - for example, Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy, as he can answer as quickly to provocations as Susano.
Byzantine Airships are the epitome of cool: An opinion expressed by Midgard, Sargon and others (Abdul Hadi Pasha considers them to be second in coolness to Ottoman airships) for many years. In 2007 it essentially became the manifesto of the Evil Party.
Keenir is actually MrP posting while tired and amnesiac: A certain similarity of style noted by P himself, while Thande suggested that Keenir’s knowledge of Turkish may come from P falling asleep on a volume of Ottoman battleship designs and the principle of knowledge osmosis.
Landshark was But we stopped chasing him.
The Bannedwagon: Joke started by DominusNovus, where a word similar to Banned/Kicked is placed in the user title, with the intended affect of causing another user to freak out at a normal board member being Banned/Kicked. Dominus originally used the actual word Banned, after which Ian stopped people being able to use it, and double-take workarounds such as Bamed or Barned were adopted. Another variation is to alter the word Banned to suggest your own username, such as Thanned or Ranned. The term ‘bannedwagon’ for the popularity of the joke was invented by KJM.
Logic and Reason: Several members, notably GBW, occasionally forget and recourse to these two concepts, which are taboo on AH.com. The correct response to this is a pitying shake of the head and ‘You’re using logic and reason again...’
Every member has an Antipodean counterpart: First noticed with Mr_J / MrP. Baldie has objected to this theory on the grounds that his doppelganger is transatlantic rather than Antipodean.
Chinese inventions: According to AH.com, not only did China invent gunpowder, the printing press etc. before anyone else, but also any concept that comes up in a thread about China, such as censorship, America, and exaggeration. Most notably, as Dave Howery observed, the Chinese invented bears, you know.
Landshark is actually Mama Cass out of the Mamas and the Papas: Deduced by The Bald Imposter.
Thread Hijackings: Whether it is purposeful or not, most threads in Chat and NP Chat end up getting pulled off topic, also called hijacking. VulcanTrekkie45 created a thread to document these happenings, but it was quickly hijacked and died.
Ignore Threads: If anyone makes a mistake posting a thread (or duplicates it), and therefore deletes the content and changes the title to ‘Ignore’, it is customary for almost all the online members to post in that thread with comments such as ‘you want me to ignore this thread? Right, I’m ignoring it...’
The Four Horsemen of the AH.com-alypse: After several members complained about The Office in The Official British TV Thread, Sargon noted that there were now four members available that could form some sort of group. MrP suggested The Four Horsemen of the AH.com-alypse, and everyone thought this was a good idea, agreeing upon Thande as Pestilence (because of the effect of his chemical concoctions), MrP as War (due to his WW1 warship interests), Sargon as Death (seeing as he’s a member of the EVIL Party) and The Dean as Famine (attributed to his waistline and the fact that he could be a one-man cause of one). Keenir wanted to be the Fifth Horseman, but as there’s some confusion on the issue, that’ll be settled later. An AH.com Series episode is confidently expected to be written about this at some point.
Archangel Michael and The Sicilian are the same person: Deduced by VulcanTrekkie45.
Wikipedia: Because of various interesting renderings of history on Wikipedia, it’s become common when referring to looking at it to make reference to one of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Israel or the Armenian Genocide no matter which article one has been reading. For example, one might claim to have been inspecting a history of pottery in Asia Minor, and mention as an aside that the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth is responsible for the elaborate artistry.
The Americans cannot organise a meet-up: Accompanied by much chortling, usually from the British members, this joke mostly dates from 2006, when the British members managed to have about five meetups and the Americans failed to have any, even though zillions of them live near each other in small areas like New Jersey. The joke has died off since the Americans did manage two meetups in 2007 in New York City - although as both meetings had a Commonwealth subject attending (Kit and Doctor What) there have been claims that the meet-ups only happened because of British-derived organisation. Much like Psychomeltdown moving the goalposts for Writer Chimphood to keep excluding Michael, the British members kept redefining what constituted a ‘meet-up’ for a while to keep excluding earlier American efforts. Notably, the even less successful efforts of the Germans, Australians etc. are much more rarely mocked...
alt_historian, MrP, and VulcanTrekkie45 are all related: Because they are all apparently descended from Eochaid Mugmedon. Deduced by VulcanTrekkie45.
Swedish politics: A popular thread digression, usually resorted to in WyldCard4‘s threads to twit his inability to understand AH.com. Despite the fact that it is usually started by LordInsane, who claims to be a Norwegian exile. Madness? THIS...IS...AH.COOOOOM!!!
The Irish are Chinese: British posters are occasionally irritated by claims from Americans who neither speak Irish nor have visited Ireland nor know any Irish people that they (the Americans) are Irish. Even less typically, an American with real connexions to Ireland will say something silly. So when Oweno/Rocano recently claimed that the Irish (who live on the second largest of the British Isles) are not British, MrP agreed, noting that the Irish are in fact Chinese. With any luck this joke will run and run.
Glaaawwbul Waaarming: Based on a the joke Irish pronunciation of the phrase by Bono and the Edge in Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse’s sketch show. Usually invoked when mocking eco-mentalists who blame absolutely any negative event in the world on ‘glawwwbul waarming’. Also sometimes called ‘glerble werming’, after the Mancunian pronunciation.
Leo vs. the Konservative Kalmarite Krew: Based on Leo Caesius’ observation that he often seems to get into arguments with right-wing Scandinavian board members, including Neroon and others.
The Bald Imposter and elle-jay‘s real identities: Apparently a fourteen-year-old high school girl called Kayla and her jockish boyfriend Dylan.
The Luftwaffe and CGI: Because there are so many obviously CGI pictures of secret Nazi super-aircraft that were never built (e.g. Luftwaffe ‘46), Thande remarked that the Luftwaffe would probably have done better in WW2 if they’d spent their budget on building planes rather than inventing CGI. This running joke has taken on a life of its own in the Pics-of-Gorgeous Aircraft Thread, in which it is noted that the more sensible RAF instead developed CGI in between WW2 and the Korean War, as the first RAF planes with CGI pictures date from the early ‘50s. The Confederate Air Force has emerged as another culprit in the ‘spending more money on CGI than planes’ phenomenon. It later emerged that the only reason the Luftwaffe had computers on which to do CGI was because the Reichswehr had wasted all its money, 25 years earlier, on designing the A.I. for the game Alpha Centauri. See also: German Techwank.
Kit is actually a Californian housewife: A joke by some of the Americans dating from as early as 2005. Other variations have painted him as a female mall rat and Valley Girl (a particularly hilarious one for the British members, as that phrase also fits rather well for Wales). This joke essentially stems from the conspiracy theory that, because Kit (according to Fellatio Nelson) is so stereotypically homosexual, he’s actually role-playing and getting it all out of a book.
The Alt Historian Fanaticism Hive Mind: Apparently alt_historian, AHFanatic, history_fanatic and Historyfan 92 are all one hive mind.
The Worthless U.S. Dollar: Due to the decline in value of the U.S. dollar in 2007 and 2008, it is customary to describe the exchange rate to the British Pound Sterling or the Euro as being something like 750,000 to one, as though the U.S. dollar is now a form of lire.
AH.com Doppelgangers: A complex topic which deals with lookalikes of AH.commers in the world of celebrities, entertainment, or just on the streets. Perhaps the most notorious lookey-likey is Doctor What with Jeff Goldblum. However, some members are known to have a startling number of duplicates, and this has been recognised - Flocculencio‘s Flocculgangers and Hendryk‘s Hendryklones to name two.
Li’l MEJ: When anyone says anything that MEJ could possibly have construed as racist (i.e. when anyone says anything), it is customary for Archangel Michael to post an image meme which consists of a black kid silently mouthing “That’s Racist!”
Average Wow: Coined by Nekromans after it was said, apparently by accident, in the thread title of one of our more illiterate phonespammers. ‘Average wow!’ is an exclamation made when one receives an item of minor good fortune, not deserving of a full-blooded wow.
Mexican Polar Bears: Developed on the map thread after euio posted a map which included a Mexican occupation of northern Canada, having been screwed over in the partition by their American allies. However, it then transpired that the Mexicans had warmed Arctic Canada up to Mediterranean temperatures by force-feeding really hot tortillas to all the polar bears. This then turned into an anti-eco-mentalist conspiracy as it combined glaawwbul waaarming with abusing baby seals (with fajitas).
Interestingly, in an unconnected event, CalBear, in a discussion of a polar bear swimming to Iceland, referred to the border fence along the U.S. Mexican border, and how it compared to the Icelandic illegal immigration response (shoot it).
Reverse American Politics: One strange aspect about the American politics on the board is that many U.S. members have registered party identities totally disconnected with their political views. For example, Grimm Reaper is a Democrat and NapoleonXIV is a Republican. Possibly connected with this is the fact that a British political test thinks that DelawareWerewolf should vote for the hard-left socialist Respect party. Recently, Paul Spring (a right-wing member who often debates politics with Leo Caesius) revealed he planned to vote for Obama, while Leo himself was seriously considering voting for McCain.
Pin the Zion on the Eurasia: A reference to the fact that Israel appears in multitudinous and bizarre places in many timelines. The title here was coined by ninebucks.
The Teachings of St Cyril the Inherent: As bestowed upon AH.com by one remarkable man, whose unique moral teachings are simply beyond the capacity of the mundane human mind to comprehend.
The Landgraviate of P: Based on MrP being nicknamed Herr von P because of his supposed German-ness, LordInsane objected that this meant that there had to be a place in Germany called “P”. Thande then deduced that there was in fact a tiny city-state of the Holy Roman Empire that had been named “P” because there wasn’t enough room to fit any more letters in on the map.
Nuclear reactors, a Jewish conspiracy with no backup plan: With thanks to our latest insane troll, Eleven11, we now know that nuclear reactors do not exist, they are simply a cover-up by the cabal of Jews who run the world, and in fact Wozza’s uncle is employed in the job of squeezing oil out of potatoes on the inside. We also know that anyone without a backup plan must be the result of a cover-up, or something.
Made-up Running Jokes: Apparently, a joke, by definition, is a running joke if it appears on the Running Jokes page. This was taken to an extreme by Codae, who added “Made-up Running Jokes” to the wiki page, despite the utter lack of use on the forum beforehand. Who is to be blamed for this practice? Thande, most likely.
Warhammer 40K and the 2008 U.S. presidential elections: A joke put together by MerryPrankster, MrP, Thande and others. According to this analogy, Barack Obama is the Emperor of Mankind (because of Abdul Hadi Pasha accusing his supporters of being starry-eyed messianics), Hillary Clinton is Warmaster Hillary of the Hillary Heresy, and John McCain is the Chaos God John McKhorne (as in ‘War for the War Vet, Votes for McKhorne!’). Variations on this included Merry instead turning four candidates into Chaos gods.
The AH.com Revolving Door: Due to the addictiveness of AH.com, most people who leave either on principle or just because they feel they are spending too much time on there are usually back within a month.
The BBC System of Measurements: Often talked about when posting BBC News articles and invoked to settle metric vs. imperial disputes.
Memetic Mutation: Usually occurs with memes that refer to certain noteworthy trolls, or to posts by normal members judged to be particularily lunatic. Those memes are then wildly mixed.
Time Travellers: It has been deduced that Ofaloaf, because of his mutton chops and wide-eyed expression of wonder, and Admiral Canaris because of his conservative political views, are both time travellers from the year 1890, like that bloke out of the film Time Changer. Later, it was found that Roberto is one of the original Scottish Darien colonists who fell through a time portal to the present day, as this is the only conceivable explanation for a ginger Hondurasesian. His dad, possibly related to this, is an Antarctican. There also remains a minority view that Ran Exilis is from the seventeenth century (because of his hair), and fled to the twenty-first in order to escape angry fathers all across the Dutch East Indies. This further explains the recent influx of Indonesian members - they’re all Ran’s great-great-great-great-grandchildren who have inherited his love of AH and did not exist in the timestream before his adventures. There were also rumblings that VulcanTrekkie45 might have been from the late 19th century when he posted his full name for the first time.
Singapore, the Perfect Society: Flocculencio enjoys boasting to everyone else about how excellent Singapore’s services are - the universal healthcare to the Americans, and the no-nonsense education system to the Britons, among others.
Pour le coeur makes the laws of physics break down: Every time MrP writes a new segment of his timeline, the universe breaks down a bit more. This leads to the BBC reporting science news correctly, the Mayor of Doncaster leaving Labour, or MrP and Susano being on the same side in a religious debate.
The Dean‘s private army: Hendryk has noted that The Dean‘s supposedly innocent activities of supervising kids in healthy outdoorsy activities actually correspond suspiciously to a regime of training for a private army. It is speculated that El Deano is planning a coup.
DelawareWerewolf is really a were-poodle: Inspired when user DelawarePoodle (now EvolvedLupine) posted a thread entitled Question about collars. On the basis that you wouldn’t find a wolf wearing a collar Cockroach proposed that DW wasn’t actually a werewolf but rather a were-poodle.
Red Alert: Westwood/EA’s Command&Conquer: Red Alert series of games has provided a number of AH.com running jokes (see main article).
Libertarian Somalia: Whenever anyone mentions American Libertarianism, Hendryk (or occasionally someone else, usually Kidblast) will point out that all the supposed qualifications for a libertarian paradise are met in modern Somalia, and then invite any proponents of Libertarianism to move there.
Member doppelgangers: A long-standing running joke surrounding several members who have posted their pictures, and their resemblance to each other, celebrities, and people encountered in daily life.
Royal alter egos: Various members have been identified with members of the British Royal Family - Susano with Prince Philip due to dodgy comments about the Chinese, and MrP with Prince Charles due to their shared interests in whisky and talking to plants. This technically means Susano is P’s dad.
When did it become (year) again?: Coined by The Bald Imposter originally, this has become popular with many other members. Essentially, when a member (usually a newish one) posts some very old and well-known internet phenomenon as though it is new (e.g. Chuck Norris facts, “All Your Base Are Belong To Us”), Baldie would interject with “When did it become 2002 again?” or similar. Possibly the most extreme example of this was in 2008, when a member posted the famous ‘Things I Shall Do When I Become An Evil Overlord’ list and Flocculencio kindly replied with “Welcome to 1998, my friend!”
The House of O: Largely derived from Fellatio Nelson‘s habit of referring to Susano as “Susan O”. The House of O is a mysterious family whose other members include Robert O, 09Camar O, Mojojoj O, Frankoli O, and of course Fellati O himself.
Iceland is a bizarre alien fish: Communist Wizard posted a map of Iceland, prompting Grimm Reaper to note the aforementioned resemblance; after Thande referenced an old map depicting Iceland as such, Grimm Reaper pointed out that this would explain the country’s obsession with its cod spawn (see Cod Wars).