What is a Shaggy Dog Story — Definition & Examples

SHAGGY DOG STORY MEANING

First, let’s define a Shaggy Dog Story

What is a shaggy dog story? Before we dive too deep into examples throughout the media, let’s make sure we get the core definition.

SHAGGY DOG STORY EXAMPLE

The History of the Shaggy Dog Story

Like all storytelling tropes, it’s difficult to accurately pinpoint its eponymous beginnings. However, one detail links all accounts: a literal “shaggy dog”. The passage below is an example what many refer to as “the first shaggy dog story”:

A boy owned a dog that was uncommonly shaggy. Many people remarked upon its considerable shagginess. When the boy learned that there are contests for shaggy dogs, he entered his dog. The dog won first prize for shagginess in both the local and the regional competitions. The boy entered the dog in ever-larger contests, until finally he entered it in the world championship for shaggy dogs. When the judges had inspected all of the competing dogs, they remarked about the boy's dog: "He's not that shaggy."

As you can see, this passage’s strongest characteristic is its round-about way to reach an anti-climactic punchline. Within literature, TV, film, and even music, we’ll see how this trope evolves to play with the expectations of its audience.

SHAGGY DOG TALE AS DEVICE

Shaggy Dog Stories in Literature

Shaggy dog stories in literature are often expressed either through the plot itself, the narrator’s storytelling style or through the voice of a single character. In Mark Twain’s book, “Roughing It,” a typical shaggy dog story is expressed specifically through the passage, “the story of the grandfather’s old ram”. In this, the book’s hero is goaded by his peers to seek a man named Blaine so he can tell him the tale, which then goes on in the book for 4 straight pages, with no clear arc.  After Blaine is finally done with his meandering story, our hero’s friends burst into laughter, knowing their prank landed as intended. This conclusion, coupled with the shaggy dog story itself, could also be characterized as a meta-commentary on the reader’s process of having to endure the lengthiness of the shaggy dog tale as well.

SHAGGY DOG TALES THROUGH CHARACTER

Shaggy Dog Stories in TV

Due to the frustratingly meandering structure, it’s more common to find examples of shaggy dog stories in TV within a character’s voice, than through the plot itself. In The Simpsons, no one epitomizes this better than the character of Grandpa Simpson, who is so adept at telling shaggy dog stories that he often puts himself to sleep while he’s telling them. Though, much like the shaggy dog story itself, the creative team at Simpsons loves to utilize this trope in a variety of ways in order to continue to thwart expectations.

SHAGGY-DOG TALE THROUGH PLOT

Shaggy Dog Stories in Film

Few examples hit the shaggy dog story trope as strongly as the ending of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, where the titular Grail is never realized. In this movie, the filmmakers not only play with the expectations of genre (a fantasy epic), but the expectations of an audience getting a satisfying 3-Act structure, going as far as to pull back the curtain on the filmmaking process itself. Much like the Simpsons and Mark Twain example, the very use of the shaggy dog story trope becomes a meta-commentary on an audience’s familiarization with the shaggy dog trope. 

INNOVATING THE SHAGGY DOG FORM

Shaggy Dog Stories in Stand-up Comedy

There have been many comedians who utilize the shaggy dog tale within their comedic voice, but few innovated the form as much as the late comedian Norm MacDonald. From his late night appearances, to his stand-up sets, to even his “auto-biography” where aimless tales made readers question what was real or what was fabricated, Norm’s sheer commitment to thwarting expectations has elevated the trope. Due to his incessant use of shaggy dog tales, a “flip” of expectations soon turns the shaggy dog story on its head: anything Norm says that could be based in truth, or has a satisfying ending could be now deemed a version of “the shaggy dog”. 

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How to Write Comedy

Shaggy dog stories are just one aspect of comedy-writing that every aspiring screenwriter should know. In the article below, explore the basic fundamentals for how to develop, outline, and script your next comedy script.

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