HN user
Didn't expect my first comment to be so controversial!
I just asked a few friends if they thought it came from the show or not. The first person that responded thought it had come from the show as well. The second knew the joke hadn't originated from there, but attributed its popularity to appearing on the show.
Yeah, I appreciated this article -- will confess I definitely thought the joke originated with The Office. I think the author just missed a lot of the punchlines in the jokes that they didn't find funny, many of these formats are still in use today!
The one you describe is a classic format: someone has a problem, then through accidental, unrelated circumstances, solves it. They meet someone else with the same problem, and the punchline is that their advice is "have you tried..?"
A pedant having fallen into a pit called out continually to summon help. When no one answered, he said to himself, “I am a fool if I do not give all a beating when I get out in order that in the future they shall answer me and furnish me with a ladder.”
The author ends being unsure their strategy is sound -- but the point of the joke is that it's clearly not sound, and one that would only make sense to a pedant.
"Another person who was going away wrote to a pedant that he should buy him some books. But he regarded the request lightly and said to him on his return, “I did not receive your letter which you sent concerning the books.”"
The punchline is that the pedant clearly received the letter, or he wouldn't know to say that the he's claiming to have not received concerned books. Today it might be: "Hey, did you get my text message?" "The one asking if you could borrow my car? No, I didn't."