Russian reversal
"In Soviet Russia", also called the Russian reversal, is a joke template taking the general form "In America you do X to/with Y; in Soviet Russia Y does X to/with you". Typically the American clause describes a harmless ordinary activity and the inverted Soviet form something menacing or dysfunctional, satirizing life under a communist state, or in the "old country". Sometimes the first clause is omitted, and sometimes either clause or both are often deliberately rendered with English grammatical errors stereotypical of Russians. Said with a heavy Russian accent, the punchline can highlight a backwards Russian scenario. Although the exact origin of the joke form is uncertain, an early example is from the 1938 Cole Porter musical Leave It to Me! ("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 which both reproduce images and monitor the citizenry. The joke form is often mistakenly credited to the Soviet émigré American comedian Yakov Smirnoff; an example is a Miller Lite commercial in which he appeared in 1985, wherein he stated: "In America, there's plenty of light beer and you can always find a party. In Russia, Party always finds you". Another mistaken credit is by Garry Kasparov: "Every country.
joke type in which the subject and objects of a statement are reversed
joke cycle joke