What do you call a bear with no teeth?

This joke plays on a delightful bit of wordplay, a classic humor mechanism that relies on a single word or phrase having two different meanings. The setup, "What do you call a bear with no teeth?", immediately brings to mind an image of a rather unfortunate, toothless ursine. The punchline, "A gummy bear!", then cleverly pivots to the other, much sweeter meaning of "gummy."

The humor comes from the unexpected twist. We're expecting a description of a bear's dental situation, perhaps something like "harmless" or "a very hungry bear with a soft food diet." Instead, we get a reference to the beloved chewy candy. Gummy bears themselves have a fun history, originating in Germany in the 1920s as "dancing bears" before becoming a global sensation. Their name, of course, comes from their gelatinous, "gummy" texture, not from their lack of teeth.

So, the joke works by taking a common characteristic – a bear's powerful teeth – and removing it, then substituting the resulting "gummy" state with the familiar name of a candy. It’s a simple, innocent, and effective piece of linguistic fun that brings a smile precisely because it's so silly and unexpected.