It said (as any fule kno):

‘ere we go!

For me, it’s always been a table that the earwig falls off, but a brief nosey around the internet shows that dozens of other earwigs are busily falling off trees, cliffs, walls, they’re falling down stairs, off shelves, jumping out of aircraft. These earwigs are going down, they don’t care how. They just want to jump and shout their line.

But what do they shout? Curiously, this punchline is sometimes written “ear we go!” which makes no sense at all. Why would the tumbling earwig see fit to mention an ear? (unless he was brushed off the table *by* an ear – a spaniel’s ear, perhaps – or noticed that he was falling *into* an ear, perhaps that of a someone having a nap beneath the table – in which cases it would function as a double pun, and presumably the falling earwig would be doubly happy). There has to be something going on, some specifically “ear” related aspect to the falling, to justify the writing of ear rather than ‘ere.

Interestingly, this doesn’t work if the ear-ness of the joke occurs explicitly (and solely) in the description or definition of the subject of the joke (the thing or person doing the falling). For example, you might ask: “what did the ear say when it fell off the table?”

The answer here (as when an earwig falls) has to be: ‘ere we go! Because the shift to (h)ere from ear is where the humour lies.

But what if the ear-ness of the subject is not spelled out? So, for example: “what did Mr Spock out of Star Trek say when he fell off the table?” Here, you rather need the punchline to be written “ear we go!” with the word “ear” forging a semantic bridge between Mr Spock out of Star Trek and (h)ere: Mr Spock (has big ears) > ear < homophone of the abbreviation ‘ere.

Of course, if you’re saying the joke rather than writing it down, all that work has to be done in your performance. You might consider gesturing to your ears. Making a sort of “pointy” sign at the tops of them. That might work.

Good luck!