shaggy-dog story
/ˌʃaɡɪˈdɒɡ stɔːri
/A long, rambling story or joke, typically one that is amusing only because it is absurdly inconsequential or pointless.Great use of sound, lighting and camera angles draw you in to this absurdly eerie little shaggy-dog story....
- Still later, I was childishly confident that America had been invented by mean-spirited grown-ups as the setting for innumerable jokes and shaggy-dog stories that were wildly popular in my circle of acquaintances and friends.
- The pleasure comes from the journey rather than the arrival - a shaggy-dog story without the Beethoven punch line.
From an anecdote of this type, about a shaggy-haired dog (1945)
See parent entry: shaggy