If it weren't for electricity we'd all be watching television by candlelight.

A deliberately absurd, deadpan one-liner built on a mock counterfactual: it “credits” electricity for making television possible, but then imagines television existing anyway—only lit by candlelight. The humor comes from the logical mismatch (television itself requires electricity) and from the way the sentence mimics earnest technological praise while undercutting it. At a broader level, it satirizes glib explanations of modern life and the tendency to state obvious truths in a self-important way. The joke also fits a mid‑20th‑century American comedic style associated with Gobel: folksy, understated, and reliant on a straight-faced delivery.