This is the Nth time, for some high value of N, that I’ve seen this joke presented in a context which implies that it is funny because the protagonist was clever. The protagonist was not clever. “Do you know what I am” in contexts other than grading exams means “do you know what significance I have”, not “do you associate my name with my person”. You can, of course, laugh at the joke because of the stupidity of the protagonist, or because of incongruity between definitions or whatever, but I sense that this is not how the joke is typically presented.
This is the Nth time, for some high value of N, that I’ve seen this joke presented in a context which implies that it is funny because the protagonist was clever. The protagonist was not clever. “Do you know what I am” in contexts other than grading exams means “do you know what significance I have”, not “do you associate my name with my person”. You can, of course, laugh at the joke because of the stupidity of the protagonist, or because of incongruity between definitions or whatever, but I sense that this is not how the joke is typically presented.
The funny part is how the threat turned out to have an entirely different meaning.