Well, the title does say it all. I totally messed up on the title. Was normally meant to be called " Are the Khajiit a Joke race?" I guess I type stuttered.

Was Bethesda giggling when they made it possible for players to make Cat People characters?

They do look funny and a lot of Nords make fun of them. I was just beginning to wonder if it was an inside joke that the game developers had made when making the TES series.

hmm, I wonder how they came up with the idea of cat people in the first place. It is a curious thing.

It's interesting that "nords" is French (and Italian) for "north".

The Khajiit race has been around since Morrowind and maybe before that. No, I don't think that they're supposed to be a joke.

Ever had a cat? They're cats. They do cat things. It's not a joke. It's just what cats do.

Khajiit were also in Arena and Daggerfall.

No, they're not a joke. It's a fantasy setting, and they are a fantasy race. They definitely break up the monotony of humans and elves.

The Khajiit weren't always as feline looking, like they do in Skyrim.

In Daggerfall, they were quite human looking with some feline features. In Arena, they have even less feline features, if any.

Even then, not all Khajiit look feline. It depends on the breed, which is influenced by the moons. The playable ones are Suthay-Raht, who indeed look like cats. But you also have Ohmes, for example. The Ohmes look very similar to Bosmer, according to lore.

But to keep it short. No, they are not a joke race.

If you don't like the beast races, and no one says you have to, that's cool. But trying to just write them off as a "joke race" seems to be a pretty simplistic stance You could say "Are Hobbits a joke race" because they're short with big hairy feet. Was Tolkiein half-assing his lore and culture building? Are panserbjorne a joke race in the world created by Phillip Pullman? I could go on...

You could read up on lore. There are many good sites. UESP, The Imperial Library. The Khajiiti are really interesting, in fact. At least I have always thought so. I tend to find human races in many fantasy games to be fairly dull. Play ESO - you get to see examples of Khajiiti culture, architecture... the story of the Two Moons and the Champions in that game is wonderful and provides a lot of info and insight into the Khajiit, in my opinion.

The nice thing is if you find a particular race in the ES series not to your liking, you have plenty of other choices.

Okay, my bad... so they're not something that was placed in the game as comical. I always thought it was just one of those things game developers do for fun. When I started Morrowind and was scrolling through the race choices and came across this thing that looked like a cat, I was thinking....seriously? and started laughing. Since than I could never take them seriously at all even in Skyrim and I mean no harm in it and not to be negative about it. But I always believed it was just one of those things.

BGS plays with a lot of their races.

"Seen any elves?"

"All I asked was for a pair of shoes."

And hey, if the devs were having a giggle when they created Khajiit, well, they were also having a giggle when they depicted Nords in Morrowind.

I think any game developer likes to smile a bit while they're working, else why Easter eggs.

Edit: I like to know whoinhell figured out how to get Elton Brand. It had to be someone reading scripts.

Naked Nords are definitely a joke race.

Nah. Morrowind is just too hot for clothes, and filled with pesky witches. Nords are perfectly fine when you have snow and ice and blizzards.

"You like to dance close to the fire, don't you?"

An entire playable Race with hundreds of pages of Lore and history just as a joke? ... Nope.

A joke would be something like the Star Wars easter egg, or the long running Fishy Stick gag.

And as others have pointed out, "cat people" are a fantasy tradition just like flying horses or dragons. If it's your first time seeing a cat race in a fantasy setting, you need to explore more fantasy

Have to grab the furry/otherkin demographic somehow.