What's So Funny?

301. Wombat - July 30, 1999 - 2:31 PM PT
My favorite Victoria French joke:

Man: If I had known you were a virgin, I wouldn't have (euphemism, please) you so fast.

Woman: If I had known you were in such a hurry, I would have taken my panty hose off.

302. katewrath - July 30, 1999 - 2:33 PM PT
Alas, Judith, I was trying to make you laugh, and instead made you think I really had taken you seriously. (Shakes fist at Fray) GOD DAMN YOU, YOU INFLECTIONLESS BULLETIN BOARD SYSTEM! I did like your post, honest.

CG: Stand-up comedy... (Kate grits teeth, takes deep breath, makes best effort.)...Stand-up has two chief flavors to my knowledge: A: You think I'm gonna say X, but I say Y. Big laughs, very hard to do. (See S. Wright, Rita Rudner). and B: I say the exact thing you've always sort of thought yourself, and you can't believe I'm saying it outloud. Quite a bit easier than A, and since people have gotten really sloppy with this "observational" humor, very common and (to me) never surprising.

But at heart, both function on the inversion of what we expect, although another big problem with stand-up is that, thanks to the explosion of people doing it for the last ten years, we're pretty conditioned to expect anything at all, so most laughter falls into that "please, I want to laugh, say anything and I'll laugh at it" category, which is fine, if somewhat less satisfying than the "I never saw that coming" laugh.

303. glendajean - July 30, 1999 - 2:36 PM PT
The one sit-com that I enjoy watching for its humor is Frasier. It's very farce like (doors slamming and visual humor: the bird on Niles head pinching him every time the doorbell rings). But it also comes out of the characters, too. They're quite strong.

I can't say that I was the most loyal Seinfeld viewer -- I saw most episodes in a given season. And I miss it.

304. judithathome - July 30, 1999 - 2:38 PM PT
JJ:

There's a turkey episode on Friends which is funny but I think Cal was talking about a different one...the turkey on Friends ends up on Monicas head and is particularly funny because she is allegedly so fastidious.

Katewrath:

Yes, I often lament the fact that if a hearty laugh falls on the Fray and no one hears, is it really a laugh?

305. CalGal - July 30, 1999 - 2:45 PM PT
Yes, that is funny--but I'm thinking the WKRP in Cincinnati episode. I'll write it up, although I can't do it justice.

306. katewrath - July 30, 1999 - 2:56 PM PT
CalGal: Of patterns and jokes. Maybe it's my overexposure to the stuff, but to me, a joke always has one, huge wave underneath it, pushing it in a very specific direction, and there's only one way to perfectly invert the expectation. This is not to say, however, that there might not be surface eddies and currents which are also very amusing.

This explains why feeble episodes of well-cast sitcoms can be very entertaining. This week's "It's Like...You Know" kept me happily entertained with Chris Eigman's irritable NYer character, while the episode's chief joke (the universality of something as trivial as watching a car chase) left me cold.

Of threes: the phrase used in improv to describe the break/inversion/surprise of a joke is "to heighten." Myers, not surprisingly considering his training, can heighten like a motherfucker. The "Shhh!" fights in the AP movies always show this off with remarkable agility; in a bit he did for the MTV Movie awards, he heightened to a "Loch Ssshhh Monster." Three is a good number, but I've also seen things heightened for a stretch of eight or nine beats. The trick is that in improv if not in jokes about gay sex, the relative scale of each beat is roughly: Snickers Bitesize nugget, Snickers king size candy bar, asteroid-sized Snickers bar with Bruce Willis on top of it, frantically trying to blow it up as it very nearly plows into the earth. If you can outdo that, then you can go on to the fourth beat.

307. CalGal - July 30, 1999 - 3:03 PM PT
The Turkey Episode:

Impossible to describe adequately, and it's not fair to ruin the punch line for those who might stumble across it, so spoiler alert. At the same time, if you don't get the whole story the punchline isn't all that funny.

WKRP in Cincinnati is a wonderful TV show in the late 70s, early 80s. Mr. Carlson (Gordon Jump) was the wellmeaning, kind, and inept station owner, usually kept firmly in check by the station manager, Andy Travis (Gary Sandy). But one Thanksgiving, he decided that HE was going to do the promotional work and take control of this station!

The whole episode shows him busily making plans, but the only person who is allowed to go to the promotion is Les Nessman, their pompous, self-important, and utterly incompetent news guy. You don't have any idea what is involved.

Comes the day of the promotion. Les Nessman is there, reporting. Picture a self-important idiot aping Edward R. Murrow. I don't believe the scene shows anything other than his face. The following is not an exact quote; I wish it was. But I think it captures the tone:

cont'd.

308. CalGal - July 30, 1999 - 3:04 PM PT
"The people are all milling about, waiting for the big event. And far off in the distance, we can hear a noise. Yes--it's a helicopter! It's coming closer--it's hovering over the area. The door..is opening! I can barely make our station owner, Mr. Carlson, who is fearlessly standing at the door, looking out over the parking lot. He's turning back into the helicopter; it looks as if he is picking something up. Yes, he is! I can see him, he has a large bundle in his hands. The bundle seems to be moving a bit--he's thrown it out of the helicopter! It's......a turkey! He's throwing out turkeys! Yes, there's another one, and another! And the turkeys are.....falling. Falling. Falling...(goes into hysteria mode, think the radio guy who did the play by play of the Hindenburg) there are turkeys falling everywhere! My God, they're plummeting to the ground like sacks of wet cement! Oh, no, one just hit a windshield and shattered it and Oh, God, this is the most awful....."

cont'd.

309. CalGal - July 30, 1999 - 3:05 PM PT
I truly don't remember how that scene ends, since I'm laughing too hard by that point.

At some point, it cuts to the WKRP office, with the entire staff looking stunned. I forget the specifics, but I'm sure there was a funny line or two about the ASPCA.

Mr. Carlson walks in. Staff just looks at him, tentative, unsure as to how to help. Unsure if he even realizes that anything is wrong. He announces, "It was all a mistake. The whole thing. I don't want to talk about it."

Les walks in, shellshocked and feathered. The staff rushes over. "No, no. It's too horrible. I can't talk about it." Disappears into his office.

Staff looks at each other in bemusement. What could Mr. Carlson have been thinking?

Mr. Carlson walks out of his office and pauses. Clearly, an announcement is eminent. The staff looks at him expectantly.

And Mr. Carlson says, with intense fervor and passion, "As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly."

310. vonKreedon - July 30, 1999 - 3:10 PM PT
My father and his father used to tell a story about a Thanksgiving day promo in Yankton,SD that involved turkeys falling from a helicopter! Apparently the real thing was also quite funny, well, not for the turkeys who frantically flapped but fell none the less.

311. FreetoChoose - July 30, 1999 - 3:12 PM PT
CG

Good summary.

Yes, that was a famous episode.

The Mary Tyler Moore toupee incident is also considered one of the classic funny scenes in TV.

But my all-time favorite is Taxi, when Jim is talking his test for his driver's license. I cannot do it justice, so I hope some of you remember it.

312. katewrath - July 30, 1999 - 3:12 PM PT
Good God what a lot of time I've wasted in this thread today:

In a little while, I have to log off and go on a road trip, and I'm absolutely not trying to have any kind proprietary lock on this theory in my absence, but I am seeing details of it that I didn't a minute ago. (And CG, I'm sorry if this makes your life difficult; while you're writing you're response, I'm off tweaking everything to kingdom come.)

A rock solid joke leans on a huge expectation. We're not going to see Jeff Danials take a dump. (Yes we are). Nobody would ever put talking doody on a tv show. (Yes they would). Homer couldn't possibly be stupid in a way we can't expect, not after all these years. (Think again.) I know how that soup joke goes. (No you don't.)

If the expectation isn't big and/or clearly defined enough, then we don't register surprise, we only get bewilderment or "hmmm, that's certainly eccentric/screw ball/mad cap." And it's not the moment of inversion--the third beat, if you like--as it is the precision of the inversion. Humor at its best (as always, this is just my subjective take on the topic) is so passionate that nobody except maybe the performers, and maybe not even them if they have a good enough ear, is paying attention to the first beat, second beat, third beat, you're just swept away in the heat of the moment.

313. CalGal - July 30, 1999 - 3:12 PM PT
"Clearly, an announcement is eminent."

Good lord. "Imminent".

314. CalGal - July 30, 1999 - 3:17 PM PT
FTC,

Thanks, but it wasn't THAT good a summary, dammit. It just occurred to me that I didn't mention that the "station" was a radio station.

Kate,

Hopefully you'll be back soon and we can discuss more. My biggest pushback would be that there is only one way a joke can work, only one perfect method of inversion. I see humor as more multi-layered and flexible. Probably because I don't write it for a living.

315. CalGal - July 30, 1999 - 3:18 PM PT
Sigh.

Add after "pushback would be" and before "that" the following: "challenging your assertion"

316. katewrath - July 30, 1999 - 3:34 PM PT
CG: I'll be back soon enough. I do have this disquieting feeling that I've been trying to ignore for several hours, but I think I'm just gonna have to say it. I get the impression that what I see in a joke is infinitely simpler than what a lot of other people see. I know the other stuff is there, and I enjoy it too, I know that it adds a great deal to the joke (after all, how is the pattern even established if the details don't help you fill in the blanks--what kind of guy is Les Nessman, etc.), but that all moments of great hilarity are driven by this engine of pattern and inversion. I don't think it's the case that this is a limitation. After all, gravity is one rule (smaller bodies are attracted to larger bodies) that is executed in millions of different ways ever day.

And then too, I construct my work one or two notes at a time, but anyone watching me on stage or seeing my work would be hit with at least four or five different things at once, because I have someone on stage with me or because I've added and added to what I've written, so from the side of "how is comedy made?" (assuming for now I am a little funny), my theory is a lot easier to prove than "how is comedy perceived?"

317. labwabbit - July 31, 1999 - 10:19 AM PT
What if one didn't think the 'turkey episode' was funny? Whatif, based on a perception that humans, the animal that has the ability to reason, can do such stupid, arrogant, self-promoting things? What if one found no humor in the fact that there is too much of that level of reasoning that makes it dangerous for the rest who take the responsibility more seriously.

Now...if that had been a part in that episode, would the actor be considered a 'straight-man'?

Most, perhaps, think that the human error is funny...hence the punch line here is generally received as funny. Those outside that "group" consensus form, however, might possibly be appalled.

So in point, humor doesn't just rely on the "physical - you had to be there",
it requires being on the same cloud at the same time.

Now take my wife......
PLEASE!

318. Aldavis - July 31, 1999 - 5:34 PM PT
Comedy is a unifying force. The analysis of comedy, or humor, is a disunifying force, or is used as such. I have seen people laugh their ass off at a movie and latter say how stupid and banal tyhe humor was. They will do that especially if they think it will make them seem brilliant.

T.V. humor? What in the world would I know about T.V. humor! H.L. (why bother with last names) or J.B, now that's humor that puts one in the cat bird seat.

319. labwabbit - July 31, 1999 - 5:41 PM PT
Al...

???

I fail to see the humor.

320. Aldavis - July 31, 1999 - 5:51 PM PT
labwabbit
I hope you saw no humor in my post. I just felt like makeing a comment on the discussion of humor. Jokes, I got a million of 'em. Not one that I made up, but I'm fairly good at retention of nonsense. I do feel that what is important is that people laugh. Some laugh at the Three Stooges, I howled at the y Who Shagged Me, and I never heard of whoever it was he is the take off on. It seemed to me that we all walked out of the theater more willing to accept each other than when we went in. Disasters have a similar effect, but the impetus is different, I believe.

321. Aldavis - July 31, 1999 - 5:54 PM PT
A good web site about comedy is www.comedy-college.com, by Greg Dean. Greg and my son met at Barnum and Bailey Clown College at Sarasota, Florida. For awhile they were a comedy team on the streets of San Francisco. Greg has made quite a study of comedy, and now teaches stand up comedy. His site is worth a look.

322. labwabbit - July 31, 1999 - 5:56 PM PT
AL..

Laughter is important...but I unlike yourself can't remember a joke if my life depended on it.

323. CalGal - July 31, 1999 - 5:57 PM PT
"The analysis of comedy, or humor, is a disunifying force, or is used as such. "

What a silly comment.

324. Aldavis - July 31, 1999 - 6:02 PM PT
CalGal
Why don't you give a statement more that a second or two of thought before you pronounce judgement on it? Of course, one with your brilliant mind needs only nanoseconds to analyze Finnigans Wake, I would imagine.

325. CalGal - July 31, 1999 - 6:03 PM PT
Lab,

"it requires being on the same cloud at the same time. "

Absolutely. Although I think Kate addressed part of that earlier as well. I still come back to my conviction that one's ability to see the pattern, or see the joke, is related in part to their ability to detach. The people you describe are unable to detach from the real-life aspects of the turkey episode. They hurt for the turkeys.

It's funny--we have the term "in-joke", which refers to something that simply isn't funny unless you understand the reference. (the most famous TV in-joke being the last three minutes of the last episode of the second Newhart series.)

But all humor is, in a sense, an "in-joke"--the audience that shares the reference points is just significantly larger.

326. labwabbit - July 31, 1999 - 6:04 PM PT
AlD...

After CalGal's post...NOW I see the humor...the silliness anyway.

327. Aldavis - July 31, 1999 - 6:11 PM PT
I just erased a post because I realized how silly it was to converse with some people. Have a nice night, folks.

328. CalGal - July 31, 1999 - 6:13 PM PT
Kate,

"I get the impression that what I see in a joke is infinitely simpler than what a lot of other people see."

Or we have different definitions of "joke"? (ha)

I knew you wrote comedy, but I didn't realize you did standup? Fascinating.

I am trying to think how to express this properly--I see humor in so many things, and I am not sure that there is always a pattern inversion. I also see humor as infinitely flexible in all but a few key areas.

Also, don't you think the "other stuff" of humor is what strengthens or weakens the laugh?

329. labwabbit - July 31, 1999 - 6:22 PM PT
CalGal

True.
Here's a scenario that might do something to disprove our (generally agreed) theories:

A man, who as a lad, let all the air out of the neighbor's tires while he and his friends mischievously laughed, hidden in the bushes, as the victim bellowed his disgust and anguish.

Now that same man, wife pregnant, rushes out the door, wife-in-labor and suitcase in tow, only to find his tires flat while the present generation of scofflaws laughed in the bushes.

Why is a very common group of events, from a very familiarly humorous event, not humorous to this man? Why is he unable to "detach himself" to achieve the humor he so readily found before.

However simple this example is...it does present an 'outside the model' view, of common recognition to the same event, as funny or not funny.

Perhaps, that even when some laughed at this common "funny", would the definition of humor....(the definition we ascribed to it), still hold true?

330. labwabbit - July 31, 1999 - 6:31 PM PT
AlD 327

Don't go away mad...we wuz jus' funnin' ya!

331. CalGal - July 31, 1999 - 6:35 PM PT
Kate,

"If the expectation isn't big and/or clearly defined enough, then we don't register surprise, we only get bewilderment or 'hmmm, that's certainly eccentric/screw ball/mad cap.' "

I have been thinking about this for nearly a day now, and when you come back I want to ensure we're talking about the same thing.

I'm finding this discussion fascinating, and I don't want to bog it down by stewing over terms.

I think it comes down to the difference you describe: "how is comedy made" vs. "how is comedy perceived". I perceive humor in many things, and while I can debate passionately the perfection of pattern inversion for specific types of humor (although until now I would never have described it as such), I don't see it as required for all types of humor.

But were I to point to all the movies or books that I found funny, and talked to the artists responsible for them, they might agree with you down to the nth detail.

332. CalGal - July 31, 1999 - 6:42 PM PT
Labwabbit,

Well, sure. But I can point you to a ton of movies where something like that happened and you probably howled. If not you, a lot of people did.

People who didn't are probably those that, as I said, weren't able to detach from the reality.

Silly example, just the first one that came to mind: "What's Up, Doc"--at one point in the movie, as they are escaping from the bad guys, they hijack a VW bug from the front of a church, just as the bride and groom is coming out to drive away to their honeymoon.

"Oh no!" says Ryan O'Neal, frantically. "This is a bad thing we're doing." and he apologizes sincerely to the bride and groom before he and Barbra steal the car.

In real life, were I that bride, that groom, or the family, I imagine I'd be pretty pissed off. Back in 1972, the audience laughed delightedly. The car theft was pretty normal for a screwball comedy. But the apology just worked, for whatever reason.

333. labwabbit - July 31, 1999 - 6:56 PM PT
Cal

You know what's really funny?

Why are two intelligent, attractive, witty people such as ourselves, on the fray comedy hour, on a summer saturday night, trying to define what is funny, instead of performing actual observances of true hilarity right outside our doors?

Ok...maybe that's not too funny...but the rest holds true eh?

Have a good night all..

334. LadyChaos - July 31, 1999 - 7:35 PM PT
This thread is BORING. Doesn't anybody have a good joke to tell?

335. ethiopianeunuch - July 31, 1999 - 11:41 PM PT
The devil and Jesus are having a contest to see who can write the best computer program. They are both working feverishly and almost done when God sends a bolt of lightening down and cuts out the power.When the power comes back on the devil tries to reload and has lost everything. Jesus hits one key and whoosh a perfect program comes on. The devil shakes his fist at God and whines "you always liked him best, thats the only reason he has his program"

"NO" says God

JESUS SAVES

336. LadyChaos - Aug. 1, 1999 - 11:00 AM PT
Allow me to place some emphasis: Doesn't anybody have a *good* joke to tell? As in *funny enough to make me laugh*?

337. arkymalarky - Aug. 1, 1999 - 11:42 AM PT
Here's another joke that my students laugh at. We'll see if it works on you, LadyC, since I don't recall seeing it posted in here.

A zoology major was taking a very difficult ornithology class, and had struggled through all semester. He was sweating bullets over the final exam when he walked in the door of the classroom and saw, lined up on every shelf around the room, birds' legs. Just the legs. It seemed like hundreds of them. The students settled into their seats and the professor said, "For your final exam you must identify every bird we've studied by the legs you see displayed. This was more than the student could bear and he went from fearful to angry. He jumped out of his seat and yelled, "What?! We've identified birds by their beaks, their feathers, their eggs, and now for the final exam you expect us to know every bird by the legs alone? I'm going to the dean about this."
"Wait a minute!" the professor cried. "I'm going to report this myself. Who are you?"

The student lifted his pants legs and said, "You tell me."

338. LadyChaos - Aug. 1, 1999 - 11:56 AM PT
(Chuckle)

339. judithathome - Aug. 1, 1999 - 12:07 PM PT
ethiopianeunuch:

I guess the devil worked for Microsoft.

340. arkymalarky - Aug. 1, 1999 - 1:39 PM PT
Well, phooey. I think if you could see me tell it, complete with the effects and all, it would have gotten a chortle, and quite possibly even a guffaw or two. Certainly more than a mere chuckle. Though my students might be sort of like the king's subjects who know that it's in their best interest to laugh heartily when he tells a joke.

341. Damicles - Aug. 1, 1999 - 7:01 PM PT
A Bear and a Rabbit are walking in the woods after lunch. The Bear stops to "unload" himself. At tha moment the Bear asks the Rabbit if, "shit sticks to his fur?" The said, proudly, no.

The Bear wiped his ass with the Rabbit. );))

342. Damicles - Aug. 1, 1999 - 7:03 PM PT
What's better than roses on you table?

Tulips on your organ.

343. katewrath - Aug. 2, 1999 - 9:43 AM PT
CG: I started out writing comedy, and then branched out into improv in order to improve my comedy writing skills, and now am branching further out into the fields of monologues (stand-up's less funny sibling) and writing for TV. My experience makes the question of "what is funny?" particularly pressing, and in trying to answer it, I'm drawing entirely on my own background. For what it's worth, though, I'm trying not to place more value on my perception of the issue than anyone else's. I might be doing it anyway, but that's not my intention.

(And while I'm on the subject, I respect that nothing I say on this subject will ever make something unfunny if you find it funny, or vice versa, nor will it change your perception of why you find it funny or not.)

I think of a joke as the basic unit of humor, like the meter or the gram. It can function hundreds of different ways, but in my experience, it delivers its most potent dose when it's spawned by the logic I described above. In some cases, two people unironically wearing "I'm with Stupid--->" T-shirts can constitute a joke, even though their intent ("It'd be funny for both of us to wear t-shirts that say X") has only a little to do with my reaction ("It's hilarious that they thought wearing those t-shirts would be funny.") In other cases, it's all about being cradled in the hands of a skilled professional, as with Mike Myers' running nudity gags in the credits of AP2 or the writing on "Futurama." (Sample dialogue: Fry to Bender: "You made me ashamed to be your friend... like that time my friend Jerry said he wasn't on drugs and then he sold me my mom's vcr. (beat, then as if utterly unrelated to this:) And later I found out he was on drugs!")

344. katewrath - Aug. 2, 1999 - 10:12 AM PT
(Aside the first: There's something inherently funny in AlDavis humorlessly abandoning this thread. I'm sure there's a backstory there, but whoo, boy, talk aboutcha irony.)

(Aside the second: I hate the Fray. I think she's out to get me.)

So here are the complicated bits: What is there that is funny but is not a joke? and How important is it that both of us see the greatness of my theory?

I can't answer the first question, but the answer the second question, obviously, is that it's not important at all. It's something I've hammered out in the process of trying to understand how comedy works so that I could judge whether I was doing it properly. (Another part of my theory, not mentioned earlier, is that I almost never make myself laugh* and so needed an objective guage.) To be honest, the sweeter part of the deal is to not care whether a thing is funny or not, but to just laugh and enjoy the world around you.

The nagging doubt is that we could both see how my theory works well-nigh-perfectly if I could just think of the right way to express or describe it. If you have any suggestions on this front, by all means, let me have 'em.

* There are three exceptions to this: 1) When I've written something funny and read it so much later that I don't realize it's mine (you wouldn't believe how often this happens.) 2) When walking down the street or falling asleep, my mind stumbles upon an earlier moment and the behavior of that moment strikes me as unexpectedly funny and 3) Once in a great while (though more often since I started doing improv ), some great Comedy Devil inside of me lurches to the surface and I say or do something so fantastically appropropirate yet unpredictable that I more or less howl with self-induced laughter.

345. Wombat - Aug. 2, 1999 - 10:12 AM PT
Several Cambridge professors had just emerged from a refreshing nude swim in the river Cam, when a punt with several students in it came into view. To their consternation, the professors noticed that the students in the punt were students that they knew. All the professors but one covered their genitalia with their hands. The remaining professor used his hands to cover his face.

After the punt went by, the professor was asked by his colleagues why he had covered his face. His response: "I don't know how your students recognize you...but mine know my face."

346. JJBiener - Aug. 2, 1999 - 11:14 AM PT
Jesus and Moses are out playing a round of golf. Moses tees off first and hits a decent shot down the fairway. Jesus is up next and hits an absolute stinker. It hooks sharply and heads right into the trees. A few seconds later a squirrel emerges from the trees carrying the ball in his teeth. The squirrel runs all over the fairway until a hawk swoops down and grabs him. The hawk carries the squirrel higher and higher. Suddenly a bolt of lightning comes from a cloudless sky and stikes the hawk. The hawk drops the squirrel. The squirrel drops the ball. The ball lands on the green and rolls into the hole.

Moses shakes his head and, "Look, are you going to screw around or are you going play golf."

347. labwabbit - Aug. 2, 1999 - 5:46 PM PT
IF ONLY LIFE COULD BE LIKE A COMPUTER!

If you messed up your life, you could press "Alt, Ctrl, Delete" and start again.
To get your daily exercise, just click on "run"!
If you needed a break from life, click on "suspend".
Hit "any key" to continue life when ready.
To get even with the neighbors, turn up the sound blaster.
To "add/remove" someone in your life, click settings and control panel.
To improve your appearance, just adjust the display settings.
If life gets too noisy, turn off the speakers.
When you lose your car keys, click on "find".
"Help" with the chores is just a click away.
You wouldn't need auto insurance. You'd use your diskette to from a crash.
We could click on "send" and the kids would go to bed immediately.
To feel like a new person, click on "refresh".
Click on "close" to shut up the kids and spouse.
To undo a mistake, click on "back".
Is your wardrobe getting old? Click "update".
If you don't like cleaning the litter box, click on "delete".

author unknown

348. Aldavis - Aug. 3, 1999 - 1:16 PM PT
In this day and age it's important to practice safe sex, but condoms are such a bother. It's too bad they aren't like air bags-just there on impact.

349. judithathome - Aug. 3, 1999 - 2:19 PM PT
But Al...think of how often they'd have to be repacked!

350. ethiopianeunuch - Aug. 3, 1999 - 9:17 PM PT
maybe, maybe not

351. jonesatlaw - Aug. 4, 1999 - 12:25 PM PT
A middle aged guy from the suburbs is standing at a bus stop when he's approached by a prostitute. The prostitute offers rather pedestrian fare, which the guy declines. The prostitute then sweetens the offer- "For $100, I'll do anything you can describe in 3 words or less." The guy is interested- really? ANYTHING?
Oh yes says the hooker-The guy hands over the hundred, and the prostitute asks "what'll it be?"
He replies:

Paint my house!

352. judithathome - Aug. 4, 1999 - 12:30 PM PT
jones:

Excellent!

353. stamper - Aug. 4, 1999 - 2:20 PM PT
jonesatlaw
that's a good one, i'd say. she ain't as funny, just kind a cute. i was painting mr gutru's porch with a nice blue paint when i noticed a big old fly in the paint. darn, i said, there's a fly in the paint.

well, stamper, dolly says, is it a blue fly?

354. Jenerator - Aug. 4, 1999 - 2:33 PM PT
stamper,

Where have you been lately??

355. stamper - Aug. 4, 1999 - 2:46 PM PT
Jenerator
well thank you for asking. me and dolly came up to seattle on the Foss Tug which rick put up for sale with hannon yachts of seattle. but i think you know that 'cause the Tug and you have the same name and while you are much younger i think you are both stuning looking. 'course a tug is supposed to be on the heavy side. but we did not care much for seattle so we lit out across the state and found this cute little town called levenworth, not the prison, mind you. it's pretty hot here which is a big change from tillamook and we are soaking up the sun and having a ball going all over in our ford van. i got it rigged so we can cook and sleep right in it so gas and food it about all it takes. if you like apple trees this is paradise.

356. Jenerator - Aug. 4, 1999 - 3:14 PM PT
stamper,

You have a good memory! Are you and Dolly taking a vaction of sorts? I'm glad you're having a nice time. Be sure and tell Rick hello and to thank him for keeping us updated on you.

357. stamper - Aug. 4, 1999 - 4:19 PM PT
Jenerator
well, a vacation of sorts. dolly waits in a restaurant in town and i help this elderly gentleman fix up his place. he is 80 something i feel sure. his wife is not much younger and they play golf several times a week. when we get a few days off we wander all over the place. i should post on travel thread about the beautiful places we have seen. have you seen grand coolee dam? if you ain't you got to go there. old gutru told me the following story.

he went to visit this old friend and asked him what he had been up to. well, the friend said, i been going over to the college taking a memory course.

well, he asked, what do they teach you?
they teach us these devices to help our memory.
now that sounds like something i could use. what do they call the course?
now let me think. what's that flower with the long stem with lots of thorns?
do you mean a rose?
yeah! and his friend turned to his wife

hey rose, what's the name of that memory course?

358. LAPORTE - Aug. 5, 1999 - 9:28 AM PT
This is old - so if you have heard it before excuse me ----------
Tired of constantly being broke, and stuck in an unhappy marriage, a young husband decided to solve both problems by taking out a large insurance policy on his wife (with himself as the beneficiary), and arranging to have her killed. A "friend of a friend" put him in touch with a nefarious underworld figure, who went by the name of "Artie." Artie explained to the husband that his going price for snuffing out a spouse was $5,000. The husband said he was willing to pay that amount, but that he wouldn't have any cash on hand until he could collect
his wife's insurance money. Artie insisted on being paid SOMETHING up front. The man opened up his wallet, displaying the single dollar bill that rested inside.
Artie sighed, rolled his eyes, and reluctantly agreed to accept the dollar as down payment for the dirty deed. A few days later, Artie followed the man's wife to the local Safeway grocery store. There, he surprised her in the produce department, and proceeded to strangle her with his gloved hands. As the poor unsuspecting woman drew her last breath, and slumped to the floor, the manager of the produce department stumbled unexpectedly onto the scene. Unwilling to leave any witnesses behind, Artie had no choice but to strangle the produce manager as well. Unknown to Artie, the entire proceedings were captured by hidden cameras and observed by the store's security guard, who immediately called the police. Artie was caught and arrested before he could leave the store. Under intense questioning at the police station, Artie revealed the sordid plan, including his financial arrangements with the hapless husband. And that is why, the next day in the newspaper, the headline declared, "ARTIE CHOKES TWO FOR A DOLLAR AT SAFEWAY."

359. PincherMartin - Aug. 7, 1999 - 7:44 PM PT
I was cleaning my place today and I came across this wonderful poster with quotes that I hadn't seen in some time. Most of them are more clever than funny, but you still might get a kick out of them:

"Men stumble over the truth from time to time, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing happened."

-- Winston Churchill

360. PincherMartin - Aug. 7, 1999 - 7:45 PM PT
"Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city."

-- George Burns

361. PincherMartin - Aug. 7, 1999 - 7:47 PM PT
"From birth to 18, a girl needs good parents, from 18 to 35 she needs good looks, from 35 to 55 she needs a good personality, and from 55 on she needs cash."

-- Sophie Tucker [whoever she is]

362. PincherMartin - Aug. 7, 1999 - 7:49 PM PT
"It's no good running a pig farm badly for thirty years while saying, 'Really I was meant to be a ballet dancer.' By that time, pigs will be your style."

-- Quentin Crisp [whoever he is]

363. PincherMartin - Aug. 7, 1999 - 7:50 PM PT
"I take my children everywhere, but they always find their way back home."

-- Robert Orben

364. PincherMartin - Aug. 7, 1999 - 7:51 PM PT
[This is my favorite]

"I phoned my dad to tell him I had stopped smoking. He called me a quitter."

-- Steven Pearl

365. CalGal - Aug. 7, 1999 - 7:53 PM PT
Sophie Tucker? The Red Hot Momma? Great singer, vaudevillian, appeared in a few movies.

Her other famous quote is also about money: "I've been rich and I've been poor. Rich is better."

366. PincherMartin - Aug. 7, 1999 - 7:59 PM PT
Should I know what "Red Hot Momma" means?

367. CalGal - Aug. 7, 1999 - 8:16 PM PT
Well, I dunno:

Go here and click on the "What'll You Do" link at the bottom for a sample of her voice. There might be better--I just did a quick search.

Ditto here--click on Voice and Red-Hot Mama for more about her.

As I said, she was a singer and a great vaudeville star. Outspoken and raunchy, very popular. Known as "The Last of the Red Hot Mommas", but I'm not sure where that phrase came from.

368. jonesatlaw - Aug. 8, 1999 - 9:07 AM PT
Sophie Tucker jokes became a staple of Bette Middler's act. Very raunchy, and very funny.

369. pellenilsson - Aug. 8, 1999 - 9:32 AM PT
Here is a quote which I think apply to certain Fraygrants (who shall remain nameless)

"In defeat unbeatable, in victory unbearable."

(Churchill on Montgomery)

Here are a few others that may be applicable. They form a quizz too. They are all from the wife of a British Prime Minister. Who?

"He could not see a belt without hitting below it."

"His modesty amounts to deformity."

"He has a brilliant mind until he makes it up."

"Very clever, but his brains go to his head."

370. pellenilsson - Aug. 8, 1999 - 9:33 AM PT
think apply = think applies

371. pellenilsson - Aug. 9, 1999 - 12:47 PM PT
Did I kill the thread with that quizz?

Answer: Lady Asquith.

372. hashke - Aug. 9, 1999 - 1:06 PM PT
pelle:

Those are all masculine. How about some 'she', or even 'they'? ;-)

373. pellenilsson - Aug. 9, 1999 - 1:26 PM PT
Impossible due to unavailability of source. I know I put it back in the bookshelf and I know where it should be - between The Panama Hat Trail and The Amateur Magicians Handbook, but it isn't. Must search, but not tonight.

374. judithathome - Aug. 9, 1999 - 2:53 PM PT
Quentin Crisp is the Quintessential Homosexual Man of England. He's an actor and entertainer and very proud to be "queer" (his word).

He was played by John Hurt in a film about his life called...hmmmm, cellar, help me out here. Wait! It was called The Naked Civil Servant.

375. allaneq - Aug. 9, 1999 - 5:10 PM PT
Existing Fraygrants;

We would like to invite you to try the new Fray, currently available in beta here. You should notice some significant changes, and we encourage you to read the FAQ available in the Fray Beta thread, if you have any questions. Over the long-term, Slate is working to provide a way let our readers provide feedback to the editors, and to build more of a sense of community among our readers. We hope that the newly redesigned Fray is a step in that direction.

You'll notice that the new Fray is structured around Slate itself, with a thread per department. After the beta is complete, you will be able to easily post feedback to an article, using a simple link at the bottom of each page. As the reader comment is added to each department's thread, we will select the best posts from each thread in the Fray and posting links to them at the bottom of the article itself, for other Slate readers to peruse and comment on. We have also made a Tech Support thread available here, and during the beta test, you can post your comments, complaints, or bug reports in our beta test thread, available here. Take a look around, test the waters, and let us know what you think.

Thanks,
Wes Miller
Program Manager
Slate Magazine

376. theDiva - Aug. 10, 1999 - 1:44 PM PT
definitely not funny

377. stamper - Aug. 10, 1999 - 4:29 PM PT
who said "i think there's an ethiopian in the fuel supply"?

378. arkymalarky - Aug. 11, 1999 - 7:58 PM PT
Well, I'm kind of fond of the thread I created filling in for Irv.

I guess Slate got the last laugh.

379. stamper - Aug. 11, 1999 - 9:01 PM PT
arkymalarky
hey arcky if you see okie,
tell 'em tex has got a job for him,
out in california, picking up prunes,
all you need is a pick.

growing up in excalon with all the okies and arkies that was a song we loved to sing. i will miss you my dear but you keep on with those kids given them the education they deserve.