February 8, 2016
"The 100 Jokes That Shaped Modern Comedy."
A pretty good effort from New York Magazine. It's a little obvious that they went through chronologically and zeroed in on important comedians, then selected a best or representative joke — shouldn't Steve Martin be "Let's get small" rather than "Excuuuse Me"? etc. etc. — but I enjoyed this.
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Wonderful memories. Still funny after all these years... oh, yeah... It was't easy to stay funny, being the son of poor black sharecroppers, but it wasn't my fault... It was THE MAN... THE MAN, who told my daddy to plant his shares. To put 'em in the ground where they'd germinate and multiply. But they just got dirty.
THE MAN... THE MAN had it in for me. THE MAN was always trying to put STUFF on me, but I wanted to put THE STUFF on him... So I did. Many times... oh yeah. Then he's put IT back on me. Then I'd put IT on him... Till they arrested us both. And put us in the slams... me and THE MAN. (Blues harmonica riff here) Yeah. That's where I learned... to get small.
Did the Aristocrats make the cut??
The punch line of my favorite joke:
The pollack takes the fork and (stabbing himself all over his body) says "screw your canoes!"
"the list doesn't include comedy that we ultimately felt was bad, harmful, or retrograde."
Oh, God forbid.
A very PC list.
And really, enough with the Tig worship.
There's a lot of great stuff on that list. A lot.
But, I would trim it down. Keep the old stuff, keep Carlin, Cosby, Foxx, Pryor, Murphy, Williams, Seinfeld, Rock, Spinal Tap, even Joan Rivers.
But, for heaven's sake, no Sarah Silverman, Lena Dunham or Sex in the City. Those gals just ain't funny.
jameswhy wrote:Did the Aristocrats make the cut??
The very best rendition of "the Aristocrats" since the Big Bang (or at least the Cambrian explosion)
Bob Hope's introduction to the Oscars (1968?) was notable in two respects. First, it wasn't very funny, but it was essential respectful of the movie industry. Second, he said the show was only going to take 2 hours.
Jeff Foxworthy is described as the "Gulf of Tonkin incident for comedy".
But Margret Cho's ridiculous yellow face act is praised. Let a thousand Dat Phans flower!
And horrible Def Comedy Jam is lauded too. "White people are like this. But black people are like that".
Interesting conclusion after watching: comedians stopped being funny right around 9/11.
It's a leftist list.
Jokes aren't funny, comedians are funny.
Not Bad. A few clunkers. I guess they had to choose comedians with youtube clips.
But David Brenner was never funny. And same goes for Steve Allen and Lenny Bruce.
Do you know how to get white meat out of a fly?
Here's my zipper.
A blind man walks into a bar and yells to the bartender "Hey, do you want to hear a blonde joke?"
The bar gets quiet. The guy sitting next to him whispers, "Before you tell that joke, you should know that the bartender is blonde, the bouncer is blonde, the woman sitting next to me is a blonde weightlifter, the woman on the other side is a blonde karate fighter, and I'm blonde 6'4" and 250 pounds. Do you still want to tell that blonde joke?"
The blind guy says, "No, not if I'm going to have to explain it five times."
- Imus this morning
So, this little boy is lost in a tour of the Vatican. ST. Paul's time. He's crying and it happens the Pope finds him.
He say's, little boy, are you lost? The whimpering boy nods his head. The Pope says, come with me and we will find your parents.
The little boy starts feeling better and asks the Pope if he wants to hear a joke. The Pope thinks it's just a little boy so says OK. The boy says, "well there was this Pollock" and the Pope stops him right there.
He says, "You know I'm from Poland, son?" and the boy says yes but he was going to go real slow.
Johnny Carson, don't remember when.
I saw this before. Pretty good but surprised no Firesign Theater or National Lampoon Radio Hour (althoguh did include Mike O'Donoghue.
A blind man walks into a bar and yells to the bartender "Hey, do you want to hear a blonde joke?"
Here's a variation I heard at Leeds University:
In a pub in comfortably middle class Surbiton the conversation turns to the UK's nationalities.
One guys says, "We English tolerate the Scots. We ignore the Irish. But we really, really despise the Welsh."
In reply a drunken fellow shouts, "Wales, what a dungheap! A nation of footballers and prostitutes!"
The bar goes silent. The hulking bartender walks up to the drunk, grabs him by collar, lifts him one-handed to his eye level, and hisses, "Me mother is Welsh."
"Really?" stammers the drunk, "What position does she play?"
I don't know where this came from.
This was from the day when wrestling was an honored sport. Three rounds, won on points or a pin. It was back in the day of black and white TV.
The champion was a giant German who would put his opponents in the pretzel hold. It was so painful they would pass out or tap out. He was undefeated.
There was a challenger coming up through the ranks who was undefeated. He was very small but very fast. He never pinned his opponents but beat them on points. The critics thought he had a chance to beat this giant.
The night of the match finally came on TV and Howard Cosell called the match. The crowd was crazy and sure enough the little guy was way ahead on points through the first two rounds. His coach got him in the corner and told him he had to stay away from the German on the last round, he had the match won.
He didn't listen, he got too close, the German grabbed him up in the pretzel hold and the whole crowd moaned. The coach threw in the towel, walked three steps and heard this giant roar from the crowd. He turned around and this little guy had the giant over his head and twirled him and threw him onto the mat and pinned him.
The crowd went wild. The coach couldn't believe it. The ref put the white, shaking hand of his wrestler into the air for the win.
When he got him into the locker room he asked him how he had did it. No one had ever gotten out of the pretzel hold. His wrestler said, "When I was wrapped up in that ball and the pain was so intense, I would have done anything to get out of it. Then I saw two balls hanging down in front of my face, so I bit them.
You know, it's amazing what a man can do when he bites his own balls.
It's amazing what a man can do when he bites his own balls.
Always Sunny's "the implication". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_49P1RtqU0
hhardin said... [hush][hide comment]
A blind man walks into a bar and yells to the bartender "Hey, do you want to hear a blonde joke?"
The bar gets quiet. The guy sitting next to him whispers, "Before you tell that joke, you should know that the bartender is blonde, the bouncer is blonde, the woman sitting next to me is a blonde weightlifter, the woman on the other side is a blonde karate fighter, and I'm blonde 6'4" and 250 pounds. Do you still want to tell that blonde joke?"
The blind guy says, "No, not if I'm going to have to explain it five times."
- Imus this morning
When I heard it in 1956, it was Irishmen, not blondes.
Speaking of early David Letterman (i.e. when he was funny as opposed to pernicious) my favorite was that painfully boring interview with the "glamorous" yet insufferably stupid Nastassja Kinski. Evidently while waiting in Letterman's greenroom she did some kind of drug cocktail. When she finally went on stage all she could do was fidget and mumble nonsense. Poor Letterman did his darnedest to keep the show from dissolving into chaos by asking simple questions, which the elegant simpleton couldn't understand let alone answer. Thankfully John Candy, the late and great, came to the rescue...
Here it is
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