I Must Be Joking

I hate that people don’t ‘tell jokes’ anymore.  I know I’ve written a lot about my Grandpa, who was the best storyteller and joketeller I ever knew.  When I used to watch him water the eyes of everyone in the room, I used to think, “That’s the guy I want to be!”  Unfortunately, times have changed considerably.

All our interpersonal humor seems to come via email or YouTube clips.  Like this one I got today, called, How Bacon Cheeseburgers are Made:

Thanks for the email, Dad.

As much as I enjoy them, I miss the days when we used to sit around at parties and tell our favorite jokes.  This is what passes for humor at parties now. 

“Hey, have you seen that app that turns your picture into a monkey?  Let’s bump phones…”

It’s either that or something from the “Jackass” or “Hey, watch this,” family.

The easiest jokes to tell are the short ones.  Remember back in the 80s and 90s when all those “What do you call people with no arms and no legs and blah blah blah…” jokes?

I was thinking of a couple of those this weekend, during the hurricane.  In fact, I meant to put it in my live blog on the storm…

Q: What do you call a girl with one leg shorter than the other? 

A: Eileen.

Q: And what do you call an Asian girl with one leg shorter than the other? 

A: Irene.

You know, like the hurricane?  Yeah, it’s not high-humor, but at least it’s topical.  I used to have a zillion of those.  Way back in the day, I used to collect jokes and enter them into a Word document.  (Actually, it started on a WordPerfect document until I re-did it.)  I called the whole thing, “Jokes to Offend Everyone.”  I kind of wish I would have kept it up; it would be pretty bodacious by now. 

But then again, who wants to see a bunch of jokes that were topical 15 years ago?

The best jokes are timeless.  The heck with the politics or cultural touchstones of the day… human nature remains constant.  This brings me to the reason I really wanted to do this post.

My dad sent me a video clip from an old Buddy Hackett stand-up comedy special.  Many people only know Buddy Hackett from doing ridiculous Disney movies and stuff, but he was a howlingly funny comedian, who just got up there and told jokes.

This one is one of my all-time favorites.  I’ve told it myself, from time to time, but it doesn’t seem nearly as funny.  Any joke comes off much funnier, just being told by Buddy Hackett.  Check this out… it’s only a couple minutes long.  But not when you’re at work!  While it’s certainly timeless, it’s mildly NSFW.

That’s funny right there.  And I bet you’ll never look at a baby elephant the same way again.

Now, just because I’ve kicked this idea around ever since Pittsburgh Podcamp 5, this is me, performing MY all-time favorite joke to tell. 

“And now, ladies and gentlemen, The Comedy Cave presents: the Bluzdude…”

Damn.  I should know better than to try to follow Buddy Hackett.