This joke is bad on a couple of levels, not the least of which it requires knowledge that many younger people might not have.
A zoo receives a gnu as a gft. Since the new gnu was not expected, they had to scramble to find a place to put it until they could get a proper habitat built for it. They found a storeroom that was empty save for a large pile of floor tiles. When they checked on the gnu in the morning, they found that the floor tiles had been rather professionally laid. They phoned the donor.
“We put the gnu in a storeroom, and it appears that the animal had lain the tiles during the night. Is there anything… ‘special’ about this gnu?”
(tip-ee-kuh-NOOH) A slogan from the presidential election of 1840. “Tippecanoe” was the Whig presidential candidate William Henry Harrison, a hero of the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811. John Tyler was the vice presidential candidate.
This is quite possibly my favorite stupid joke ever. It totally cracks me up every time – and has never gotten anything more than a raised eyebrow out of anyone I’ve told it to.
Cindy was taking a class in the playing and tuning of pianos. Cindy had a little brother who thought he’d “fix” the family’s piano so that it would be in shape for when Cindy and her classmates came over to tune it. He pried on it, and used grout on the cracks (but being rather young, managed to get some of the grout into the keys). His mother admonished him:
You’d better not grout! You’d better not pry! Cindy’s class is coming to tune!
Of course, in my haste I’d forgotten part of this very old joke. In addition to using grout and prying on the piano, Little Brother also took to pounding on it with a hammer.
You’d better not grout! You’d better not pry! You’d better not pound; I’m telling you why. Cindy’s class is coming to tune.
A frog hops into a bank and approaches Patty Black, the loan officer.
“Hello. My name is Kermit Jagger, and I’d like a $100,000 pond improvement loan.”
“Well,” says Miss Black, “Do you have any collateral?”
The frog produces a delicate figurine and says, “I have this.”
The loan officer says she has to talk it over with the bank manager. She takes the figurine into his office.
"There’s a frog outside,"she tells the manager. “His name is Kermit Jagger, and he wants a $100,000 loan. All he has for collateral is this… um… What is this, anyway?”
The bank manager says,
It’s a knickknack, Patty Black. Give the frog a loan. His old man’s a Rolling Stone!
groan!