The male snake says to the female snake “I was born in 1975.” The female snake replies with “I was born in 1988.” and walks off. The male snake says ’ That’s right next to room 1987."
I do not get it. I must admit that after reading hundreds of those snake cartoons- I have probably never laughed. But I do not see this as even an attempt at humour.
I don’t get it either.
The only thing I can think of is that we thought they meant years, but they meant room numbers? Like they were laboratory snakes or something?
Did the female snake really walk off?
Can you give us a link so we can see it, too? It might help, although I provide no guarantees on that.
Love to provide a link but I cannot find one. It was in one of the Melbourne newspapers a few days ago.
When you say a “newspaper cartoon” do you mean a political cartoon or a funny pages cartoon?
If it’s a political cartoon, there may be some significance to the years 1975, 1987, and 1988 in terms of laws or changes in conditions for men and women in Australian society.
It’s a dumb joke, but you’ve got the gist of it. Male snake is talking room numbers, female snake is talking years.
*Girl at bar: “When was the last time you had sex?”
Pilot: “1957.”
Girl: “Wow. That’s a long time to go without sex!”
Pilot: “Oh, I don’t know. It’s only 2245 now.”*
So-called funny pages cartoon.
That joke I get. The snake joke I do not.
Most snakes lay eggs. If—and I don’t know that this is accurate—they lay thousands of them, then they might think of numbering the eggs like houses. Think of bee larvae in a honeycomb, for instance…on their scale, numbering the cells would allow them to tell what part of the hive they were born in, like we’d say “I was born on Elm Street” or “I was born in Texas.” Texas (1988)? That’s right next to Oklahoma (1987)!
If that’s the joke, it isn’t terribly funny.
The funny thing is, I kind of get the snake joke (without actually thinking it’s funny) but I didn’t get the dialogue you quoted.
What does the male character think the female character means by “a long time?” Why does he respond by reference to a room number when the female explicilty mentioned time intervals? No comprendo.
-FrL-
Not room numbers in that one, but military time. 1957 isn’t a year, it’s 19:57 as in 7:57.
Please if you got the joke, please explain it ( even if it is not funny).
I considered that but Silenus specifically indicated in his post that he was going to illustrate with a joke about room numbers.
Maybe a mistype, though.
-FrL-
I think the gist of it has been made clear on this thread–one snake is talking about years, the other is talking about room numbers. I have no idea why it should be plausible that one participant in the conversation should think it natural to talk about room numbers in the context of being born, though. I think not understanding that is what leads to the feeling of “not getting the joke.”
Also, why the second snake should think it relevant or interesting that room 1988 is next to room 1987, is a mystery to me.
So basically, I think I get the joke, it’s just that I don’t know what the presuppositions are behind the conversation between the snakes that is supposed to make the joke funny.
-FrL-
I think he meant he was illustrating a joke where the numbers aren’t dates even though they sound like it.
I thought I did that in post #2…
Yeah, the joke goes like this:
Two snakes chatting each other up. The male snake says he was born in [room] 1975, but the female snake imagines he means in the year 1975. She, born in 1988, tells him that, and leaves, since he’s far too old for her (in her mind, she’s a 20-year old talking to a 33-year old). The last comment is simply to make the misunderstanding clear.
For more misunderstood comics, go to Comics I Don’t Understand . Quite a fun site, updated daily.
Still, even 20 is kind of old for a snake, isn’t it? (Unless this comic was from 19 years ago or so.)
There is still no funny. I can’t imagine a humorous scenario where a snake would tell the other one what room it was born in. Are they in a snake-y hospital?
The premise is bad, so no joke is possible, right?