The female snake was lying about her age, and the male snake knew it so he made a joke about it. That’s it.
Sometimes, in their desperation to get paid, a cartoonist will submit a half-arsed unfunny bit of nonsense he made up at 3am.
No, he mentioned room numbers in connection with the snake cartoon, not with the pilot joke:
Talking snakes are funny! Tee-hee!!
This is what I hate about unfunny jokes. I never know if I’m just not getting it or if it’s just not funny.
I think this is the best explanation of all.
Actually, room 1987 is across the hall from room 1988, not *next to * it. So, now it’s even less funny.
You’re welcome.
In this case, I think you can safely go with “just not funny”.
I perused the Cartoons section in Cleveland’s Plain Dealer newspaper the last time I was in the US. There were several pages of funnies and not one of them was funny, in the slightest.
Where is the joke though?
The joke is that he says (basically) the only way she could have been born in 1988 is if it was a room and not a year. The artist should have made the sarcasm of the male snake more obvious because it didn’t translate well at all.
I’m not saying it’s humourous, but thats the joke.
So it implausible to have a twenty year old snake but it is fine to have one born in a hospital room? A talking snake born in a hospital room?
Maybe he drew it sarcastically.
So the male snake knows she is lying. Why- I do not know. The male snake is much older anyway.
Other point - can it be a joke if it is not humourous?
Is it possible that the last line is supposed to be the male snake trying to recover, and possibly still chat up the female snake? Kind of “did you think I meant the YEAR 1975? Oh ha ha…I meant ROOM 1975. We can still date”
How do you tell in a cartoon if a snake is male or female? Did one have long eyelashes, or a necktie?
I cannot believe how many minutes and brain cells I’ve expended thinking about this…
Maybe the funny part is the walking snake? That’s gotta be funnier than a talking snake, right?
(I don’t get it either)
I was hoping that it had something to do with the Chinese zodiac, but the numbers don’t make sense. And it still wouldn’t be funny.
Wrong. On each floor, rooms ending in zero oppose rooms ending in 1. 1987 faces 1986, and 1988 is opposite 1989. They are on opposite sides of the hall, but not “across from” each other.
And now, it’s even less funny. Which didn’t seem possible at the beginning.
Whenever snakes are telling lame jokes, it’s worth finding out where Johnny Hart was when they was drawn.
“Across from” still applies. Not “directly across from” perhaps, but I’d say that within a few doors in either direction would still be considered “across the hall” in most people’s usage.
The joke is that females routinely lie about thier age, always wanting to seem younger. It’s the male snake making a quip, as in, “Yeah, right - the only way she was born in 1988 is if she means the room number, not the year” There isn’t actually any room 1988 or 1987 - thats just part of the quip.
Come on, people! Are AveDementia and I really the only ones who ‘get it’*?
*not that it is particularly funny