Mine was “Purple Socks” I’ve heard the original was “purple gorilla.”
I got reaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaly good at drawing that joke out for a good 30 minutes. The entire concept (I learned) revolves around a kid being told to say “purple socks” he says it, gets beaten up and then every time he has to explain what happened he says the phrase with a “come on, you can trust us” and then something bad happens to him (getting kicked out of school, getting mugged, getting arrested by the cop he was soliciting help from). The punch line actually involved him calling the original person who told him, who feeling very sorry for what happened to him promised to reveal what it meant at the window by his apartment at 10AM the next morning. The child (now usually an adult from various incarcerations and hospital visits) sits at the bus stop across the street and at the wonderful sight of seeing the meaning of purple socks (which we as an audience are never told) runs with joy… into the middle of the street… and get’s hit by a bus. “Look both ways before crossing the street.”
Similarly constructed “pointless jokes” include Timmy the Clown and (if you can stomach it) The Aristocrats (and of course, the shorter ones you’re not meant to drag out like “Ice Cream has no bones” and “No soap, radio!”).
[sup]If anyone’s interested I could type up my shorter, i.e. only 5 minute version of the joke. it doesn’t work so well in text, but it may help illustrate the point better.[/sup]
Now that’s cleared up, could someone please tell me what it means when the kids say they’re on the lookout for “kemmel toads”? Are they some kind of psychadelic drug like “magic mushrooms?”