# Did anybody ever really laugh at these? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** comedian-jokes\ **Created:** [April 19, 2024, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anybody-ever-really-laugh-at-these/1000511 "2024-04-19T17:33:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Superdude](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/superdude/32/13450_2.png) [@Superdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superdude)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2024, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anybody-ever-really-laugh-at-these/1000511/41 "2024-04-20T12:10:01Z")
I can’t find video of it now, but several years Lenny was performing locally as a weekend headliner at a comedy club. He brought out some props, one of which was a mini-guillotine. He made a [Lorena Bobbitt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_and_Lorena_Bobbitt?wprov=sfti1#) joke, and demonstrated how the guillotine worked by sticking a banana in the device and chopping the fruit in half. One section of the banana shot out and landed on an audience member, good naturedly tossed it back at Lenny. Not a throw, just a toss. But it hit Lenny. Lenny retaliated by just grabbing random things and throwing them at the person, who was in the front row. He swung his fist at the person, too, although that didn’t land. I was a huge comedy club junkie during my 20’s, did standup for about 6 years, and got to be pretty chummy with the stage manager at the club where this happened. He used to show me wild shit like that all time. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2024, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anybody-ever-really-laugh-at-these/1000511/42 "2024-04-20T12:30:10Z")
> [@bob\_2](#): > > As a Brit, I mostly remember Bob Hope from the “Road To” movies which were often on TV. > > I don’t remember them as funny at all, but I did like Hedy Lamar. How did you feel about Dorothy Lamour? ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2024, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anybody-ever-really-laugh-at-these/1000511/43 "2024-04-20T12:36:11Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > I could also see there being some humor in her doing when she was a kid–this big “macho” sound coming out of a little girl could be fairly humorous. Yeah, I think that was its original appeal. Carol’s early work is full of that contrast between expectation and actuality. She has this big number in “Once Upon a Mattress” in which her character is barging around the stage singing (loudly) a song called “I’m Shy!” and she had a huge novelty song success with “I Made A Fool of Myself over John Foster Dulles” - a bobby-socker love ballad about the famously dull Secretary of State: [https://v.playbill.com/video/carol-burnett-performing-i-made-a-fool-of-myself-over-john-foster-dulles-on-the-gary-moore-show](https://v.playbill.com/video/carol-burnett-performing-i-made-a-fool-of-myself-over-john-foster-dulles-on-the-gary-moore-show) ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2024, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anybody-ever-really-laugh-at-these/1000511/44 "2024-04-20T12:47:03Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > > [@bob\_2](#): > > > > As a Brit, I mostly remember Bob Hope from the “Road To” movies which were often on TV. > > > > I don’t remember them as funny at all, but I did like Hedy Lamar. > > How did you feel about Dorothy Lamour? It wasn’t a Road To movie, but Hope and Hedley did appear together at least once. [![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/96/My_Favorite_Spy.jpg) ](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/96/My_Favorite_Spy.jpg) (_Hedy_.) ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2024, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anybody-ever-really-laugh-at-these/1000511/45 "2024-04-20T12:50:31Z")
Wait, Bob Hope was a comedian? I thought he was just a Bob Hope. For my entire lifetime, whenever there was some TV special starring Bob Hope, it was always “Starring So-and-so, the actor, and so-and-so, the comedian, and Bob Hope, who is Bob Hope”. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2024, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anybody-ever-really-laugh-at-these/1000511/46 "2024-04-20T14:17:42Z")
> [@carrps](#): > > I’ve never seen Bob Hope be funny. When I was in my teens, he seemed especially sour and unfunny to me. Bob Hope’s stand-up comedy was of a kind that is very much out of fashion nowadays. It’s definitely not the storytelling or relatable observational humor of more modern comics. It’s rapid-fire topical jokes of the sort that go stale very quickly. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2024, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anybody-ever-really-laugh-at-these/1000511/47 "2024-04-20T14:21:14Z")
> [@solost](#): > > > [@Quondam\_Mechanic](#): > > > > Example: “I just flew in from New York, and boy, are my arms tired!” > > That’s a classic (and by classic, I mean very old) example of a misdirection joke. The humor comes from the unexpected left turn the punchline takes. The problem with that type of joke is that you can really only find it laugh out loud funny the first time you hear it. That’s exactly right. It’s not that it was never funny; it’s that it has long since transformed from a joke into a cliche. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2024, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anybody-ever-really-laugh-at-these/1000511/48 "2024-04-20T14:22:25Z")
I think the humour in the “I just flew in from Philadelphia, and boy are my arms tired” joke was that it came out when the idea of mass travel by flight was still new, in the 50s. Of course, that was 70+ years ago… ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2024, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anybody-ever-really-laugh-at-these/1000511/49 "2024-04-20T14:30:04Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > That’s exactly right. It’s not that it was never funny; it’s that it has long since transformed from a joke into a cliche. Yep. It’s like the old joke about Shakespeare: “why is this guy considered a genius playwright? His writing is just a bunch of old cliches strung together!” ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2024, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anybody-ever-really-laugh-at-these/1000511/50 "2024-04-20T16:30:13Z")
Here’s the history of another classic Philadelphia joke: [https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/12/26/week-in-philly/](https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/12/26/week-in-philly/) ---
**Author:** ![Quondam\_Mechanic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quondam_mechanic/32/3404_2.png) [@Quondam\_Mechanic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quondam_Mechanic)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2024, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anybody-ever-really-laugh-at-these/1000511/51 "2024-04-20T17:07:20Z")
Re Laurel and Hardy – they cranked 'em out back then, but there were some gems. Take a look at _The Music Box_ ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iy7YuAj3xd8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iy7YuAj3xd8)) or _Two Tars_ ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoWhKv5IQG8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoWhKv5IQG8)). Of course this is all physical comedy – which is to say mostly (or entirely) variations on the banana-peel joke: somebody tries to do something innocuous and as a result loses every shred of dignity. If that’s too crude for your tastes, remember that there are certainly other people who find it funny. ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2024, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anybody-ever-really-laugh-at-these/1000511/52 "2024-04-20T17:24:07Z")
That’s Hedley! ---
**Author:** ![Eclipse\_Chaser](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@Eclipse\_Chaser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eclipse_Chaser)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2024, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anybody-ever-really-laugh-at-these/1000511/53 "2024-04-20T17:33:23Z")
Something I never saw/see on British comedy shows, but seemed very weird to me when we began to get American shows: the comedian/presenter will tell a joke, immediately followed by a drum roll from the orchestra. Like the audience needed to be told, “that was a joke, you need to laugh now”. ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2024, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anybody-ever-really-laugh-at-these/1000511/54 "2024-04-20T17:38:43Z")
> [@Eclipse\_Chaser](#): > > the comedian/presenter will tell a joke, immediately followed by a drum roll from the orchestra. A drum roll, or a rimshot? (a.k.a. a [sting](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sting_(percussion))) ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2024, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anybody-ever-really-laugh-at-these/1000511/55 "2024-04-20T17:54:06Z")
The rim shot probably started in vaudeville, but it’s now part of the joke. A lot of the time, hearing it is what really makes you laugh, just because it sounds so silly. I do a vocal rim shot whenever I tell a particularly dumb joke, just so the listener knows I’m joking. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2024, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anybody-ever-really-laugh-at-these/1000511/56 "2024-04-20T18:01:19Z")
> [@jnglmassiv](#): > > So, he yells out “102!” and the place goes _nuts_. People are whooping and laughing in a hysteria. He looks at his cellmate rolling on the ground with tears in his eyes from laughing so hard. > > “Wow, good joke huh?” > > “Yeah! We ain’t never heard that one before!” Alternate endings: Nobody laughs. Cellmate says: 1. We just heard that one last night. 2. Some can tell 'em, some can’t. ---
**Author:** ![xtenkfarpl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/c2a13f/32.png) [@xtenkfarpl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xtenkfarpl)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2024, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anybody-ever-really-laugh-at-these/1000511/57 "2024-04-20T18:38:51Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > Alternate endings: > > Nobody laughs. Cellmate says: > > 1. We just heard that one last night. > 2. Some can tell 'em, some can’t. I thought the usual punch line was: it’s not the joke, it’s the way that you tell it…? ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2024, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anybody-ever-really-laugh-at-these/1000511/58 "2024-04-20T19:06:31Z")
I’ve found unfortunately that the version first related in the thread is the usual version, also known as 121. Varieties that swerve from the predictable course of events are a bit better, or 604, 728, and 903 that we provided. ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2024, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anybody-ever-really-laugh-at-these/1000511/59 "2024-04-20T19:08:37Z")
There was a period in the 70s where he was owned by some energy giant and was obliged to make regular commercials for them. Often he was at a refinery, wearing a white hard hat. They were dour, lacking any levity at all. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2024, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anybody-ever-really-laugh-at-these/1000511/60 "2024-04-20T20:01:16Z")
> [@eburacum45](#): > > It wasn’t a Road To movie, but Hope and Hedley did appear together at least once. That’s HEDY! A lot of jokes rely so heavily on context and delivery that they’re only really funny in one time and place. Bob Hope’s original style was rapid-fire wisecracks similar to the screwball comedies of the 30s and 40s - they don’t seem that funny anymore, either. _Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In_ stole every two-bit vaudeville joke ever told, except delivered by a bunch of young people popping through holes in a wall with Goldie Hawn giggling so much she couldn’t talk. The Three Stooges without sound effects isn’t funny at all, and Robin Williams humor is entirely performance. Try to read a transcript of a Robin Williams standup routine and you won’t even crack a smile. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anybody-ever-really-laugh-at-these/1000511.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anybody-ever-really-laugh-at-these/1000511.md?page=4)