Being a phone prankster in my youth, I always thought the proper phrasing was “Do you have Prince Albert in a can?”
This phone prank is widely known (Bill Murray uses it in “Quick Change”).
About 20 years ago, The Boston Globe devoted a full page story to Prince Albert tobacco. And what do you think was the subject of the starting paragraphs of that article ?
Among other things, they mentioned that Prince Albert tobacco would no longer be sold in cans. (1 - too expensive and 2 - pouch keeps the tobacco fresher than the can). And of course with the tobacco no longer in cans, the Boston Globe mentioned that the old phone prank was no longer practical.
Sadly, another part of our culture fading into the past.
Apologies is someone mentioned this and I missed it, but there is more to the joke as I’ve heard it done than that Prince Albert came in a can. (Sorry to hear it no longer does.) The can had a lever built into it to pop the lid. The sound of pulling the lever vaguely resembled the sound of a phone being hung up. Which is what you’re supposed to do (in this version of the joke) a few seconds after asking the question.
My father once showed me another joke involving Prince Albert in a can. With a little judicious scratching at the writing on the back, you can eliminate some words and letters to leave something like “Pa laid on Ma and made sis and me” or something like that. I guess it was the precursor to “Push butt. Rub hands under arm” seen in so many bathrooms.
Well, technically your cat and Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (father and son) shared a common ancestor in the latest Cretaceous or Paleocene among the basal placental mammals.
Which is perhaps the nittiest nit I’ve ever picked on this board.
CALLER: Beggin’ your pardon, guvnor. Would you perchance possess Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha in a cannister recepticle?
GUVNOR: Indeed. We have munificent quantities of aforementioned gerund.
CALLER: Guffaw. It behooves you to facilitate His egress and emancipation! Most cannister recepticles contain Lilliputian quantities of oxygen-rich componds and provide an inadequate habitat for Hapsburg monarchs!
GUVNOR: I think I perceive your dilemma. Be not lachrymose! Our quantities of Nicotiania exceed our current allotment of denizens of the Second Etat.
Of course the officials at Ellis Island americanized that name, it was originally Xavier Onassis.
You could make a career out of cultural references that are fading into obscurity. Many of us late baby boomers grew up on a steady diet of Warner Brothers cartoons which had heavy doses of catchprhases from radio shows back in the '30s and '40s.
