no soap, radio.
Takes me back. Do kids still say this? (Unless you’re a kid, so my question is answered.)
Kid at heart, but I’m 51.
Sometimes I ask “what’s the frequency, Kenneth?”
as the novice said to the Bishop.
Great minds!
Yup, taught it to my daughter when she was 7. She now throws that line out or, “Because ice cream doesn’t have bones!” I’m so proud of her.
My college roommate ~16 years ago was an odd, ODD duck, and he told that joke once to everyone in the dorm. We all wanted to punch him in the face, it made zero sense to dumb college kids.
Even though I know the reason behind that joke now, hearing the stupid thing makes me want to set someone on fire.
P.S. The Aristocrats is a GREAT movie.
Wait, can you guys explain that one?
The “No Soap, Radio”
The “Whats the frequency, Kenneth?”
and the “Ice cream doesnt have any bones” one?
Should we tell him? 
Or fuck with his head for a while?
Alright. I got the Soap one.
The other two are still a mystery as the Kenneth one just takes me to the REM Song…
So you guys can pass on the Soap one (Wikipedia kills so much humor these days)
In 1986, CBS News anchor Dan Rather was assaulted on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue by a man who inexplicably shouted at him, “Kenneth, what is the frequency?”
In 1997, a TV critic writing in the New York Daily News solved the mystery, and published a photo of the alleged assailant, William Tager. Rather confirmed the story: “There’s no doubt in my mind that this is the person.” “William Tager’s identity as the man who attacked Mr. Rather was established in the course of an investigation by my office”, said New York District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau. Tager also admitted assaulting Rather. Tager is currently serving a 25-year prison sentence for killing NBC stagehand Campbell Montgomery outside The Today Show studio in 1994.
Wait, did they figure out what the whole “Kenneth” and “frequency” thing was about? Darn, I liked Spider Robinson’s explanation in the … fifth? … Callahan book.
Yeah, the specifics are in the wikipedia article, and sourced to interviews. Basically, IIRC, he believed that ythe media was beaming signals to his brain, and wanted to know the specific radio frequency. Why? Dunno. Did he think he could jam them? Like he had the technical knowlegde along the lines of “Aha, 275.6 kHz, that explains it, I’d need heavy duty aluminum foil for that, not regular.” Or just getting them to admit would come as a victory for him. I remember pundits and wags saying Dan Rather had made up the whole thing. But if we could have found him earlier, he wouldn’t have been able to kill the camera man.
Dude, that’s not the point at all. Maybe the joke doesn’t make sense anymore because we don’t have aristocrats anymore. Does it make more sense if I rephrase it thusly:
A man walks in to a theater to demonstrate his new vaudeville act. The manager watches as the man [does vile act], then his wife comes in and [does reprehensible act]. The pair bring in the 2 kids to [disgusting things]. Finally, a pony saunters onto stage and the wife proceeds to [ewww]. The manager, stunned, just blurts out “…what do you call yourselves?”. The man goes “The Obamas!”
So the punchline isn’t meaningless. It’s the whole point of the joke. If it was “The Smiths”, the joke wouldn’t make any sense.
This is a very unusual interpretation. I don’t think that many of the comedians in the movie would agree with you.
um. the point isn’t in the “punchline” at all. it’s just something dumb that comedians have circulated between themselves. there’s a certain pride in being able to gross out people who are sick individuals to begin with. however, i’m sure everyone familiar with the joke can agree the premise isn’t particular family - especially the punchline. There is a certain humor in calling themselves the aristocrats - both in irony and the brevity but it’s marginal in comparison to the attempt at gross-out humor that forms the body of the joke.
in middle school my friend’s uncle told him a nerfed down bastardization of this joke where the point was to weave a story that involved as many bare naked breasts as possible, and to stretch the story out as long as possible. My friend proceeded to tell a ridiculously long and nonsensical story that involved boobies around every turn for the next week and the half until he ran out of steam and admitted that there was no joke per se, but it was funny that we were hanging off his every word expecting an enormous payoff. he did manage to come up with some interesting stuff though - involving serial killers that stockpiled breasts, the ALVIN submarine finding bodies in the titanic where everything was decomposed except for female breasts (leaky silicone preserved the flesh), etc.
In the early 70’s I was constantly fooled by the following: and it has a meaningless answer. It requires a discrete series of actions. I taught it to my 10-yr old nephew, and he kept asking what it means, and it doesn’t mean anything at all (he still loves it):
[Go to friend, put your hand out upside down in the usual position, say] “Slap me five…”
[He goes to slap it, you pull it away fast before he gets there; you slow it down while making a slow brushing movement like brushing back a greased up hair, and say, in exaggerated coolness]:
“Take the bus.”
This has the added benefit of being said when you’ve already psyched him out in the usual way. (Which reminds me, sometimes we’d do the whole scene and say, “psych.”)
I’m saying what the joke means, not while it’s told. Forget about the culture surrounding the joke. I’m saying that the punchline isn’t just any old phrase or title. It’s specifically chosen because it contrasts with the baudy stuff that came before. It’s a poke at the upper class. Some have even been known to substitute the listener’s last name instead of “Aristocrat”. As wiki says:
No contrast=no joke. BrandonR seems to have identified it as sort of an anti-punchline…a let-down, if you will. But I’m saying it’s not.
My grandfather occasionally used to say to us, “Have you seen many old men this winter?” It was virtually nonsensical, but it sounded like an actual question, and invariably, the response would be, “What??” Then, he’d smile. For me, that was like starting a conversation by saying, “No soap - radio.”
He also used to say, “Son, I hope you never see the back of your neck!” I used to try. Now, I’m glad I can’t.