Nitpick: Corduroy is a fabric.
Whoosh!
This one’s not very P.C. anymore, but once upon a time it was one of my favorites:
Why can’t gay men get car insurance?
Because they’re always getting rear-ended.
Did you hear about the new corduroy pillow? You should have - it’s making headlines all over.
What happened to Helen Keller when she fell down the well?
She yelled her hands off.
I hope you have some expertise in Anglo-Saxon, because it doesn’t look anything like English--Beowulf, for example.
I forget how this one goes exactly, hope I tell a funny version of it.
Joseph owned a store, and he did okay. But one night he heard a voice, saying “Joseph, sell your store.”
Joseph ignored the voice, but the next night he heard it again: “Joseph, sell your store.”
Again he ignored the voice, and again it came back the next night: "Joseph, this is the Lord speaking. Sell your store and everything in it.
Finally Joseph complied. He found a buyer, sold his store, and came away with a hundred thousand dollars.*
Worried about what he was going to do, he went to bed that night, and just as he was falling asleep he heard the voice again. “Joseph. Take the money you gained from selling the store, and go to Las Vegas.”
Well, he’d come this far. He went to the Greyhound station and bought a ticket for Vegas.
Once he arrived in Vegas, the voice came to him again. “Joseph, go into a casino.”
“Lord,” Joseph dared to speak. “Are you completely sure about this?”
The voice merely repeated: “Joseph. Go into a casino.”
Joseph obeyed. “What now Lord?”
“Joseph, go to a roulette table.”
Joseph was beginning to feel like he’d made a terrible mistake. But what else could he do? He went up to a roulette table. “What should I do now, Lord” he asked silently.
“Joseph, take all the money you made from selling your store, and place it all on red.”
Joseph’s hand shook as he placed the money. He smiled sickly at the guy running the table, and made a quiet, fearful moan when the wheel was spun. He peeked between two fingers through hands covering his face as the wheel finally came to a stop… on red.
Joseph yelped his relief! But the voice came to him again. “Joseph. Now take all the money from selling the store, and all the money you just won, and place every cent of it down, on odd.”
“Surely lord I have proven my faith! Must I risk everything once again?!”
“Joseph, take all the money, and bet it on odd.”
Joseph swallowed the bile he could feel rising up from his stomach, and wincing, gingerly laid his bet down.
The wheel was spun once again, and around and around it went, finally landing—on the number 17.
Joseph clapped with joy and began to take his winnings. “Joseph!” called out the voice. “Now take all the money, and place it on the number 27.”
“No!” said Joseph, not caring if anyone else heard him. “This has gone far enough! You’ve made your point, and I’ll dedicate all of this money to you, but there really is no need to go to such a risk!”
“Joseph!” The voice was quite stern now. “Take all of the money you have won, and all the money you came in with, and place it all on the number 27.”
Joseph was nearly weeping now but finally forced himself to do it. To everyone’s amazement, he took this huge sum of money he’d won, and placed it all on the single number 27.
The guy running the table even asked him, “Sir, are you sure about this?”
Joseph didn’t feel sure. But he knew what he had to do. “Yes, I’m sure.”
And the wheel was spun. Joseph felt faint, nearly collapsing, the world spinning around him surely as the wheel was spinning. After what felt like hours, he saw the wheel was finally coming to a stop. And as the last few clicks came around, his eyes got wider and wider til finally he saw the wheel had indeed stopped–on 27!
The voice came down to him again: “What the fuck?!”
*I have no idea what a realistic figure could be here. Read it as the amount you’d expect to get from selling a one-man shop of some kind.
On the one hand, I’m almost certain that you need the wheel to stop on 28 for the joke to work.
On the other hand, with this caveat at the beginning, it’s kind of funnier.
Edit: unless of course this is one of those meta-jokes where God realizes it’s the joke itself that went wrong, in which case awesome.
No, the joke is that the voice turns out to be just as amazed as anyone else (and by implication was basically dicking with this guy’s life savings).
ETA: Maybe the punchline should be that the voice says “How in the hell does that keep happening?”
I heard the joke in 1983, and the voice of God said, after the ball landed on 00, “Oh shit.”
That’s the joke.
For some reason I picture all the Jewish jokes being told by Mel Brooks.
Sounds like a variant of a truly hoary classic:
Did you hear about the elephant with diarrhea? It’s all over town.
Weird–I’ve heard FXMastermind’s version several times, but never a version in which the final bet succeeds.
Which makes this the first joke I’ve ever heard of with two completely opposite punchlines. Kind of cool.
I like the first better. I decided to try it out on three women here where I often post. But I substituted George Washington and left off his face.
A friend sitting next to me was initially confused by the chicken-and-road style of riddle but when she finally got over her confusion she laughed and it wasn’t at all forced. She also said that it was funnier than the Tarzan version would have been.
The assistant director groaned and said that it was a terrible way to start the day.
The director laughed heartily. You should have seen the look on her face as she tried to ponder the answer.
So, two out of three so far. 
OK when I said “it was funny” I was actually being sarcastic. I thought it would be OBVIOUS since it was such a lame joke that many people wouldn’t even get.
Now I must tell an actual funny joke to redeem myself.
This version is by far the funniest. Reminds me of a “Twisted MAD Tale for Twisted MAD Readers.”
Why did the chicken cross the Moebius strip?
To get to the same side.
No it isn’t.
Joke:
What did the farmer say when he lost his tractor?
Where’s my tractor?
Alternately:
Where the FUCK is my god damned fucking John Deer tractor!? FUCK!!!
I told it this way in the church lobby Sunday. The Monsignor dropped a shit, he was laughing so hard…