One of my mom’s favorite funny lines (she has so few of them, poor dear) is “Be sure to eat every bean and pea on your plate.”
I still don’t get those:
and
Spaghetti strainer= colander.
Thing with dates on it= calender.
The spaghetti strainer is also known as a colander, which sounds like calendar.
I don’t get the “button, button, here comes my father” either.
My god, after years, I finally understand this joke. I admit, I cheated–I looked on Google.
Hint: what’s the past-tense form of “drink”?
On reflectoin, I’m somewhat remorseful about having looked it up. Would have been more satisfying to spontaneously get it, some years from now I’m sure.
One teen is undressing the other.
About that “not since Superman died” gag: I remember when I was a small child being very confused by the tale of “How Brer Rabbit found his match at last”
At about the same age, my mother read Kipling’s poem to me. I didn’t understand it at the time, I took it literally. I just thought it was funny to have servant with peculiar names, and I was also amused by the lady that never allowed her servants to rest.
I saw Airplane when I was twelve. I was very puzzled by the part where the inflatable autopilot gets a leak, and the stewardess has to reinflate him.
Another one: I once listened to the rebroadcast of classic radio comedy series Educating Archie starring Archie Andrews, several decades after its original broadcast. I heard most of the episodes before I twigged that it was a ventriloquist act.
Can you explain the non-literal aspect? 
Oh, man…that’s my favorite book ever, and I’ve read it at least five times. And just now I got that. :smack:
Borderline, but there was a song by the Shamen about 10 years ago called “Ebeneezer Goode”. The chorus was
‘eezer Goode
‘eezer Goode
He’s Ebeeneezer Goode.
It wasn’t until years later that I realised it was a blatant reference to Ecstasy: E’s are good.
And all you people who just got the water joke, I bet you never got the Ford Prefect reference either.
I work in a internet tech support call center and my friend and I are always making jokes as what to say to customers. One of the requirements that we have to do is to have the customer go to a website to verify they can get back online. A few months ago he though it would be funny to direct customers to www.seeyouintea.com, of course I did not get the joke. I kept saying the address over and over infront of all my co-workers like a fool… After laughing at me for repeating it over and over again I forgot about it until a few weeks ago. Doh!
I got the water joke, but I needed the Ford joke explained to me.
In my defense, I plead being an American, since we never got the Prefect here. 
No, that’s all to the joke. Like I said, it’s sad that I was so excited about figuring it out. What’s worse, it took me that long to.
I tend to do this a lot. A few days ago, my mom gave me part of my graduation gift. It was a little clock shaped like an airplane. About an hour later while we were driving I screamed out “I get it now.” (I really do say that.)
Mom: Get what?
Me: Your gift. It’s shaped like an airplane because I’m going into the Air Force.
Mom: (Staring at me in disbelief)
Me: What?
Mom: You know Ryan, you are so smart at times. And at others…(then she does that slow headshake.)
Isn’t the punchline really “Because the Burger King forgot to wrap his Whopper?”
Er, Rand, there’s another reason that a clock might be shaped like an airplane. someone not going into the Air Force might appreciate the same gift.
I know that, but she chose that shape on purpose. She said so herself.
In the opening minutes of It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World, Jimmy Durante is fatally wounded in a car crash. As he lies dying among the debris and random litter on the side of a California highway, he explains to a group of motorists who stopped to help that he buried $350,000 in a park, thus setting them off on a wild race with many comic misadventures.
As Durante died, his body gave a last spasmodic jerk, startling the motorists and me. Only years later did I realize that as his dying act he had literally kicked the bucket.
Today (today, mind you) I was making sandwiches for my family for lunch, and I was toasting the bread. Well, I got distracted by another chore, and the toast popped up, and stayed in the toaster, cooling, for several minutes, before Michaela reminded me. As I retrieved the toast, I grumbled aloud that we should get some microwave toast. “Takes all of the drudgery out of making toast,” I said, using my best Earl Sinclair speech patterns.
Then I stopped in my tracks, stood stock-still in the middle of the kitchen, and said “OOOHHHH, Sinclair!.”
And Just now, while I was typing this, I stopped again, and said, “OOOHHHH, Earl!”