LOL, I didn’t get that one either. That’s what I was planning to post to this thread … .
One I recall from my distant youth is from the movie Cannonball Run. Burt Reynolds and Dom DeLuise are one pair of racers, while Dean Martin and Sammy Davis, Jr. are their main rivals. Martin and Davis, dressed as priests trick Reynolds and DeLuise into letting Martin ‘bless’ their car, while Davis sneaks around and slashes their tires. When R&D realize what’s happened, they have the following exchange:
Reynolds: Those priests…
DeLuise: Weren’t fathers.
Reynolds: They were…
DeLuise: Mothers.
For a long time I thought the joke was just DeLuise still being stupid and not realizing what had really happened.
Ok, it’s a long set-up for not much payoff, but dammit, it meant something to me!
I also didn’t get the “down off a duck” and “what has four wheels and flies?” jokes until much later.
I picked it up, but no one else in my family did.
They didn’t pick up on Knock Turn Alley either.
(waits.)
…
Oh, god.
I used to think I was smart.
I actually had someone argue with me that Diagon Alley was just a coincidence. Then I read Knock Turn Alley and felt stupidly vindicated.
And, although I think someone explained it to me once, I don’t recall what the Ford Prefect joke is. What’s the punchline?
Ford Prefect was a car model sold in England (and also in Canada, I think). Why the character was named “Ford Prefect” and not say, “Vauxhall Velox” though, I ain’t got a clue.
I’m not getting this one.
I feel like I’m on the brink of getting this one… can you help me please?
And to further expand on the idea, the actual joke is that Ford chose that name because he thought that since it was such a common name, it would be inconspicuous.
If he’d come to the States, he might have chosen something like Ford Taurus, which is certainly common enough, but would definitely get a second glance (or three).
Nutmagnet
If I’m remembering correctly, the ‘joke’ about naming himself Ford Prefect was that he’d misjudged the dominant lifeform on this planet.
On preview I see TellMeI’mNotCrazy has beaten me to the punch. Story of my life. 
Satch
One of the best books ever.
The “drunk” joke in Hitchhikers is probably my favorite joke in the whole series.
On Dylan’s fourth album, he has a song called Motopsycho Nightmare which is a kind of a travelling salesman joke, with the singer stopping in at a farmhouse with a farmer and his daughter Rita. After about 20 years of listening to this song I finally figured out it was also a joke about the move Psycho . I was blind to this despite the name of the song, the line
“There was Rita looking just like Tony Perkins”
that “she moved away and got a job at a motel.”
Rita wants the singer to take a shower
and she mentions “her mother on the hill.”
Aargh. :smack: If I had never seen Psycho I could excuse myself, but it’s one of my favorite Hitchcock movies.
One of the many comics I read is a Journey of the West parody arranged in a series of four panel comics. One of the Monkey King’s mishaps is when he goes down to the ocean to “borrow” a suitable weapon.
The last two panels of one joke goes something like this (paraphrasing slightly because I don’t recall the exact dialogue, and it was in Chinese anyway)…
Dragon God: …and in addition, it can change length at will.
Monkey King (twirling the bo): SWEET!
Dragon God’s Wife (rolling her eyes): If only some OTHER things could change length at will, too.
(Dragon God looks supremely embarrassed, while Monkey King has a bit of a “TMI” expression on his face)
Didn’t get the joke until like last year. :smack: