# Jokes that, nowadays, need explaining **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** comedian-jokes\ **Created:** [September 25, 2020, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jokes-that-nowadays-need-explaining/921466 "2020-09-25T02:53:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 48
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2020, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jokes-that-nowadays-need-explaining/921466/942 "2020-12-20T03:06:52Z")
In rural PA up to the late 70s (and possibly the early 80s) we could make 5 digit calls to people in the same exchange. ---
**Author:** ![Mark\_Finn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/34f0e0/32.png) [@Mark\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mark_Finn)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2020, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jokes-that-nowadays-need-explaining/921466/943 "2020-12-20T13:14:30Z")
I remember being told that dialling PEACHS-9 would connect you to a “whorehouse”. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2020, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jokes-that-nowadays-need-explaining/921466/944 "2020-12-20T16:35:03Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#): > > In rural PA up to the late 70s (and possibly the early 80s) we could make 5 digit calls to people in the same exchange Rural NY also, unless my memory’s failing me in this. I think I remember where I was living when it became necessary to dial 7 digits for local numbers, though, and that would indeed put it somewhere in the late 70’s to mid 80’s. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2020, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jokes-that-nowadays-need-explaining/921466/945 "2020-12-20T17:50:54Z")
Were you using a Bell phone system there? I remember a few PA communities maintained independent phone systems for a long time. ---
**Author:** ![Reeses\_Monkey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reeses_monkey/32/2885_2.png) [@Reeses\_Monkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reeses_Monkey)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2020, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jokes-that-nowadays-need-explaining/921466/946 "2020-12-20T18:47:11Z")
My hometown in Western PA had two exchanges, 752 and 758. Until the breakup of Ma Bell when I was in ninth grade (1983-ish) you could dial only five numbers for the 752 households but had to dial all seven for the 758 numbers. Also, my grandma had a party line with her neighbor until at least 1984. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2020, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jokes-that-nowadays-need-explaining/921466/947 "2020-12-20T18:53:44Z")
Yes. It was an independent company (I went to school with the kids of the folks who owned it). ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2020, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jokes-that-nowadays-need-explaining/921466/948 "2020-12-20T18:53:50Z")
In Lancaster and Palmdale, CA (northern Los Angeles County), you could make 5-digit calls into the '80s. The downside was that calls between Lancaster and Palmdale were long-distance ones. ---
**Author:** ![Bill\_Door](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@Bill\_Door](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_Door)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2020, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jokes-that-nowadays-need-explaining/921466/949 "2020-12-20T21:15:09Z")
I was in a small town (population 1,400) in upstate New York in 1960 and could reach a number within our exchange with 4 digits. Anything out of our exchange was a toll call that couldn’t be direct dialed, so I’m assuming it was not tied into the Bell system. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2020, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jokes-that-nowadays-need-explaining/921466/950 "2020-12-20T21:30:31Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > You’ll have to explain it to me, too. I watched the ‘Butter!’ ‘Parkay!’ commercials when they were first run, but I don’t get the mosquito or why being bitten by one turns butter into margarine. Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs 2 featured an island with [food-animal hybrids based on terrible puns](https://cloudywithachanceofmeatballs.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Food_Animals) (the clip there showed a “mosquitoast” and a “buttoad”), and there were flamangos, matzo bulls, grizzly pears, susheep, wildebeets, fruit cockatiels, and of course kiwis. The “Parkay” thing was just thrown in as a laugh for the parents. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2020, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jokes-that-nowadays-need-explaining/921466/951 "2020-12-20T22:48:54Z")
I’m about 99% certain we were Bell system when I could still dial local calls with 5 numbers. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2020, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jokes-that-nowadays-need-explaining/921466/952 "2020-12-21T14:24:57Z")
We were four numbers for local calls until the late 60s. The town next door didn’t even have dial phones when I was growing up. Literally – their phones has no dials. People would pick them up and talk to the operator. When calling them, there was a number to dial to get the operator, and you could give them three numbers. When they standardized, they put a zero before the numbe. ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2020, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jokes-that-nowadays-need-explaining/921466/953 "2020-12-21T15:58:39Z")
I heard a joke the other day that involved a screensaver. The joke was pretty bad. But not everyone understands flying toast. ---
**Author:** ![Heracles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heracles/32/487_2.png) [@Heracles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Heracles)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2020, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jokes-that-nowadays-need-explaining/921466/954 "2020-12-31T19:14:37Z")
> [@Melbourne](#): > > Thurston Howell III is another joke that’s lost some of it’s early meaning. The disappearance of which well known millionaire was explained away by his staff in 1950? All right, I’ll bite: What millionaire had disappeared in 1950 ? I tried Googling and didn’t find anyone. Or was it a fictional character ? ---
**Author:** ![Asuka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2020, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jokes-that-nowadays-need-explaining/921466/955 "2020-12-31T19:58:32Z")
Howard Hughes? ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2020, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jokes-that-nowadays-need-explaining/921466/956 "2020-12-31T20:06:39Z")
Howard Hughes was still producing movies in 1950, so it doesn’t sound as if he’d disappeared. ISTR a sitcom (I Dream Of Jeannie?) where the characters went to a hotel where a mysterious person lived in the penthouse. The hotel manager said something to the effect of ‘I can’t tell you who he is, but his initials are H.H.’ Gilligan’s Island had a character called Herold Hecuba who was a producer, but I don’t think he was intended to parody Howard Hughes. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2020, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jokes-that-nowadays-need-explaining/921466/957 "2020-12-31T20:17:10Z")
I’ve been watching through WKRP with my wife (she’d never seen the infamous Turkey Drop, I showed it and she enjoyed enough to want to watch the series) and the humor has remained pretty easy to understand. Except for the episode where Herb is dressed in the carp costume and hits on Jennifer who relies with “Sorry, Charlie”. I had to look up an old Starkist tuna commercial to show her for context. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2021, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jokes-that-nowadays-need-explaining/921466/958 "2021-01-01T03:34:03Z")
“American manufacturer, aviator, and motion-picture producer and director who acquired enormous wealth and celebrity from his various ventures but was perhaps better known for his eccentricities, especially his reclusiveness.” “Always something of a loner, went into complete seclusion in 1950.” [Howard Hughes | Biography & Facts | Britannica](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Howard-Hughes) His business was eventually fronted by a group of Mormons: He was never seen, and the press freely speculated that he was no longer in actual control. ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2021, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jokes-that-nowadays-need-explaining/921466/959 "2021-01-02T00:56:12Z")
“Hamlet dear, your problem is clear…” “Neither a borrower nor a lender be…” That second one was where I learned the word ‘solvency’. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2021, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jokes-that-nowadays-need-explaining/921466/960 "2021-01-11T19:31:42Z")
> [@Odesio](#): > > I feel like just nibbling on someone that one time is enough to earn the cannibal moniker. “But do they call me Jeffrey the Philanthropist?” ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2021, 9:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jokes-that-nowadays-need-explaining/921466/961 "2021-01-14T09:42:14Z")
> [@doreen](#): > > But _could_ you watch stage plays that way? I was born in the 60s and don’t remember double-features being common - but I absolutely remember getting into the theater after the movie started\* and leaving when the next showing got to “where I came in”. As it happens, I just saw a regency (1795 to 1837) play bill, discussed on an English TV program. It wasn’t a repeating bill, but it was continuous, with the major dramatic play on at “peak viewing time”, plus a “B movie” equivalent, filled out with some shorts and some musical numbers, giving something like a 5 hour program. Wander in, settle down for a night in front of the … stage … go on home when you get sleepy. They probably ran ad’s between some of the items … [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jokes-that-nowadays-need-explaining/921466.md?page=47) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jokes-that-nowadays-need-explaining/921466.md?page=49)