Actually, re-reading that, I think the final paragraph was an entirely different story. On my first reading I thought that Ms Smith was the alleged prisoner in the tea house
I’ve got a copy of the Alan King book. I loved reading it as a kid, and I noticed that he continued to use the jokes for years after that in his stand-up routines.
The joke was also used in a Batman story in Detective Comics #383 from January of 1969, The Fortune Cookie Caper. The story was written by Frank Robbins and seems uncharacteristically sorta racist for the time. (It also features Batman and Robin eating at a Chinese restaurant in costume. How likely is that?) They open a fortune cookie, which has the aforementioned message in it. It’s noteworthy as the only case I’m aware of where somebody actually was held as a prisoner in a Chinese restaurant.
Here’s the cover. Despite what Robin is saying, in the actual story the message is “Help! I;'m a prisoner in a Chinese Restaurant!”
The incredibly yellow-skinned Chinese guys lurking with axes are supposed to be Tong society members.
DC must have liked the idea back in the 1960s. The “Help, I’m being held prisoner in a Chinese fortune cookie factory” plot was also used in DC’s Swing with Scooter no. 9, October-November 1967. (Link to the issue contents here.) From the synopsis of the story “A Frog Named Boris” at the link:
I actually had that issue years ago, and I remember the story got going when one of the characters opened a fortune cookie and read the note.
I know. You said that in 2004.