Two transport related ones:
…looks like you’ve just blown a seal!
…your big 'ens gone!
I disagree. Proper tea is theft.
“Do you really think I asked for a 12 inch pianist?”
“I don’t know his name, but his face sure rings a bell!”
“I don’t know his name, but he’s a dead ringer for the guy who came in yesterday!”
Let me tell you the story of my Romanian ancestor. No doubt you’ve all heard of Vlad Dracula, Voivode of Wallachia, most famous for his predilection for the painful and picturesque punishment of impalement, also known as “riding the one-legged horse,” “being buggered by the Turk,” and, from its ecclesiastical employment in the chastisement of obdurate heretics, “the stool of repenting.” Yes, Vlad Tepes, Vlad the Impaler, Vlad Dracula, Vlad the Devil, Vlad the Cruel . . .
My ancestor was Vlad’s distaff second cousin, Simeon the Sweet.
Known throughout Wallachia for his kindness, his generosity, his endowments of monasteries and hospitals . . . Needless to say, Vlad considered him something of a family embarrassment. At any rate, when war broke out with the Turks, it was brought to Vlad’s attention that Simeon, though rising thirty, had never yet led his retainers into battle; and he commanded Simeon to correct the deficiency. Well, Simeon and his men did show up, but he was so humane he would not even allow them to put blades on their spears – the rest of the army derisively dubbed them “the Friendly Host.” Nevertheless, the Wallachians won the battle, and Vlad announced that seventy Turkish prisoners would be impaled the following morning.
Simeon could not live with this; any cruelty, any human suffering, was intolerable to his gentle heart. He bribed the guards to let the prisoners go. Well, Vlad was furious – no family connections could help in a case of clear treason – and he ordered Simeon himself impaled on his own otherwise useless spear. And so it was done.
But Simeon faced death calmly, with a prayer, blessing Vlad. And all present had to agree that Simeon was indeed the nicest guy who ever went down the pike.
Heavens’! Inspired by Asimov and My Word i once wrote a story where the punchline was "A strolling roan gathers more gnaws " set in a vermin -infested Martian desert .
“But he sure got a hole in Juan”
Umm, is it because you’re very slow on the uptake?
Can’t believe I haven’t yet seen: “Look at that S car go!”
TL; DR version: Said by a car salesman who has just sold a Ferrari to a snail, who requested a large “S” painted on the hood, and who laid rubber peeling out of the dealership.
Another “koala” one which I’ve always liked; about the Englishman visiting Australia who acquires a pet koala, which he calls Eros because it’s so sweet and lovable. The chap takes Eros back to England with him; there follows a long, rambling account of his problems searching there, for eucalyptus trees to serve as habitat and food for the creature. In other words, the quest is for a gum tree fit for Eros to live in – allusion to the post-World-War-I slogan “a country fit for heroes to live in”.
This, like many such tales as per this thread, originated on “My Word !” I was always impressed with the quick wits and ingenuity of the panellists there: at the beginning of the half-hour programme, they were given a quotation / cliche – during the half-hour (while taking part in the intervening wordplay doings), they had to think up a shaggy-dog narrative with as the punch-line, a contorted version of what had been assigned to them; and tell it at the end of the programme.
The lesser of two weevils
Transcend dental medication
Make me one with everything / change comes from within
In two years nobody’s answered your call? Shameful.
It had something to do with an Indian tribe, who got their name because they spent many years roaming the prairies, searching for their homeland. They finally sent their scouts to high ground…who got off their horses, scanned the horizon, and cried “where the fugarwe?”
Fans of the comic strip Pearls Before Swine know that the author loves terrible puns and features them regularly. My favorites are the ones that end with:
“Dunk rye for me, Arch 'n Tina”
“Nothing too fair but Ferret’s Elf”
Doesn’t that one show up in one of Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey / Maturin novels – seems appropriate for an old-time sailing-ship setting, anyway. A witticism on the part of Jack Aubrey, who finds it so funny that he can barely get the words out, for guffawing? (Jack being fond of awful puns, and thinking himself a much better raconteur than he actually is.)
I don’t think it’s been mentioned so far in this thread that this sort of story is known as a Feghoot. (So, googling “Feghoot” may well turn up more good examples.)
Jose, can you see?
Y’know, I kinda hate it that anyone calls them that, especially considering that the very article you cite credits S. J. Perlman with concocting some of them twelve years before their so-called namesake appeared in his first story.
I’m content to just call them “shaggy dog stories,” myself.
Yes; and it’s included in the movie as well.
And one of my favorites, appeared in a series of Pogo strips, in the distant past. A hibernating bear had been awakened by the gang, and he was stressing about the fact that he had overslept and missed out on fulfilling his promise to play Santa Claus for his kids (a portion of his stressing out is conveyed by his act of hurriedly putting on a Santa suit). It is revealed that the bear hailed from the Commonwealth of Virgina. At one point, communications take a wrong turn (as they so often did in Mr. Kelly’s brilliant strip), and the bear becomes convinced that his beloved home state has been washed away in a deluge, and no longer exists.
As he weeps uncontrollably, Howland Owl busts out a typewriter, and produces a note from Frank Church at the New York Sun: “Yes Santa Claus, there is a Virginia.”