# Thalidomide "joke" - really? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [May 24, 2011, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thalidomide-joke-really/583050 "2011-05-24T19:16:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Zotlerg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/8797f3/32.png) [@Zotlerg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zotlerg)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thalidomide-joke-really/583050/1 "2011-05-24T19:16:52Z")
What were you thinking!?! [http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/520/is-procter-gamble-run-by-satanists](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/520/is-procter-gamble-run-by-satanists) It makes you sound so ignorant. . . . Laters. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thalidomide-joke-really/583050/2 "2011-05-24T19:48:19Z")
meh.? ---
**Author:** ![Zotlerg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/8797f3/32.png) [@Zotlerg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zotlerg)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thalidomide-joke-really/583050/3 "2011-05-24T19:59:34Z")
I’m not sure why thousands of kids being born with limb defects has anything to do his statement. Do you? . . . ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thalidomide-joke-really/583050/4 "2011-05-24T20:00:57Z")
Cecil and other writers for the Dope make jokes like this all the time. It’s pretty par for the course here. ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thalidomide-joke-really/583050/5 "2011-05-24T20:03:24Z")
If you’re looking to Cecil for polite and respectful responses, you’re going to be disappointed a lot. And enough time has passed that people make thalidomide jokes a lot. (I mean, not a lot because it’s kinda obscure but I know Futurama’s had a gag or two about it and I wouldn’t be surprised if Family Guy hasn’t so…) ---
**Author:** ![Erdosain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/erdosain/32/7284_2.png) [@Erdosain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Erdosain)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thalidomide-joke-really/583050/6 "2011-05-24T20:04:09Z")
You do realize that this “joke” is from 25 years ago, right? A 25-year-old joke about a 50-year-old tragedy? There may be more worthy targets for your outrage. ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thalidomide-joke-really/583050/7 "2011-05-24T20:09:42Z")
> [@Zotlerg](#): > > I’m not sure why thousands of kids being born with limb defects has anything to do his statement. Do you? > . > . > . Ok, I have to know - what’s with the vertical ellipse? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thalidomide-joke-really/583050/8 "2011-05-24T20:13:21Z")
> [@](#): > > Cecil and other writers for the Dope make jokes like this all the time. It’s pretty par for the course here. As an aside, when one of the staffers writes a column that doesn’t have enough jokes in it, Ed will often insert some. So you can’t necessarily assume that the other writers are making any particular joke. ---
**Author:** ![Zotlerg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/8797f3/32.png) [@Zotlerg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zotlerg)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thalidomide-joke-really/583050/9 "2011-05-24T20:14:26Z")
I can usually ‘get’ these kind of insults, and often don’t really care. I knew a victim at school, he was very bright, just had deformed arms. My own mother was about to be given the drug, but at the last minute her doctor decided against it. I guess I was lucky, but ~20,000 were not. It’s been seen as the worst medical disaster in history. **I just didn’t like his association with mental faculty and Thalidomide. It’s basically wrong, and ignorant.** That’s all really. . . . ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thalidomide-joke-really/583050/10 "2011-05-24T20:19:39Z")
it was prescribed for my mother, but she said no. Other kids in the neighbourhood born about that time were not as lucky. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thalidomide-joke-really/583050/11 "2011-05-24T21:07:24Z")
> [@Ferret\_Herder](#): > > Ok, I have to know - what’s with the vertical ellipse? Those are bullet points. The first will be “Join message board to complain about 25-year-old joke,” and I’m pretty sure the last one is “PROFIT!” ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thalidomide-joke-really/583050/12 "2011-05-24T21:10:00Z")
Thalidomide wasn’t associated with mental defects, though, just underformed limbs. ---
**Author:** ![Zotlerg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/8797f3/32.png) [@Zotlerg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zotlerg)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thalidomide-joke-really/583050/13 "2011-05-24T21:14:45Z")
> [@VinylTurnip](#): > > Those are bullet points. The first will be “Join message board to complain about 25-year-old joke,” and I’m pretty sure the last one is “PROFIT!” No. It’s a habit from using forums where people don’t read the last line of text as they presume it’s some line of quoted signature. It’s also a form of… ---
**Author:** ![Wheelz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wheelz/32/5718_2.png) [@Wheelz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wheelz)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thalidomide-joke-really/583050/14 "2011-05-24T21:17:49Z")
“Vertical Ellipse” would be a cool band name. . . . Or maybe not. ---
**Author:** ![BellRungBookShut-CandleSnuffed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bcef8e/32.png) [@BellRungBookShut-CandleSnuffed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BellRungBookShut-CandleSnuffed)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thalidomide-joke-really/583050/15 "2011-05-24T23:44:30Z")
> [@Ferret\_Herder](#): > > Ok, I have to know - what’s with the vertical ellipse? Your monitor renders that as an oval? [😃](http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/ellipsis) /pedant ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2011, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thalidomide-joke-really/583050/16 "2011-05-25T00:14:18Z")
It’d be even cooler if instead of a vertical ellipse it was a vertical ellipsis. C’mon people, we’re the 'Dope. We know this stuff. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_A.Robrin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sam_a.robrin/32/14497_2.png) [@Sam\_A.Robrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_A.Robrin)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2011, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thalidomide-joke-really/583050/17 "2011-05-25T00:17:45Z")
> [@](#): > > Sirs, > It says here that you’re starting some sort of funny magazine. All I can say is that you people have a lot of nerve. Haven’t you looked outside your own selfish egos long enough to see that people are being wronged and oppressed all over the world? Take the fascist military regimes which grow in number every year. In these stricken countries you can’t even look cross-eyed without the secret police writing your name down in their little notebooks. It may be even years later that one night you are roused from your sleep by the terrible sound of rifle butts breaking down your flimsy rattan door. The brutal thugs grab you, heedless of your piteous cries, deep, deep into the jungle. Never to return. > And you, with your funny magazine. > > Viola da Gamba > South Orange N.J. > April 1970 ^ First letter published in the “Letters” section of _The National Lampoon_. ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Mondegreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/91b2a8/32.png) [@Lord\_Mondegreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Mondegreen)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2011, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thalidomide-joke-really/583050/18 "2011-05-25T03:57:42Z")
I have no outrage, but the OP does kind of have a point. For the “joke” to work thalidomide would need to be associated with mental retardation, which it isn’t. The only other thing I could think of was if P&G were the ones who manufactured thalidomide, and Judy from Chicago suffered physical problems from her mother’s use of the product, then it could justify her hatred of the company. However I couldn’t find any evidence that P&G were involved with the drug, and actually Judy didn’t seem to display any hatred, just a wariness of Satan worshippers. So I guess my issue is not that Cecil made a joke about thalidomide, but that the joke as written doesn’t seem to make sense. ---
**Author:** ![Zotlerg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/8797f3/32.png) [@Zotlerg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zotlerg)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2011, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thalidomide-joke-really/583050/19 "2011-05-25T11:59:30Z")
“It’s basically wrong, and ignorant” - I quote… myself. . ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2011, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thalidomide-joke-really/583050/20 "2011-05-25T12:18:50Z")
The joke fails for mere factual incorrectness, like “If ignorance were cornflakes, you’d be General Mills.” [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thalidomide-joke-really/583050.md?page=2)