My own thing that I probably perceive as much funnier than it is:
Shortly after 9/11, when security was newly stepped up on the local military installations, there was an article in the paper about a suspicious package that had been found onthe Army post and dealt with as if it might have been an explosive. It turned out to be a box of exotic (which is to say “decent”) coffee sent to a soldier by his mother.
The headline: “Coffee Causes Soldiers to Evacuate”
There’s another one I thought of. No one else laughs, and I’m not sure if it’s because it’s in “poor taste” (although it is very unlike some of the jokes in this vein, which are much, much worse, and I’m not fond of those), or if it’s just one of those things that hit my funny bone just the right way.
One of my exes and I went out to lunch with a friend, who at the time he was only just getting to know better. At some point in the conversation, the friend asked what my ex’s father did for a living.
Ex: “He’s in the Navy.”
Friend: “Oh, wow. What does he do there?”
Ex: “He’s a petty officer.”
beat
Friend: “Is he a petty filer?”
I lost it then, I lose it today.
Many years ago Peter Cooke and Dudley Moore recorded 30 minutes or more of an impromptu commercial for their film (the original) “Bedazzled”. One of the bits revolved around the phrase “Music by DeVol” followed by a symphony of bronx cheers. Hi-larious to our adolescent minds. Now in those days every second film had music by DeVol, and every time we went to a movie and saw that pop up on the screen, we would blow a couple of quiet raspberries and giggle. No-one had any idea why this might be funny, because the impromptu commercial was never aired; we had a tape of it intended for the local college radio station.
“I was out in the garden the other day pruning the chrysanths, when the Devil came up and offered me several wishes.”
My best James Brown moment: It was the 4th of July eleven or twelve years ago. My husband and I were having a picnic with another couple on the balcony of Gateway One in St. Louis – the balcony where Good Morning America and similar shows generally set up for St. Louis broadcast spots. We had a straight shot view across the confluence of waters, or whatever it’s called, block-long series of fountains, and through the arch. Fair St. Louis was in full swing down on the waterfront and we were waiting for it to get dark to watch the fireworks from the barge in the river. James Brown was the last performer of the day on the main riverfront stage. We couldn’t see the concert or hear much of the music, but the “AaaH!” “Heh!” “Hep Me!” "Yeeeeoww! all carried beautifully. We didn’t need the music. The screams we heard were plenty of entertainment.
The one and only time I’ve been in San Francisco, we passed a Chinese laundry and died laughing. The window had all the usual advertising, but in the corner, it read Owner: Hung Far Lo.
My friends and I often end up in long drawn out conversations about nothing important (or sensical for that matter), the most memorable, and possibly the longest, was when we were debating what would happen if you rubbed a magic lamp and found a genie, and then you placed the genie and the lamp in a vacuum-spatial, not cleaning. As the conversation went on, it got funnier and funnier, and to this day whenever anyone is seriously discussing something inane, I always follow up with, “What if you put it in a vacuum?” And it gives me the giggles every time.
Mine is interactive. When I close CompuServe, the nice electron lady says, “Thank you for using CompuServe.” I always reply aloud, “Thank you for *being * CompuServe.” Then I laugh.
There’s a video of a Harry Anderson show. It’s a good show, lots of laughs, good atmosphere and he’s really working the crowd well. At one point, just as a sort of casual aside, he says, ‘I don’t think we’re overdoing it!’.
Not a particularly funny line. But for some reason I find it really funny. After I saw it the first time it rattled around inside my head for about 2-3 days, and kept making me smile. Why? I’ve no idea.
Same thing happened about two years ago, the first time I heard this knock-knock joke, which by now is well-known:
A: Knock knock!
B: Who’s there?
A: Control freak.
B: Co…
A: **Okay now you have to say ‘Control Freak who’ !!! **
I laughed about that for about 2 days. Still makes me smile.
There used to be posters that would pop up everywhere advertising HIPHOPHUT. My brain would sound that out as “high foe futt” every time which would crack me up.
While I’ve seen this elsewhere since, I swear I hadn’t (or didn’t remember it at the time) when I said it.
My husband was being his usual control freak self. We were being sort of snippy back and forth, packing for a camping trip. Finally, without breaking stride or changing my beleaguered tone, I asked him “Honey, does anal rententive have a hyphen?”
He actually cracked up, so I guess it’s funny to someone else on the planet. But I just think about it a year later and I’m giggly inside. It was the perfect blend of moment, motivation and delivery. One of those esprit d’escalier things that actually happened before I hit the staircase.
I love this one too. It sounds like an exchange my parents would have. They also got a small plastic army man somewhere (cereal box?) that they occasionally hide and wait for the other person to find it in some nook or cranny. Hilarity ensues.
That’s the Seinfeld ep I was going to mention after reading about the** Saving Private Ryan** jokefest. My father and I laughed like hyenas when they found the tutu in Welcome to the Dollhouse, because unlike the rest of the audience we were aware that it was a comedy. :rolleyes:
My mom and I were watching TV once and you know those Christian CDs “Songs 4 Life”? I said, it bugs me that they don’t just spell it out; there’s no significance to the numeral. So Mom says, Yeah, why don’t they just put f-o-u-r? We looked at one another and just about pissed ourselves.
Also, “Anyone for a turkey sandwich?” which is my code for joking about how stuffed we are. One year we ate Thanksgiving dinner at Nana’s and she offered us the usual gut-busting spread. Not three hours later she’s trying to get us to eat sandwiches.
And “Who’s got the Fribble?” a line used by a very confused Friendly’s waitress.
The Hotel Eliot, in Astoria, OR is an old fashioned brick highrise hotel. As used to be common in American cities, the name of the hotel is painted right onto one of the exterior walls, high above the ground.
Hotel Eliot
Wonderful Beds
As you’ll see from the link, it’s now marketing itself as a luxury boutique hotel, but to announce that they have “Wonderful Beds” just sounds like they’re saying they don’t make you sleep on bug infested sacks of straw.
And that electrical repair shop near my home still says they repair “TV, VCR, CB”. At least the first one isn’t at least nearly obsolete.
Sometime around 1979, either on SNL or the short-lived ABC competitor “Fridays”, there was a sketch where someone was spoofing Julia Child doing her show. At one point in the recipe, she tells you to:
Remove the pits from the olives and the cherries.
Then put the olive pits into the cherries, and put the cherry pits into the olives.
AFAIK this sketch never made it into the canon of late-night TV’s memorable moments, but I thought it was hilarious. For years and years, I could not even describe it to someone else without cracking up into sputtering laughter.
A friend and I just got back from Death Valley, where we learned such words as “chuckwalla” (a type of lizard) and “Ubehebe” (a volcanic crater). This led to moments of silliness and hilarity: “Chuck Walla. Mr. Walla. Charles Walla”; “Say Ubehebe three times fast! Ubehebe, Ubehebe, Ubehebe!”
