A really lame one from a '50s-era joke book that I read as a kid:
Teacher: “Use the following words in a sentence: defeat, deduct, defense and detail.”
Student: “Defeat of deduct went over defense before detail.”
One day, maybe 20 years later, I suddenly got it.
I loved “The Color of Magic” on my first reading, but missed a joke on the first readthrough. I think it was two years later that I realized the meaning of “reflected-sounds-of-underground-spirits” and started laughing my ass off. At myself. It just happened to be my major.
When I was a preteen (early '70s) I used to watch reruns of shows like Dragnet and Hogan’s Heroes after school.
A few years ago I was remembering an occasional character named ‘GruppenFuhrer Freitag’ and idly translated it into English.
Sergeant Friday
One sketch on the Carol Burnette Show had Carol pining for Steve Lawrence, who was in love with another woman. He showed her a diamond necklace that he intended to give to his girlfriend, and asked Carol what she would do for that kind of present. “Anything you want, and twice on Sundays!” she said. It wasn’t until adulthood that I understood what that actually meant.
I used to watch Fraggle Rock when I was young but it wasn’t until adulthood when I finally got the joke about Gobo’s peripatetic uncle Travelling Matt.
Another HitchHiker’s Guide one: it took me eight years to understand the “glass of water” joke. (“It’s unpleasantly like being drunk.” “What’s so unpleasant about being drunk?” “You ask a glass of water.”) It dawned on me out of nowhere one day while I was sitting on a bus thinking about nothing in particular.
Hmmmm…I don’t get this either. I’m quite dim.
Think of drunk like drank. A glass of water doesn’t like being drank(drunk).
Interestingly, long enough that I posted the joke here and asked for answers.
"A Jew comes home and gets into bed beside his wife. Suddenly he hears a scratching noise under the bed. The Jew reaches his hand under the bed and say 'Is that you, Fido?'and Fido licks his hand and says ‘Yes, it’s me.’
It was roughly 4 minutes before someone posted the answer and simultaneously pointed out my dumb at the same time.
I get the joke now, welby (don’t feel dumb, because I had to click the link) but why does ht matter that he’s Jewish? I was trying to think of possible stereotypes before I read the explanation.
Why have elephants got Big Ears?
Becasue Noddy won’t pay the ransom!
Noddy and Big Ears are UK children’s characters created by Enid Blyton
“What’s this?” :eek:
“I don’t know.”
“Blower’s cramp.”
“Oh. Ha ha.”
“Get it?”
“Yes.”
“How often?”
“Huh?”
It took me about 25 years between the time I first heard the name of the two Disney Chipmunks as a child and the day I realized that their name was a take-off on the famous furniture maker Chippendale.
“Yeah, your breath and a buffalo fart!”
“Yeah, your face and my ass!” (Warning:!!! For some reason, it is very easy to switch that around and make a fool of yourself by saying “Your ass and my face!” Do not attempt this at home without a lot of practice to make sure you get it right.)
Some examples of Chinese jokes:
1)The father, the grandfather and the grandson are out chopping wood. The dim-sighted grandfather chops a finger off his son’s hand. The father jumps around cursing the grandfather for a blind old fool. The grandson, hearing this disrespect, starts cursing the father, saying, “How dare you curse your own father?”
Both of these seem to be funny to the Chinese because they tread on forbidden territory, namely, disrespect to elders.
Now, if you get this last one, you must be Chinese:
"A greedy old bear is picking fruit up in a tree. He picks one apple with his left paw and puts it under his right arm. He picks another with his right paw and puts it under his left arm. He reaches up for a third with his left paw and puts it under his right arm. He reaches for a fourth with his right arm and puts it under his left arm. (Apparently, you keep telling the joke this way until your audience laughs. BTW, does anyone get it?).
Well, yeah. You reach with your right hand, and the apple in your armpit drops.
I’m not sure if there is any significance to the protagonist being a bear.
Reminds me of this song
http://www.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/~zierke/steeleye.span/songs/fournightsdrunk.html
And yeah, it took me many years to make any sense of “Why did the chicken cross the road?”
They used this joke on Futurama once.
That’s what I assumed, too. It didn’t sound too funny and I’m not Chinese, so I figured there must be more to it.
When did they use it on “Futurama”?
ETA: Do you mean the gag of Bender putting his arms back on?
This was one of my dad’s favorite jokes. His sentence was “deduct went over defense defeat before detail.”