Monday, January 05, 2009
Everything I know I learned from schoolyard jokes
A great deal of ink has been spilled about how various sorts of modern folk tales - such as urban myths, old wives tales and fairy tales - actually have hidden moral meanings that help socialize children and adults alike into accepted behaviour.
But one category of modern folk tale that has so far escaped examination is the school yard joke.
From the time we're helpless toddlers until we are self-assured adolescents, we hear hundreds if not thousands of these little witticisms. These range from the innocent little puns of children to the offensive drolleries of teens.
Few of them are really very funny, yet they endure because, just like fairy tales, each of them teaches us an important life lesson.
To start off the discussion, here are a few of my favourites:
Joke:
Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the other side.
Moral:
Sometimes the simplest answer is the best
Joke:
Knock knock! Who's there? Banana. Banana who? Knock knock! Who's there? Banana. Banana who? Knock knock! Who's there? Orange. Orange who? Orange you glad I didn't say banana?
Moral:
Take your Ritalin, dammit.
Joke:
A duck goes into a hardware store and asks the manager: "Do you have any gwapes?" The manager says: "No,
we don't have any grapes. This is a hardware store." The next day, the duck comes in again and again asks the manager: "Do you have any gwapes?" The manager, getting agitated, says: "No, I told you before, we don't sell grapes at a hardware store." Third day, duck again comes in and asks: "Do you have any gwapes?" This time, the manager lets him have it: "If you come in here again to ask for gwapes I'll nail your beak to the counter." The duck scoots out, but the next day he comes back again. This time he asks: "Do you have any nails?" The manager says: "Ah, no, actually, we had a big sale and we're sold out of nails at the moment." So the duck says: "OK, then, do you have any gwapes?"
Moral:
Don't drop acid while you're working.
Joke:
The teacher asks the class to draw something beautiful on the board. Little Suzy goes up and 
draws a flower. Little Jenny goes up draws a butterfly. Finally, Little Johny goes up and draws a dot. The teacher asks: "What is that supposed to be Johny?" Johny says: "A period." The teacher asks: "And can you tell us why you chose that?" Johny says: "I don't know, but my sister missed two of them and my dad said, 'Well, that's beautiful! That's just fucking beautiful!'"
Moral:
Beauty is in the eye of the beholderJoke:
One day, little Johny Foguerphaaster was making out with his girlfriend in the garage. They had just started going at it when Johny's mom called him for supper: "Johny Foguerphaaster! Johny Foguerphaaster!" "I'm tryin', Ma, I'm tryin'!" he replied.
Moral:
Obey your parents.
posted by Mentok @ 4:49 p.m.,
5 Comments:
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At 3:19 a.m.,
Rachel said...
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Is there something wrong with me if I haven't heard some of these before? Like "Little Suzy" and "Johny Foguerphaaster"...
I am so "la la la" when it comes to jokes though... My reaction always seems to be, "What? I don't get it..." Quite honestly it took me about three reads to get that last joke. LOL -
At 12:23 a.m.,
FiL said...
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Little Man and Darling Daughter loved the duck joke. In fact, Little Man keeps asking me to repeat it...
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At 9:25 a.m.,
Mentok said...
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Rachel - I suspect the little Suzy / little Johny category of jokes is probably pretty exclusive to pre-pubescent boys, so not surprising you hadn't heard them.
I recall, sometime in the 70s National Lampoon did this great tribute to the Johny Foguerphaster joke in which they showed all the international variations of it. In the German version, he shoots his mother. In the Scandinavian version, he shoots himself...
In the Canadian version, he says "I'll be right there, Mom." -
At 9:33 a.m.,
Mentok said...
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Fil - I'm glad he liked it. If he liked that one, he may also like this one, which I've also felt has a similar tone:
Three strings go to try to get into a bar (or restaurant, as you choose). The bartender (doorman) says "Get out of here, we don't serve strings here." The strings try to figure out how to get in. One puts on a big coat, but the bartender sees through the ruse: "Hey, you're a string, get out of here." The second puts on a phoney mustache. Again, no luck: "Get out of here, ya stinkin' string." The third says, "Hey, I've got an idea." He twists his body into a loop, pulls himself through and then messes up the top of his head so it looks all spiky.
He walks into the bar and the bartender challenges him: "Hey, aren't you a string."
"No, I'm afraid not," he replies.
[this one has to be said aloud and, for kids, it doesn't hurt to deliver the punchline v-e-r-y slowly]
Moral: Appearances can be deceiving. -
At 5:45 p.m.,
said...
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Hi, I'll leave you an argentine joke: "A guy who lives in the 20th floor of a building has his toillette clubbed. He doesn't want to get his hands into the task, so he places his last model vacuum machine into the seat, uses an adapter that fits and so, turns it on low. Soon he goes to Max Speed and after a little he hears something being sucked out. The vacuum starts jumping around so he pulls the power in a minute, yet the machine kept jumping. He goes over it, opens the dust deposit and sees a midget with a NY Times... He asks 'What the heck r u doing here dude?' and the midget, looking surprised replies 'Kills me, all I know is I was taking a dump in the basement wc'... cheers.
