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Transgressive Jokes and Western Civilization
The day that the Challenger blew up, I was sitting in a lounge area adjacent to the cafeteria with some friends when another friend came up.
He said in an obviously joking tone, “Hey, do you know what NASA stands for?”
I bit, “No, what does it stand for?”
“Need Another Seven Astronauts?”
Talk about going from disaster to humor in nothing flat, he had it down to a few hours. These days, I’m sure he would have followed up with, “Too soon?” Of course, that joke had probably been a variant of one from Apollo 1, where it might have been, “Need Another Set of Astronauts,” so the speed came through recycling.
When the subject of the Challenger explosion came up recently, I thought about that moment. If someone today, especially a university student, cracked a tasteless joke like that on the day of a disaster, the authorities would lock him up, clear the building, and provide psychological counseling for all who had been triggered by his obtuseness towards the feelings of the snowflakes around him.
Back at that time, I had a job at the university, and my boss’ boss was a black man with an Irish last name. One day, he announced he had gotten an invitation to attend the World (his surname) Gathering in Ireland.
“Can you see me strutting in there?” he asked while acting out the strut. He imagined he would say, “‘Hi! I’m just here to add a little color to the gathering!’”
Then he looked over at me, “Hey, Charley! You know why white men dress as they do on the golf course?”
“No, Doc, why do they?”
He waved at his outfit, which included bright colors and plaid pants, “So they can dress as cool as black men do every day.”
Can you imagine anyone doing that today? Yes, the target of the humor might be construed as white men, or the target might be seen as black fashion choices.
I grew up with all sorts of transgressive jokes. We learned to laugh. We learned to have humor in horrible situations.
Q. What is Al Qaeda’s favorite football team?
A. The New York Jets.
We were not brittle. Like iron, we were worked hard with a bit of carbon (or manure) thrown our way to make us tough and flexible steel.
Some of that manure thrown our way was in the form of ethnic jokes:
Q. How does a Polack tie his shoe?
A. *The guy puts one foot up on a chair and bends down to tie the shoe on the other foot, which is on the ground.*
Q: How can you tell if a WASP is sexually excited?
A: The stiff upper lip.
Q. How can you tell when a Scotsman is dead?
A. He lets go of his wallet.
We learned to tell dirty jokes without being offended or offensive:
Q. What’s black and white, black and white, black and white, black and white, and green?
A. Four nuns fighting over a pickle.
In many ways, these jokes which would be considered offensive today were the glue that held us together. They were the hammers we were forged with. They were the naughty coals that warmed our hearts. These jokes were the building bricks of a cohesive civilization.
Sure, they could be sick and cruel or even gross:
Q. What’s red and white and hangs from the ceiling?
A. A baby on a meat hook.
Q. What’s green and hangs from the ceiling?
A. Same baby three weeks later.
Or they might make fun of people with disabilities:
Q. What do you call a guy with no arms and no legs when he’s on your porch?
A. Matt.
Q. What do you call a guy with no arms and no legs when he’s in the ocean?
A. Bob.
Hey, did you hear about the hockey game at the leper colony? There was a face off in the corner.
And they certainly made fun of professions:
Q. What do you call a lawyer with an IQ of 100?
A. Your Honor.
Q. What do you call a lawyer with an IQ of 50
A. Senator.
Q. What’s the difference between an accountant and a lawyer?
A. Accountants know they’re boring.
Q. How do you know you’re talking to an extroverted actuary?
A. He looks at your shoes when he talks.
The only way for us to preserve Western Civilization is to get back to joking without worrying about who might be offended. So, give us your best. Disaster jokes? Go for it! Nun jokes? Dead baby jokes? Mommy, mommy jokes? Leper jokes? Quadruple-amputee jokes? Rude limericks? Bring ’em on.
Just remember that we still have a CoC on Ricochet, so clean up your language, you etaoin shrdlus.
Published in Group Writing
Old, old joke; I think from the 1920’s: If your wife wants to learn to drive, don’t stand in her way.
I haven’t spoken to my wife in three weeks. I don’t want to interrupt her.
A man was captured by a cannibal tribe. Just when they were about to put him in the pot, the chief priest came out and said “Stop! Tribal law says that since he is not an enemy, he must be offered the chance to perform three brave deeds and gain membership in the tribe.”
Disappointed, the tribal chief said “Very well. You may try these deeds, and if you succeed you will be part of the tribe. First, you must swim across this river full of piranha. Second, halfway up the mountain, there is a cave. In the cave there is a lion with an abscessed tooth. You must pull the tooth. Finally, a the top of the mountain there is a maiden who has never been satisfied. You must satisfy her.”
Happy to have a chance to live, the man ran to the river and dove in. There was a terrible splashing as the fish attacked him, but he made out the other side, bleeding but still going.
He went up the mountain and strode into the cave. For the next hour, there were the most terrible noises coming out of the cave. Cat screams. Man screams. Dust and rocks.
Finally, the man stumbled out of the cave, weaving and tired. He said, “OK, where is that maiden with the abscessed tooth?”
I really think the cops ought to raid this thread and throw everyone in jail who told a non-PC joke.
My god, think of all the readers — especially cannibals, women, dwarfs, babies, blind people, retarded people, hermits, and even dead people — who have been offended. And then went to bed crying. (The dead people could only roll over in their graves.)
Heartless and insensitive — that’s what you are.
What if a gang of lefties barged their way into the Ricochet site? Our jokes would confirm their worst opinion of us.
And then they would say, “Why I never. . . .”
Or perhaps they would clutch their pearls.
Or they would have a hissy fit.
Lepers. You forgot to mention lepers.
In which case I would have to file the thread under “still not tired of winning”.
Way back in the day there was a radio/LP team of comics who did “Bert and I” jokes in the old Maine accents about the old timey, simple folk of down east Maine, with stories like this:
One day the grizzled old potato farmer looks up from his field and sees a hot air balloon, drifting towards him. From far above, he hears a voice call down,
“Hey, Mister! Where are we?”
To which the farmer replies,
“You’re in a balloon, ya damn fool!”
It’s a frog rather than a dead baby, but…
https://joecartoon.com/watch/k1bbbc/Frog_in_a_Blender
“I’m gonna do something to you. Something bad.”
https://youtu.be/nn4fq3ZfWG4
I’m a homosexual necrophiliac, he said in dead earnest.
Al, I get the “dead” part but I don’t get the “earnest” part.
Fritz, where’s the fun of mocking balloonists?
Or are we mocking Main farmers? I used to live in Maine, and I can hear that farmer’s accent.
Or Democrats …
Capitalize it.
He kept running into a dead end?
Ah, I see. Oddly, I should have seen it earlier. I used to know a gay guy by the name of Earnest in the English department. Prissy guy. I didn’t like him at all. I don’t think he liked me either.
And blondes.
I thought it was supposed to be puppies.
I think “earnest” should be capitalized.
I saw Dead Earnest Necrophiliacs open for Motley Crüe in Calgary in ’87.
Good band name. Similar to Special Ed and The Short Bus.
Playing baseball?
HomePlate
How about songs?
I thought about dropping this in the PIT 17 Music Channel, but it probably belongs here:
EDIT: The sickest comment made at youtube was:
You know, if you stop the breathing the bitching would probably stop …
Warm Regards,
~Scott Peterson”
Bobby Vinton:
Tim Hawkins: Inappropriate wedding songs. Very funny.
Let’s see; I don’t know too many tasteless jokes. Re the comments about 9/11 jokes, the only one I can think of (excluding the one at the top of the thread) is the T-shirt with the famous slogan I [Airplane] NY.
Did you hear about the leper poker game? It ended when someone threw in his hand.
They’re making a leper doll now; you wind it up and watch it rot.
Query: Why did the baby fall out of the tree?
Reply: It was dead.
Query: Why did the Koala fall out of the tree?
Reply: It was stapled to the baby.
Query: What’s worse than a pile of dead babies?
Reply: The live one on the bottom.
Query: What’s worse than that?
Reply: Him eating his way to freedom
Query: What’s worse than that?
Reply: When he went back for more.
Although if I’m going down a ‘what’s worse’ line, there’s a better series of jokes.
Query: What’s worse than finding a worm in your apple?
Reply: Finding half a worm in your apple.
Query: What’s worse than finding half a worm in your apple?
Reply: The holocaust.
Query: What’s worse than that?
Reply: Two holocausts.
Query: What’s worse than that?
Reply: The next holocaust.
Query: What’s worse than that?
Reply: Finding half a holocaust in your apple.
How do you make a cat sound like a dog?
Pour gas on it then throw a match. WOOF!
How do you make a dog sound like a cat?
Put it in the freezer for a couple of days, then take it out and run it through a band saw. MEEEEEOOOOOWWWW!
Oh, right, one more Helen Keller joke.
Query: How did Helen Keller drive?
Reply: One hand on the wheel, the other on the road.
You heard about the Civil War battle between Kentucky and Indiana? The Kentuckians threw a bunch of dynamite across the river. Then the Hoosiers lit it and threw it back.
To which member of the Boone family are most Kentuckians related? Bab.