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Horrible Puns with Long Setups
…have always been a passion of mine. That’s why if any of my family is present when I say out loud, “That reminds me of…” they immediately try to divert my attention. If that doesn’t work, attempted strangulation has been known to occur.]
While opening a package of lemonade mix this morning, I was reminded of the story of a lion and a cheetah that fell in love. They had a son, who had the characteristic lordly manner of his father, but the spotted coat and great speed of his mother. He was known throughout the jungle as Tear-Along, the Dotted Lion.
What are you waiting for? Let’s hear a worse one.
Published in General
They’re not all like this. But when the first frame includes a lot of weird details, you pretty much know it’s going to be a ride that will end in a bad pun.
If you’re going to fill this thread with all of Pastis’ crimes against humanity, it’s going to be a long thread.
Ahhh, Pearls Before Swine: greatly appreciated in our household.
We, too, know these as shaggy dog stories. Currently, here are just a few of the punchlines I remember from childhood. Can create the stories at a later time:
Boyfoot bear with teaks of Chan
“He doesn’t know his mass from a scroll in the ground.”
Already mentioned, “Pardon me Roy is that the cat that chewed your new shoes?”
Super, calloused, fragile, mystic, [something] halitosis
Ran on for two and a half pages. I won’t inflict it on you, but it involved Medieval London, a gigantic fire salamander, a Templar Knight, the Thames river, and the story of how the knight rid London of the curse of the beast. And how to get rid of the carcass after killing the fire salamander. He decided to butcher it and make the flesh into sausage.
Yes, it was the Beast of Thames and the Wurst of Thames.
There’s another one about a guy who goes in for some psychoanalysis in Vienna.
It ends with “Pardon me Freud, is my chatter really coo coo?”.
Alright, you asked for it.
Nate the Snake.
Now Susan has reminded me of another. A couple of scientists went out to study grizzly bears. One was a German, the other a Czech. After they went incommunicado for a bit too long, the forest rangers went out looking. They found where the scientists had been camping. The site was disturbed by an obvious bear attack. From evidence around the camp, the scientists had been eaten. The rangers started tracking the bears that did it. There were two bears, one male and the other female. They finally killed the man-eating beasts. One of the rangers split open the female first. He found evidence that the female had ingested the German based on the German’s watch in the stomach and some other things.
He called over to the others who were carefully approach the dead boar bear, “The Czech is in the male.”
A farmer in Texas grew a huge strawberry. How big was the strawberry? Well let’s just say that if the Rose Bowl were a cereal bowl filled with milk, this strawberry would be just the right size. The farmer was justifiably proud of his strawberry and took it on the road. He showed it all across America, setting up a big tent where he charged admission. People were amazed and couldn’t find enough superlatives.
Finally, he made it up to New York, where he set up his tent in Brooklyn. The mafia got wind and decided they wanted a piece of the action. They sent a few tough guys to go take the strawberry. They arrived as the farmer was just shutting down. He politely told them that they would have to come back tomorrow, but it would be worth it.
The head thug said: I don’t think you understand. We’ve come to seize your berry not to praise it.
Jeepers cats! Now that’s a shaggy dog story!
The life long dream of Jose Garcia was to see the NY Yankees play baseball. Finally, he got his wish, saving up enough money to travel from Puerto Rico to the Bronx. When he got there, there were no seats left, but because he traveled all that way, they told him he could sit on top of the flag pole.
When he got home, everyone asked him how he liked New York and how was the game.
He said “It was great. And it’s not true what they say about New Yorkers being mean. At the beginning of the game everyone stood up, looked up at me and sang “Jose can you see?”
A man with dentures goes to the dentist.
He explains to the dentist that his dentures don’t feel right anymore. The Dentists sits him down, does a brief examination and exclaims, “What in the world? Your whole partial plate is corroded. It’s like it was eaten away by some chemical.” The Dentist asks, “Are you on a weird diet or something?” The man says, “After a recent fancy breakfast, I have fallen in love with Hollandaise sauce and now, I put it on everything.” The Dentist replies, “OK then, we can fix your dentures but I will have to custom order them to be made out of chrome.” The man says, “Chrome? Why would I want chrome false teeth?” The Dentist replies, “Everyone knows, that there is no plate like chrome for the Hollandaise.”
One of my other favorites from my callow days required that you be a good storyteller and improviser.
It starts with our hero, an Indiana Jones-type adventurer, being commissioned by a mysterious reclusive billionaire art collector to locate the legendary Tis bottle, a fabulous object the billionaire has long searched for, as it is the long lost final piece he needs to complete his full set of the legendary priceless objects.
Our hero accepts the challenge, and then goes on a research project/harrowing adventure that lasts for twenty minutes of storytelling.
He finally succeeds and, scarred and battered, presents the bottle to the old man.
At last! says the billionaire, and excitedly cuts our hero a check and shows him the door.
But wait! says our hero. Why is this small bottle so important? I went though so much, I have to know.
Ok says the man, you’re right. Come with me.
And then another five minutes of describing the incredible series of doors and chains and dungeons and tunnels they have to go through to finally get to the vault.
Inside, amid piles of treasure and art, they arrive at last to a gently backlit altar, where stands a row of ornate bottles. At the fourth spot there is a gap, and the old man, quaking a bit with barely controlled excitement, reverently places the Tis bottle in its rightful place, completing the set. Each bottle is different, but with the final bottle in place, and all of them together again for the first time in memory, there is a subtle integrity to them that has an undefinable rightness to it.
Wow, says our hero. Amazing! But I still don’t get it. what does it mean??
Excitedly the old man picks up a tiny silver mallet and says Come, let me show you.
He reaches forward and gently strikes each bottle in turn. And he sings along as they ring out
My Cunn Tree TIS . . . .
That was fun.
And extraordinarily long
10,803 words, about 21 pages in a book.
Yes, but it’s not a pun.
I’m not much of a pun-ster myself, but years ago I made up something on the spot, in a book store, talking to a friend who was particularly susceptible. We were both members of a local Science Fiction fan/readers group. I wish I could remember the details. It ended with “Bozo The Clone” and he sat down on the floor, hard, and fell over.
I left my harp in Sam Frank’s disco.
Abscess makes the fart go, “Honda!”
Eric the Red and his Vikings marauded far and wide. On one of their raids in Europe, they captured a group of men who sat huddled on the ground, begging for their lives. One of them, a barber named Moses, told Eric that he was the best barber in Europe and if he would spare his life, he’d give him a nice haircut and beard trim. Feeling a bit scraggly, Eric agreed and went with him to his shop.
Some of his men happened by and saw their leader sitting in a chair with a man standing over him wielding what looked like a knife. They rushed in with their swords drawn.
Moses, alarmed, swung Eric around in the chair and showed him his comb and his handiwork. “It’s alright! I’m just parting the Red, see!”
Why do I love Ricochet? Let me count the ways! @jameslileks, this post should come to your attention.
That’s not funny.