Jokes Every Man Should Know Read online

  One Grand Master, named Meyerhof, realizes that he knows thousands of jokes, but he’s never met anyone who invented one of them. So he starts telling jokes to the computer, and he programs the machine to solve the riddle of where they all came from. Well, it turns out that they came from aliens, who implanted them in the human brain as an intergalactic experiment.

  Almost every joke in this book is of unknown origin. A few were staples of stand-up routines by pioneers like Henny Youngman and Myron Cohen. One was recently traced back to a British radio episode of The Goon Show and credited to the comic Spike Milligan. Another was composed by the comedian Emo Philips (it’s on his comedy album, E-Mo2). It’s a classic story joke even though it comes from stand up, and Emo has kindly let us print it here. As for the rest, hey, maybe we need to give those aliens credit.

  Three guys are at the open-casket funeral of a friend.

  The first one says, “There’s a legend in my family that if you bury a man with a little bit of money, it will help him in the afterlife,” and he puts ten dollars in the casket.

  The second guy wasn’t planning on it but digs into his wallet, finds a ten-dollar bill, and lays it on top of the first one.

  The third has a reputation for being cheap, so the first two look at him. “What, you think I won’t put it in, too?” he says. “I’ll put in twenty!” Then he writes a check for forty dollars, drops it in the casket, and takes the two ten-dollar bills as change.

  A man walks into a church and sits in the confession booth. He says to the priest, “Father, I have sinned; I was golfing yesterday and I cursed.”

  The priest replies, “Would you like to tell me about it?”

  “Well,” the guy says. “I was on the seventh hole, and I’d just hit my best drive of the day. It was straight ahead, middle of the fairway, and a long way out there. Feeling pretty good about myself, I walked toward my ball, but as I got within thirty feet of it, a squirrel ran out of the forest and grabbed my ball.”

  The priest interrupts, “Oh, I see, that’s when you cursed.”

  The man replies, “No, Father, I didn’t curse then. But as the squirrel was running away, it reached the edge of the fairway and was quickly caught by a hawk, which flew up high into the air.”

  Once again the priest interrupts, “So that’s when you cursed?”

  The man continues, “No, Father, the hawk started flying away, and I followed it, because it flew in the direction of the green. As it passed over the green, it dropped the squirrel out of its talons, causing the squirrel to drop my ball about three feet from the pin.”

  The priest says: “Don’t tell me you missed the fucking putt.”

  A tourist on safari in the Sahara Desert becomes separated from the tour group, and he is lost. It’s hot out there, and he starts roaming. After a long morning in the sun, he sees a man riding toward him on a donkey.

  “Please help me,” the tourist cries. “I’m dying of thirst!”

  “I’m sorry,” says the man on the donkey. “All I have are neckties.”

  “Neckties?” the tourist asks. “I need water.”

  “Look,” the man on the donkey says. “I like you. I normally get fifteen dollars each for these ties. But seeing how you are suffering, I’ll let you have two for twenty-five bucks.”

  The tourist can’t believe it. He waves the guy away. He is dying of thirst. He keeps walking. After four hours he can hardly go on, but he sees a small building. He crawls up to the door on the burning sand and sees a man standing at the door.

  “Please,” he asks, “Do you have any water?”

  “Water? Yeah,” the man at the door says. “We have plenty of water.”

  “Great, you don’t know how long I’ve been looking,” the tourist says, and he starts to go in.

  “Unfortunately,” says the man at the door. “I can’t let you in without a tie.”

  A stockbroker is walking down the street on the way to a lunch meeting when some punk kid walks up to him and asks, “Can you tell me what time it is?”

  The guy is a little annoyed, but he stops, pulls up his sleeve to see his watch, and says, “It’s quarter to twelve.”

  The punk says, “Thanks. At noon today, you can kiss my ass.” Then he runs off.

  The stockbroker is angry and sprints after him. After a couple blocks, he’s out of breath and he stops. Along comes a friend.

  “Why are you running?” the friend asks.

  “Some kid asked me what time it is and said at noon I’m going to kiss his ass.”

  The friend looks at his watch and says, “So what’s the rush? You still have ten minutes.”

  Bob and Joe meet in the clubhouse of the golf course.

  Bob says to Joe, “I hear you had a tragedy while you were golfing last week.”

  Joe says, “Yeah, I was playing a twosome with Harry, and at the ninth hole he dropped dead!”

  Bob says, “Someone told me you carried him back to the clubhouse. That must have been tough. He weighed over two hundred pounds, right?”

  Joe says, “Well, the carrying part wasn’t so hard. It was putting him down for every stroke and picking him up again.”

  The local United Way office realized it had never received a donation from the town’s most successful lawyer.

  A fundraiser called him up and said, “Sir, our research shows that you have an income of over $600,000, but you don’t give a penny to charity. Wouldn’t you like to give back to the community in some way?”

  The lawyer replied, “Did your research show that my mother is dying from a long illness and her medical bills are several times her income?”

  The United Way volunteer said, “No, sir, I apologize, we didn’t realize . . .”

  The lawyer continued: “And that my brother, a disabled veteran, is blind and confined to a wheelchair?”

  The caller was about to apologize further, but the lawyer continued: “And my sister’s husband was killed in a car accident, leaving her penniless, with three children!?”

  The United Way rep was aghast and just said, “I’m so sorry.”

  The lawyer continued: “And I don’t give any money to them. So why should I give any to you?”

  A guy walks into a bakery known for making fancy cakes. He says, “I’d like to have a cake shaped like the letter S.”

  The baker says he can do it, but the cake will be expensive. The man confirms that price is no object. The baker tells him to come back after three o’clock.

  When he comes back, the baker unveils a beautiful S cake, but the man is upset.

  “I wanted a cake with an S in cursive script, not a block letter!”

  The baker says, “Not a problem, sir. Come back at seven o’clock and we’ll take care of you.”

  At seven, the guy comes back, and the baker rolls out a beautiful cake shaped like an S in lavish script. The guy says, “The frosting is all wrong. Please make it pink and green only.”

  The baker says, “OK, fine. We can do that. Wait here and we’ll have it right back out.”

  A half hour later the baker brings the cake out again, shows it, and the man is finally happy. The baker pulls out a cake box and starts putting it in.

  “Hey, no, don’t do that,” the guy says. “I’ll eat it here.”

  This Joke Belongs to Emo Philips

  Most of the jokes in this book have unclear authorship. This is an exception. It was written and is performed by the comedian Emo Philips. He’s given us permission to use it, as long as we keep it in his voice:

  Once I was walking along the Golden Gate Bridge and I saw this guy about to jump.

  I said, “Don’t jump.”

  He said, “Nobody loves me.”

  I said, “God loves you. Are you a Christian or a Jew?”

  He said, “A Christian.”

  I said, “Me too! Protestant or Catholic?”

  He said, “Protestant.”

  I said, “Me too! What denomination?”

  He said, “Baptist.”r />
  I said, “Me too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?”

  He said, “Northern Baptist.”

  I said, “Me too! Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?”

  He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist.”

  I said, “Me too! Northern Conservative Baptist, Great Lakes Conference, or Northern Conservative Baptist, Eastern Conference?”

  He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist, Great Lakes Conference.”

  I said, “Me too! Northern Conservative Baptist, Great Lakes Conference, Council of 1879, or Northern Conservative Baptist, Great Lakes Conference, Council of 1912?”

  He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist, Great Lakes Conference, Council of 1912.”

  I said, “Die, heretic!” And I pushed him off.

  A Catholic teenager goes to confession and admits to having an affair with a girl. The priest says the boy can’t be forgiven until he reveals the identity of the girl.

  “I promised not to tell!” he says.

  “Was it Mary Patricia, the butcher’s daughter?” the priest asks.

  “No, and I said I wouldn’t tell,” the boy says.

  “Was it Mary Elizabeth, the printer’s daughter?”

  “No, and I still won’t tell!”

  “Was it Mary Francis, the baker’s daughter?”

  “No,” says the boy.

  “Well, son,” says the priest, “I have no choice but to excommunicate you for six months.”

  Outside the church, the boy’s friends ask what happened.

  “Well,” he says, “I got six months, but three good leads.”

  A guy goes into the church confessional and says, “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. I slept with five different women last night.”

  The priest says, “Go home, squeeze five lemons into a glass, and drink it all as fast as you can.”

  “And I will be forgiven?” asks the man.

  “No,” the priest says, “but it will wipe that smirk off your face.”

  A traveling salesman is asked to stay for dinner with a farm family. In the dining room he finds the farmer, his wife, three children, and a pig seated at the table.

  The pig has three medals around his neck and a wooden leg. The salesman can’t help but comment: “I see there is a pig joining us for dinner.”

  “Yes,” says the farmer, “this is a very special pig. See those three medals around his neck? You might like to know how he got them.”

  “I certainly would,” said the salesman.

  “Well, one day our oldest son fell in the pond and was drowning. That pig dived into the pond, swam to our boy, and pulled him back to safety. He got the first medal for saving our boy’s life.

  “He got the second medal when a fire accidentally lit up the barn, trapping our daughter inside. The pig ran through the flames and pushed our girl outside. Then two weeks later, our youngest boy was cornered in the paddock by an angry bull. That pig squirmed under the fence, grabbed the bull by the tail, and held him, while our son escaped. He got the third medal for that.”

  The salesman, having listened carefully, said, “I can see that the pig is special, and I can understand why he received the medals and deserves to sit at this table. But, tell me, how did he get the wooden leg?”

  The farmer smiled and said, “Well, sir, a pig that good, you don’t eat him all at once.”

  A man and woman have been married for forty years, and for the whole time the man has had a strange, secret box under their bed. He made his wife promise never to look inside it.

  Over forty years of marriage, the wife never looked. But on the afternoon of their fortieth anniversary, she decided enough was enough. The suspense was killing her. She lifted the lid and peeked inside. In the box were three empty beer bottles and eight hundred dollars in small bills. She closed the box and put it back under the bed.

  That night, she and her husband went out for dinner at their favorite restaurant. The wife couldn’t contain her curiosity, so she confessed: “I am so sorry. For all these years I kept my promise and never looked in your box under the bed. But today the temptation was too much, and I gave in. Now I can’t stop wondering why you keep the bottles in the box.”

  The man thought for a while and said, “I guess after all these wonderful years, you deserve to know the truth: Whenever I was unfaithful to you, I put an empty beer bottle in the box under the bed to remind myself not to do it again.”

  The woman was shocked, but said, “I am very disappointed and saddened. But I suppose that after all those years away from home, on the road, temptation does happen, and three times isn’t really that many.”

  They hugged and made their peace. A little while later the woman asked the man: “So why do you have all that money in the box?”

  The man responded: “Whenever the box filled with empties, I cashed them in.”

  A musician sees a piano player wanted sign outsidea bar. He goes in and explains that he’s been playing for years. His repertoire includes old standards as well as many original tunes.

  The manager asks him to play something, so he sits down and plays a beautiful piece.

  “Wow, what do you call that?” the manager says.

  “‘An Elephant Is Standing on My Crotch and Crushing My Balls,’” the guy says.

  “Hmm,” says the manager, “Play something else.”

  The guy plays another original piece, even more lovely than the first.

  “Wow, what’s that one called?” the manager asks.

  “That one is called ‘I Love to Eat Diarrhea,’” he says.

  The manager decides to give the guy the job but makes him promise not to tell any customers the names of his songs. Things go really well. The crowds love the musician. One night after a great set, he takes a bathroom break and forgets to zip up.

  A patron comes up to him and says, “Hey, do you know your pants are unzipped and your wang is hanging out?”

  “Know it?” the musician says. “I wrote it!”

  Cultural Touchstone Alert!

  The classic mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap tips its hat to this joke in a scene where heavy-metal guitarist Nigel

  Tufnel, played by Christopher Guest, plays a surprisingly beautiful song on the piano. Filmmaker Marty DiBergi (Rob Reiner) asks him what he calls the tune, and Nigel says, “‘Lick My Love Pump.’”

  EIGHT JOKES JUST FOR KIDS

  No well-rounded man should leave home without a pocketful of jokes that will make little kids laugh. Because we’re all kids at heart. Plus, the ability to amuse children can score huge points with pretty young moms and school-teachers. These jokes for kids have been tested successfully on actual children.

  Knock knock.

  Who’s there?

  An interrupting cow.

  An interrupting co—

  MOO!

  Three guys are on a boat and it crashes on a deserted island. There’s no one on the island and very little food, so they keep hoping they will be rescued. One day, they find a magic lantern in the sand. They rub it, and out comes a magic genie! The genie says each guy can have one wish granted.

  The first guy says, “I wish I was off this island and back home.” And poof! The wish comes true, and the guy is gone.

  The second guy wishes the same thing. “I wish I was off this island and back home.” And poof! He’s gone off the island, back home.

  Then the third guy gets his wish. He says: “I’m lonely. I wish all my friends were back here.”

  Q: What’s brown and sticky?

  A: A stick.

  A duck walks into a store and asks for some lipstick.

  The cashier says to the duck, “That’ll be $1.49.”

  The duck says: “Put it on my bill!”

  A dog goes into a newspaper to place an advertisement. He wants to sell one of his bones.

  “What do you want your ad to say?” asks the person at the newspaper.

  “Woof Woof Woof. Woof Woof Woof. Woof Woof
Woof,” the dog says.

  The newspaper clerk says. “Okay. That’s nine woofs. You know, we charge ten dollars for an ad with ten words. You could add another woof without paying any extra money.”

  The dog says, “But that wouldn’t make any sense.”

  A guy and his dumb friend are out in the driveway when the guy asks his dumb friend to help him with something.

  “I think the blinker signal on my car may be broken. Can you stand behind the car, and I’ll turn it on, and you tell me if it’s working?”

  The dumb guy says, “Sure,” and he goes behind the car. The guy sits in the driver’s seat and turns on the blinker signal.

  “Is it working?” he yells back.

  “Yes!” says the dumb guy. “No! Yes! No! Yes! No!”

  Q: Why were all the other numbers afraid of seven?

  A: Because seven ate nine.

  Three astronauts—who come from America, Russia, and Stupidland—are talking.

  The Russian cosmonaut says, “Russia was the first country to send a rocket ship into outer space!”

  The American astronaut says, “We did even better! America was the first country to land a spacecraft on the moon!”

  The astronaut from Stupidland says, “We will do even better. Our country is going to land a spaceship on the sun!”

  “Land on the sun? Impossible,” say the American and Russian. “You’ll burn up!”

  “NO!” says the astronaut from Stupidland. “We are going to land at night!”

  Brenda O’Malley is home making dinner when Tim Finnegan arrives at her door.

  “Brenda, may I come in?” he asks. “I’ve somethin’ to tell ya.”

  “Of course you can come in, Tim. But where’s my husband?”

  “That’s what I’m here to be tellin’ ya, Brenda. There was an accident down at the Guinness Brewery . . .”

  “Oh, God, no!” cries Brenda. “Please don’t tell me.”

  “I must, Brenda. Your husband, Seamus, is dead and gone. I’m sorry.”

  Finally, she looked up at Tim. “How did it happen, Tim?”

  “It was terrible, Brenda. He fell into a vat of Guinness Stout and drowned.”

  “Oh sweet Jaysus! Did he at least go quickly?”