by Sam Hoffman
While she is pondering her sad life before she expires, God suddenly appears before her and says, “I know you’ve had a tough life but I’m not ready to take you. Also, you’ll receive an ample sum for your injuries—it should easily last you for the twenty more years of life you’ll have!”
She’s overjoyed with the opportunity to finally enjoy life and figures that she might as well give herself the best opportunity. So, while still in the hospital, she gets cosmetic surgery for her face and entire body. After months of treatments and recovery, she looks in the mirror and sees that she is beautiful!
She leaves the hospital and gets in a taxi to go home. The taxi has a serious accident with another car and the woman feels her life ebbing away. Suddenly, God appears again. She says, “How could this happen? You told me that I would have another twenty years of life!”
God replies, “Oh shit! I didn’t recognize you!”
DANIEL OKRENT
Dan Okrent served for eighteen months as the first public editor of The New York Times.
Tommy the Cat
This is about Max and Morris, who are brothers in the shmata business, and they’ve been partners for years. Max has got a family, and Morris lives alone with his cat, Tommy.
And one day Max says to his brother, “Morris, you’ve just been working much too hard. You gotta take a vacation. You gotta get away from the business for a bit.”
Morris says, “How can I do that? Who’s gonna take care of my cat? Tommy the cat? I love him so much, I can’t be away from him.”
Max says, “I’ll take care of Tommy the cat.”
Morris says, “You’d do that for me?”
Max says, “Of course I’d do that for you. I’m your brother. You go have a nice time. Go to Miami. Have a nice trip.”
So Morris gets on a plane, he flies down. Soon as he gets off the plane, he gets out his cellphone and he calls up his brother. He says, “So Max, I’m in Miami. How’s Tommy the cat?”
Max says, “Well, Tommy the cat, he went for a walk on the roof, and he fell off. He’s dead.”
Morris says, “What are you saying to me?”
Max says, “I’m saying Tommy the cat went for a walk on the roof; he fell off. He’s dead.”
Morris says, “I can’t believe this. Max, how can you say this? This cat, this little guy, he means so much to me. You just tell me like this? You’ve got to learn how to break it to me gentle when you tell me something like that.”
Max says, “What do you mean, ‘break it to you gentle’?”
Morris says, “Well, this is what you should do: I get off the plane, I call you. I’d say, ‘How’s Tommy the cat?’ You’d say, ‘Oh, he’s got a little sniffle.’
“Then the next day, I’d check into the Fontainebleau. I’d get up in the morning; before I’ve even had my breakfast, I’d give you a call. I’d say, ‘So nu? With Tommy the cat and the sniffles?’
“You’d say, ‘Well, he got a little raspy in his chest, so I thought I’d take him to the hospital. But, you know, everything’s going to be okay. He’s a great little cat; the nurses love him.’
“And the next day, I’d go out and maybe play some shuffleboard, talk to the ladies. I call and again, I say, ‘So nu with Tommy the cat?’
“And you’d say to me something like ‘Well, you know, it’s a little touch-and-go, but I think he’s going to be okay. But just to be sure, we brought in a great cat man from Chicago. He’s going to take a good look at him and everything’s going to be all right.’
“Then the next day, I’d call and say, ‘Nu with the cat man from Chicago?’
“And you’d say, ‘Well, I hate to tell you this, Morris, but it’s not a happy ending. Tommy the cat was a great little cat, and he struggled, he fought, he was so courageous, but in the end he expired. They’d never seen a cat like this with such bravery. You should be proud.’
“So you see, when I go through a tragedy like this, don’t say, ‘Tommy the cat, he went for a walk on the roof, he fell off. He’s dead.’ You break it to me gentle, you understand?”
Max says, “Okay, I understand, I understand.”
“Good, now that you understand, so tell me, how’s Mom?”
Max says, “Well, she’s got a little sniffle.”
Marty Angstreich
Grief
So a man is walking through a cemetery when off in the distance he hears someone wailing, “Oy why did you die, oy why?”
As he walks closer, he sees the voice is coming from an elderly gentleman in a black yarmulke, praying at a gravestone and repeating over and over again, “Oy why did you die, oy why? Oy why did you die, oy why?”
The man goes up to the mourner and says, “Excuse me, sir, I don’t want to bother you in your time of grief, but the deceased must have been a dear loved one.”
The mourner cries, “No, I didn’t even know him!”
“You didn’t know him? Then who is it?”
The elderly gentleman replies in wails and tears, “It was my wife’s first husband! Oy why did you die, oy why?”
Dr. Josh Backon
Opening Night
It’s opening night on Broadway and the scalpers are having a field day; no tickets are to be had.
A middle-aged couple sees that next to them is a little old Jewish lady sitting next to an empty seat.
The man asks, “Whose seat is that?” and the old lady replies, “My late husband, Irving Bernstein.”
He says, “I’m sorry but surely you must have some friends or relatives who would have wanted to come and see the show!”
She replies, “Yes, but they’re all at the funeral.”
A Final Bonus Freudian Knock-Knock Joke
“Knock knock.”
“Who’s there?”
“Vienna.”
“Vienna who?”
“Vienna city in Austria. Vere did you think ve vere?”
Special Added Bonus Chapter
A Joke About Jokes
MICHAEL MILLER
For a comedy sketch on The Late Late Show, Michael Miller portrayed a drummer playing rim shots for an AARP comedian. Ringo Starr told him he was “fantastic.” Not a bad review for the first and last time he ever played the drums.
Jokes in Prison
This guy goes to prison. He’s very scared.
The first day he’s eating lunch, and when lunch is over he sees one of the inmates get up on the table and say, “Thirty-two!” and everybody in the whole place laughs. And then he says, “Sixty-eight!” and people are roaring.
The new prisoner says to the guy next to him, “What’s going on?”
The guy next to him says, “Well, you know, we’ve all been here so long, we’ve heard all the jokes. We’ve memorized them, so we don’t have to retell them. We just say the number, and people remember it, and then they laugh.”
Well, this guy just thinks that’s terrific. So he spends the entire next year memorizing and practicing all of the jokes.
He’s finally ready and he gets the nerve to try it. He stands up on the table and shouts, “Fifty-five!”
Dead silence. He can’t believe it. He thinks for a moment and says, “Seventy-four!”
Again the room is completely still. The other inmates stare at him. He starts to panic. So he picks the surefire one.
He says, “One hundred and three!”
Nothing happens.
He goes back to his seat. He says to the guy next to him, “What happened? What went wrong?”
The guy says, “Well, some people can tell a joke, and some people just can’t.”
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to acknowledge the following people, without whom this book would not be possible. Tim Williams, not only the most fundamentally decent man we’ll probably ever meet, but also one of the most Waspy, gets honorary Hebe status for his tireless efforts in support of this project. John Penotti, Mike Hogan, and Peter Block at Greenestreet Films/A Bigger Boat were always upbeat and enc
ouraging. Kate Lee at ICM helped us, a couple of publishing greenhorns, find a home. Thanks to Jill Schwartzman, our editor at Random House, who manages to be so nice even when she doesn’t like something. To Jon Podwil, for his game-changing work on the photographs, and to Antonio Rossi for his beautiful cinematography and his quiet chuckling behind the camera when the punch lines hit.
Sam, specifically, would like to thank his wife, Andrea, for her sly wit, constant support, and irrepressible honesty. He also thanks his mother for picking the exact right time to finally get a joke right and his father for the incomparable genetic gift of humor. He offers gratitude also to his parents’ extended community for their generous cooperation and wonderful jokes. Finally, he would like to thank Eric Spiegelman for his steadfast partnership, for being outrageously good at picking his battles, and for knowing so much stuff about the Internets.
Eric specifically thanks Tim Williams for believing in him, and, at the risk of being redundant, Sam Hoffman, who just totally knocked this one out of the park. He owes gratitude to a few other people as well: His dad for having an uncompromising sense of humor, which constantly forces Eric to raise his game, comedically speaking. His mom for doing everything she can to lend support (she even chipped in at the craft services table during production!). Mike Hudack at blip.tv, whose support for the video series was essential to its success. Liana Maeby for her constant encouragement and for generally putting up with him.
Both authors would like to recognize, appreciate, and applaud the American Jewish culture, which has elevated storytelling and laughter to the centerpiece of its very existence.
About the Authors
During a twenty-year career in the New York film industry, SAM HOFFMAN has produced, directed, or assistant-directed numerous films, shorts, second units, and commercials, including The Royal Tenenbaums, The School of Rock, The Producers (musical), Donnie Brasco, Dead Man Walking, and Groundhog Day. Currently, Hoffman is executive-producing The Oranges, starring Hugh Laurie and Catherine Keener.
In January 2009, Hoffman partnered with Jetpack Media to launch OldJewsTellingJokes.com—a website devoted to video portraits of old Jews telling jokes. Since then, the videos have been viewed more than 7 million times and have been released on DVD by First Run Features. The site, covered by countless blogs, has been featured in New York magazine, The Huffington Post, and The Wall Street Journal.
Hoffman graduated with honors from the University of Pennsylvania. He lives in New York City with his wife, Andrea Crane, a modern art specialist with the Gagosian Gallery, and their son, Jack, and daughter, Juliet.
ERIC SPIEGELMAN produces original Internet content for Jetpack Media, a production company founded by GreeneStreet Films in 2008. Before that, he was a lawyer. Spielgelman graduated from the University of California Hastings College of the Law and from Boston University. He lives in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles.
