Friar's Club Encyclopedia of Jokes

by Barry Dougherty

  He says, “That’s not my ring. It’s my wristwatch.”

  Death and Dying

  It’s not that I’m afraid to die. I just don’t want to be there when it happens.

  —WOODY ALLEN

  Ellen and Dan had been married for fifty-seven years when her health began to fail. Eventually she was hospitalized, and within a few weeks it became evident that she had only a few more days to live. “Dan, I have only one last request,” she whispered to her husband with the last of her strength.

  “Anything, dearest,” her husband told her tenderly.

  “In all these years, we never had oral sex, and I don’t want to die without knowing what it feels like. Go down on me.”

  Dan was more than a little taken aback, but he figured he’d gotten off easy all those years and that she probably wouldn’t last more than another day or two. So he closed the door and proceeded to comply with his wife’s dying wish. He was even more startled to observe a distinct blush on her cheeks the next day at what he expected would be his final visit. To Dan’s amazement and that of the whole hospital, Ellen was sitting up in bed the following day, and within a week she was well enough to be discharged.

  Dan was in the room when the doctor told them the happy news, and Ellen was shocked to see her husband break down in tears. “Dan, what’s wrong? “What’s wrong?” she implored.

  “I was just realizing,” sobbed Dan, “that I coulda’ saved Eleanor Roosevelt.”

  Peter and James have been friends for more than sixty years. One day Peter says, “James, let’s make a pact: whoever dies first will try to come back and tell the other what heaven’s like.”

  They both agree, but none too soon, because the next day James is done in by a sudden heart attack.

  Six months later, just when Peter is giving up any hope of hearing from his friend, a voice wakes him up in the middle of the night.

  “James, is that you?” Peter asks in amazement.

  “You’re right, you’re not wrong,” James answers.

  “Well, tell me. What’s it like?”

  “You wouldn’t believe it. All day long, all we do is eat and fuck. We get up in the morning, eat breakfast, and fuck, then we eat lunch and fuck until dinner. After dinner we fuck some more. We fuck until we pass out, then we wake up and fuck some more,” James explains.

  “Holy shit!” exclaims Peter. “If that’s heaven, I can’t wait to die!”

  “Who said anything about heaven?” a perplexed James replies. “I’m in Nevada and I’m a rabbit.”

  Did you hear about the hillbilly who passed away and left his estate in trust for his bereaved widow?

  She can’t touch it until she’s fourteen.

  There are two things we’re sure of: death and taxes. Now, if only we could get them in that order!

  —JOEY ADAMS

  “Here lies the body of Harry Hershfield. If not, notify Ginsberg and Co., undertakers, at once.”

  —HARRY HERSHFIELD’S SUGGESTION FOR HIS OWN EPITAPH

  When Irving retired, he and his wife, who was much younger, moved to Boca Raton. Once they’d settled in, he decided it was about time to make a will, so he made an appointment with a lawyer.

  “It’s nice and straightforward,” he instructed the attorney. “Everything goes to Rachel—the house, the car, the pension, the life insurance—on condition that she remarry within the year.”

  “Fine, Mr. Patron,” said the lawyer. “But do you mind my asking why the condition?”

  “Simple: I want at least one person to be sorry I died.”

  I know a guy who saved all his life to buy a cemetery plot. Then he took a cruise and was lost at sea.

  —NORM CROSBY

  The obituary editor of a Boston newspaper was not one to admit his mistakes easily. One day he got a phone call from an irate subscriber who complained that his name had been printed in the obituary column.

  “Really?” replied the editor calmly. “And where are you calling from?”

  —JOEY ADAMS

  Two old guys wonder if there’s baseball in heaven, and promise each other that the first to die will somehow let the other one know. A week later, one of them dies. And a week after that, his friend recognizes his voice coming down from the clouds.

  “Joe, I’ve got some good news and some bad news,” the disembodied voice reports. “The good news is that there is a baseball team in heaven. The bad news is that you’re pitching on Friday.”

  The phone rang in the Obituary Department of a Miami newspaper. “How much does it cost to have an obituary printed?” asked a woman.

  “It’s five dollars a word, ma’am,” replied the clerk politely.

  “Fine,” said the woman after a brief pause. “Got a pencil?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Got some paper?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Okay, write this down: ‘Cohen dead’.”

  ‘That’s it?” asked the clerk disbelievingly.

  “That’s it.”

  “I’m sorry, I should have told you, ma’am—there’s a five-word minimum.”

  “Yes, you should’ve, young man,” snapped the woman. “Now let me think a minute. . . . All right, got a pencil?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Got some paper?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Okay, here goes: ‘Cohen dead. Cadillac for Sale’.”

  My uncle Pat, he reads the obituaries in the paper every morning. And he can’t understand how people always die in alphabetical order.

  —HAL ROACH

  The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.

  —MARK TWAIN

  Eternity is a terrible thought. I mean, when’s it going to end?

  —TOM STOPPARD

  For the four executives, the high point of the annual stockholders meeting was their Sunday afternoon golf game. They had just teed off on the twelfth hole when an assistant golf pro came tearing across the green, red-faced and out of breath. “Mr. Webster, Mr. Webster,” he gasped, “I have terrible news. Your wife has just been killed in a car accident.”

  Webster turned to his companions and said, “Guys, I gotta warn you. Six more holes and you’re gonna see a man crying his eyes out.”

  How can they tell?

  —DOROTHY PARKER, ON BEING INFORMED OF

  THE DEMISE OF PRESIDENT CALVIN COOLIDGE

  The son was sitting at the bedside of his elderly father, who was dying. “Where do you want to be buried,” asked the son, “Forest Lawn or New York City?”

  The old man got up on his elbow and said, “Surprise me!”

  —JOEY ADAMS

  Death is nature’s way of telling you to slow down.

  For three days after death, hair and fingernails continue to grow, but phone calls taper off.

  —JOHNNY CARSON

  If Shaw and Einstein couldn’t beat death, what chance have I got? Practically none.

  —MEL BROOKS

  A guy returns from a long trip to Europe, having left his beloved cat in his brother’s care. The minute he clears customs, he calls his brother and inquires after his pet.

  “The cat’s dead,” replies his brother bluntly.

  The guy is devastated. “You don’t know how much that cat meant to me,” he sobs into the phone. “Couldn’t you at least have given a little thought to a nicer way of breaking the news? For instance, couldn’t you have said, ‘Well, you know, the cat got out of the house one day and climbed up on the roof, and the fire department couldn’t get her down, and finally she died of exposure . . . or starvation . . . or something’? Why are you always so thoughtless?”

  “Look, I’m really, really sorry,” says his brother. “I’ll try to do better next time, I swear.”

  “Okay, let’s just put it behind us. How are you, anyway? How’s Mom?”

  There was a long pause. “Uh,” the brother finally stammers, “uh . . . Mom’s on the roof.”

  The waiter dies and his wife is d
istraught. One day she meets someone who assures her that she can speak to her beloved husband through a medium, and arranges a visit. At the séance the wife presses both hands on the table and calls out, “Sam, Sam, speak to me!”

  A haunting, whistling noise follows, and then a faint voice cries, “I can’t—it’s not my table!”

  I’m desperately trying to figure out why Kamikaze pilots wore helmets.

  —GEORGE CARLIN

  When I die, I want to go like my grandfather . . . in his sleep. Not screaming like the other passengers in his car.

  Some sad news from Australia . . . the inventor of the boomerang grenade died today.

  —JOHNNY CARSON

  Having been informed after a regular medical examination that he was virtually certain to die within twenty-four hours from a rare and obscure disease, the doomed man rushed home, told his wife, and proceeded to make love to her as often as he could manage until late into the night. He finally fell asleep, but then awoke, began to fondle his wife, and whispered in her ear, “I want to make love to you one last time!”

  “That’s easy enough for you to say, Roy,” was her exhausted, yawned response. “You don’t have to get up in the morning.”

  A man called the undertaker one afternoon and sobbed: “Come and bury my wife.”

  “But I buried your wife ten years ago,” replied the undertaker.

  “I got married again,” the man sobbed.

  “Oh,” said the undertaker. “Congratulations.”

  I sometimes wonder if necrophiliacs are really into dead people or if they just enjoy the quiet.

  —DOUG STANHOPE

  If I ever commit suicide, I’m going to fling myself off the top of a skyscraper, but before I do, I’m going to stuff my pockets with candy and gum. That way when the onlookers walk up, they can go, “Oh man, he really must have been dep—hey, Snickers!”

  —PATTON OSWALT

  Debts

  Mr. Stone was in dire need of periodontal work, so Dr. Graves performed a series of operations over a three-month period. The patient, however, paid only the first third, ignoring all Dr. Graves’s remittance notices and threats of collection agencies. Finally, the desperate dentist enclosed a snapshot of his three little children in a note reading, “Dear Mr. Stone—here’s why I need the money you owe me.”

  Dr. Graves was thrilled when an envelope arrived from Stone the next week. Opening it up, he found a large photograph of a gorgeous woman. Scrawled on the bottom was a note from his errant patient: “Dear Dr. Graves—here’s why I can’t pay.”

  A manufacturer said to a storekeeper, “Thank you, Mr. Schwartz, for your patronage. I wish I had twenty customers like you.”

  “Gee, it’s good to hear you talk like that, but I’m kind of surprised,” admitted Schwartz. “You know that I protest every bill and never pay on time.”

  The manufacturer said, “I’d still like twenty customers like you. The problem is, I have two hundred.”

  —JOEY ADAMS

  Dieting

  What do a fat girl and a moped have in common?

  They’re both fun to ride as long as nobody sees you.

  A guy ate a dinner that was so big, when he asked what he could wash it down with, he was told, “Lake Erie.”

  —HENNY YOUNGMAN

  I have a great diet. You’re allowed to eat anything you want, but you have to eat it with naked fat people.

  —ED BLUESTONE

  Finally admitting he was grossly overweight, this man decided it was time to take advantage of a special introductory offer from a new weight-loss clinic in town. After handing over his payment, he was shown into an empty room, where he was soon joined by a gorgeous blond. “Hi,” she said. “If you catch me, I’m yours.”

  It took a while, but after a prolonged chase, he succeeded—and was delighted to find he’d lost ten pounds in the process. After that, he gave up all ideas of dieting and managed to drop ten more pounds with a brunette and eight with a redhead. But he was still fifty pounds overweight, so he decided to sign up for the clinic’s more drastic program. He was waiting eagerly in an empty room when the door opened and in came a three-hundred-pound gay guy, who grinned and said, “If I catch you, you’re mine!”

  A girl who is a picture of health usually has a nice frame.

  The biggest seller is cookbooks and the second is diet books—how not to eat what you’ve just learned how to cook.

  —ANDY ROONEY

  The second day of a diet is always easier than the first. By the second day, you’re off it.

  —JACKIE GLEASON

  She’s so fat, she’s my two best friends. She wears stretch caftans.

  She’s got more chins than the Chinese telephone directory.

  An overweight man went to his doctor and said, “I’m desperate, Doc, I’m desperate. I’ve gotta lose weight. Every diet I try, nothing works. Nothing works. You gotta give me something to help me lose weight.”

  The doctor says, “Don’t worry, I got a great diet. It’s going to sound a little odd, but it works. Just, whatever you eat, whatever food you put in your body, you have to put it up anally. It all goes up your ass.”

  The overweight guy said, “You sure of this—because I . . .”

  “Trust me. Trust me. It works. You gotta try it.”

  “All right, I’ll try.” He goes away and three months later, he comes back and he’s lost forty pounds. He says, “Doc! This is fabulous, this is great! Look at this diet! You did fabulous—I’ve lost all this weight!”

  The doctor says, “I’m glad to hear that, but what are you doing? Why are you moving your ass back and forth?”

  He says, “I’m chewing gum.”

  What’s it mean to go on the Scarsdale Diet?

  You shoot your doctor, then spend the rest of your life eating bread and water.

  Another good reducing exercise consists of placing both hands against the table edge and pushing back.

  —ROBERT QUILLEN

  I just found out about a fabulous new diet. It has two parts. First, you can only eat bagels and lox, and second, you have to live in Syria.

  I’ve been on the Valium diet for eight and a half years now. If you take enough Valium, it’ll help you lose weight. It doesn’t really curb your appetite, but most of your food falls on the floor.

  —GEORGE MILLER

  Is she fat? Her favorite food is seconds.

  —JOAN RIVERS

  You do not sew with a fork, and I see no reason why you should eat with knitting needles.

  —MISS PIGGY, ON CHOPSTICKS

  Let me put it this way: According to my girth, I should be a ninety-foot redwood.

  —ERMA BOMBECK

  In one of his pictures, Jimmy Cagney shoved a grapefruit into a girl’s face, and it was considered shocking. Now it’s considered a diet.

  I went on a diet, swore off drinking and heavy eating, and in fourteen days, I lost two weeks.

  —JOE E. LEWIS

  There’s someone at every party who eats all the celery.

  —KIN HUBBARD

  Divorce

  If it weren’t for divorce, where would coffee shops get their waitresses?

  It’s a sad fact that 50 percent of marriages in this country end in divorce. But, hey, the other half end in death. You could be one of the lucky ones!

  —RICHARD JENI

  This guy called up his lawyer to tell him he was suing for divorce, and the lawyer inquired as to his grounds for the suit.

  “Can you believe my wife says I’m a lousy lover?” sputtered the husband.

  “That’s why you’re suing?” asked the lawyer.

  “Of course not. I’m suing because she knows the difference.”

  The workaholic husband was trying to appease his wife, who was infuriated by how little time he spent at home. “Tell me what you want, Louise,” he begged. “Nothing’s too good for you. How about a new Cuisinart?”

  She shook her head.

  “A mink? Floor l
ength this time?”

  Her pout deepened.

  “A two-week Caribbean cruise?”

  She shook her head more vehemently.

  “A ski chalet? Or maybe a place at the beach?”

  Still no. “So what do you want, Louise?” asked her frustrated mate.

  “A divorce.”

  “Gee, I wasn’t planning to spend that much,” he admitted.

  Alimony is like buying oats for a dead horse.

  —ARTHUR (BUGS) BAER

  The wages of sin is alimony.

  —CAROLYN WELLS

  God made man. God made women. And when God found that men could not get along with women, God made Mexico.

  —LARRY STORCH

  Divorce is painful. There’s an easy way to save yourself a lot of trouble. Just find a woman you hate and buy her a house.

  —PAT PAULSEN

  Shatzkin was used to the occasional late-night call, usually from a client who’d had an accident of some sort, but this night it was an agitated woman obviously in the middle of a violent argument with her husband.

  “Tell me, Mr. Shatzkin,” she yelled over the noise of her mate’s ranting in the background, “if a husband leaves his wife, is she or is she not legally entitled to the house and its contents?”

  “I can’t give such advice over the phone, especially without knowing the particulars of the case,” the lawyer reasonably pointed out. “Call my office in the morning and we’ll set up an appointment.”

  The background roars had subsided, and the woman continued in a normal tone without skipping a beat. “She’s also entitled to the time-share, both cars, and the joint savings account? Thank you very much.” And she hung up with a triumphant smile.

  A lonely divorcée was driving home from work one evening, when she saw a man trying to hitch a ride. She picked him up and they got to talking.

  “What do you do?” she asked him.

  “I recently escaped from prison, where I was serving a life sentence for killing my wife.”

  “Oh, does that mean you’re available?”

  Open marriage is nature’s way of telling you you need a divorce.

  —MARSHALL BRICKMAN

  Many a man owes his success to his first wife. And his second wife to his success.