Friar's Club Encyclopedia of Jokes

by Barry Dougherty

And the workers went unto their Supervisors and sayeth,

  “It is a pail of dung and none may abide the odor thereof.”

  And the Supervisors went unto their Managers and sayeth unto them,

  “It is a container of excrement and it is very strong, such that none may abide by it.”

  And the Managers went unto their Directors and sayeth, “It is a vessel of fertilizer, and none may abide its strength.” And the Directors spoke amongst themselves, saying one to another,

  “It contains that which aids plant growth, and it is very strong.” And the Directors went unto the Vice Presidents and sayeth unto them,

  “It promotes growth and is very powerful.”

  And the Vice Presidents went unto the President and sayeth unto him,

  “This new plan will actively promote the growth and efficiency of this Company, and these Areas in particular.”

  And the President looked upon the Plan,

  And saw that it was good, and the Plan became Company Policy.

  This Is How Shit Happens.

  T

  Talent

  After my screen test, the director clapped his hands gleefully and yelled, “She can’t talk! She can’t act! She’s sensational!”

  —AVA GARDNER

  Some people think a juggler is talented. Could be a schizophrenic playing catch.

  —BOB DUBAC

  I know this guy who’s a gift to humanity, but so is Kaopectate.

  —JAN MURRAY

  A TV producer was pitching his idea for a holiday special to a room full of jaded network executives. “It’s gonna get fabulous ratings,” he raved. “I’ve gotten Spielberg to direct it.”

  “Steven?”

  “No, Bernie. Bright kid right out of UCLA film school, does great work. And for the composer, I’ve got Sondheim all lined up.”

  “Stephen?”

  “No, Maxie. She’s written some great jingles, very talented, you’ll eat her work right up. And for the singer, I’ve got Goulet.”

  “Robert?”

  “Yes!”

  “Shit.”

  “Please, Mr. Grossman, my act is really something special. Just give me a minute.” Before the talent scout could object, the desperate actor climbed up on the desk, flapped his arms, and proceeded to fly around the room twice.

  “Okay,” said the agent, “so you can imitate birds. “What else?”

  We’ve all been blessed with God-given talents. Mine just happens to be beating people up.

  —SUGAR RAY LEONARD

  I know a guy who plays a pretty good piano. It’s a Steinway.

  If it wasn’t for my faults, I’d be perfect.

  This woman is sitting in a bar, wearing some sort of tube top. She has never shaved her armpits in her entire life, so, as a result, she has a thick black bush under each arm. Every twenty minutes, she raises her arm up and flags the bartender for another drink.

  This goes on all night. The other people in the bar see her hairy armpits every time she raises her arm.

  Near the end of the evening, this drunk at the end of the bar says to the bartender, “Hey, I’d like to buy the ballerina a drink.”

  The bartender replies, “She’s not a ballerina. What makes you think she’s a ballerina?”

  The drunk says, “Any girl who can lift her leg that high has to be a ballerina!”

  Taxes

  When Mr. Fine was audited, the IRS took exception to certain deductions, among them one for the birth of a child. “She was born in January,” the auditor pointed out.

  “So?” he protested. “It was last year’s business.”

  Somehow the IRS auditor knew it was my first audit. “How could you tell?” I asked.

  “For this kind of examination you don’t have to undress,” she explained.

  What gets me is that estimated tax return. You have to guess how much money you’re going to make. You have to fill it out, sign it, send it in. I sent mine in last week. I didn’t sign it. If I have to guess how much money I’m gonna make, let them guess who sent it.

  —JIMMY EDMONTON (PROFESSOR BACKWARDS)

  “Where’s my paycheck?” asked the clerk of the paymaster in the big plant. The cashier explained, “Well, after deducting withholding tax, state income tax, city tax, Social Security, retirement fund, unemployment insurance, hospitalization, dental insurance, group life insurance, and your donation to the company welfare fund, you owe us fourteen dollars and twenty-five cents.”

  —JOEY ADAMS

  “Now, class, who can tell me what caused the American Revolution to break out?” asked Mrs. Humphries of her freshman economics class.

  “Taxation,” replied a student in the front row.

  “Very good, Sherry,” The teacher turned to a boy whose hand was waving. “Yes, Andrew?”

  “I have a question, Mrs. Humphries. How come they teach that we won?”

  You know what they’re doing with your taxes? They’re spending your money, hundreds of billions of dollars, on defense. To defend us from the Russians, the Nicaraguans, the Libyans, the Iranians. When was the last time a Russian broke into your car? I’m not worried about Russians, I’m worried about Americans! You’re going to defend me, defend me from Americans! Get my butt back from Burger King alive!

  —BLAKE CLARK

  When Joe Louis was asked who had hit him the hardest during his boxing career, he replied, “That’s easy—Uncle Sam!”

  I just saw a modern-day version of Faust. In the first act he sells his soul to the devil. Then he spends the rest of the opera trying to convince the Internal Revenue Service it was a long-term capital gain.

  The income tax has made more liars out of the American people than golf has.

  —WILL ROGERS (ATTRIBUTED)

  I don’t know why they couple death and taxes. You only die once.

  Of the two basic certainties, death and taxes, death is preferable. At least you’re not called in six months later for an audit.

  —BILL VAUGHAN

  You’ve got to admire the IRS. Any organization that makes that much money without advertising deserves respect.

  One young man applied for the job of bookkeeper. “Can you do double-entry?” he was asked.

  “No problem,” he replied, “and I can do triple-entry, too.”

  “Triple-entry?”

  “Sure. One for the working partner, showing the true profits, another for the sleeping partner showing small profits, and a third for the tax authorities showing a loss.”

  —JOEY ADAMS

  I wouldn’t mind paying taxes, if I knew they were going to a friendly country.

  —DICK GREGORY

  Technology

  Cordless phones are great. If you can find them.

  —GLENN FOSTER

  Now they’ve got a stereo that gives real concert hall sound. Every two minutes it coughs and rattles a program.

  A guy is walking down the street and passes a hardware store advertising a sale on a chain saw that is capable of cutting seven hundred trees in seven hours. The guy thinks that’s a great deal and decides to buy one.

  The next day, he comes back with the saw and complains to the salesman that the thing didn’t come close to chopping down the seven hundred trees the ad said it would.

  “Well,” said the salesman, “let’s test it out back.”

  Finding a log, the salesman pulls the starter cord and the saw makes a great roaring sound.

  “What’s that noise?” asks the guy.

  Smith was a man of cold facts, a scientist, a computer jock, and a confirmed atheist. He became somewhat obsessed with the desire to prove the truth. So he mortgaged his house and sold his car in order to put a down payment on the most powerful computer commercially available.

  Then Smith plugged it into every data bank in the world, accessed every library in the United States and Europe, and had the machine scan every book published since the invention of the printing press.

  Finally, Smith sat down at the
console, took a deep breath, and typed, “Is there a God?”

  The monitor flickered, the hard drives clicked, and up on the screen came the words, “There is now.”

  “I hate this darn machine,” complained an office worker about his newly automated work station. “It never does what I want it to do, only what I tell it.”

  I don’t see why religion and science can’t cooperate. What’s wrong with using a computer to count our blessings?

  —ROBERT ORBEN

  I’m addicted to the Internet. I check into the hotel. Try to go online on my laptop. Doesn’t work. Call the front desk. Lady’s like, “Sorry, sir, we don’t have Internet service in all our hotel rooms. But don’t worry, we have free wireless in the lobby.”

  “You’re saying I have to whack off in the lobby?”

  —JEFFREY ROSS

  It is amazing how email has changed our lives. You ever get a handwritten letter in the mail today? “What the . . . ? Has someone been kidnapped?”

  —JIM GAFFIGAN

  At mail call, Ensign Smith was delighted to be handed a big envelope from his wife, but was rather puzzled by the intricate drawing it contained. At the bottom he found his wife had scrawled a brief note. “This is how our dashboard looks,” it read. “Do we need oil?”

  Did you hear about the inventor who worked for years on a cross between a toaster and an electric blanket?

  He was going to sell it to people who wanted to pop out of bed.

  He’s also developing a new smoke detector—it comes with a snooze alarm.

  How do they know computers existed in biblical times?

  Because Eve had an Apple, and Adam had a Wang.

  What do you call a genetic engineering company in Italy?

  Genitalia.

  What’s dumb?

  Directions on toilet paper.

  What’s dumber than that?

  Reading them.

  Even dumber?

  Reading them and learning something.

  Dumbest of all?

  Reading them and having to correct something you’ve been doing wrong.

  Did you hear about the new calculator for dumb people? It’s a giant hand with ten thousand fingers.

  How can you spot a secretary who’s a slow learner?

  He’s the one with White-Out all over his screen, and the one who puts his floppies in the Xerox machine to copy files.

  What’s the difference between a JAP and a computer? A computer sometimes goes down.

  Teenagers

  Remember that as a teenager you are at the last stage in your life when you will be happy to hear that the phone is for you.

  —FRAN LEBOWITZ

  When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant, I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.

  —MARK TWAIN

  She has her own apartment, in mine.

  —JEAN CARROLL, ABOUT HER TEENAGE DAUGHTER’S LIFESTYLE

  Somewhat skeptical of his son’s newfound determination to become Charles Atlas, the father nevertheless followed the teenager over to the weight-lifting department. “Please, Dad,” wheedled the boy, “I promise I’ll use ’em every day. . . .”

  “I dunno, Michael. It’s really a commitment on your part,” the father pointed out.

  “Please, Dad?”

  “They’re not cheap either.”

  “I’ll use ’em Dad, I promise. You’ll see.”

  Finally won over, the father paid for the equipment and headed for the door. From the corner of the store he heard his son yelp, “What! You mean I have to carry them to the car?”

  Many a man wishes he were strong enough to tear a telephone book in half—especially if he has a teenage daughter.

  —GUY LOMBARDO

  Television

  I was watching the Discovery channel the other day and I discovered something. I need a girlfriend.

  —DAVE ATTELL

  Who else but a television executive would refer to a salad as a “lead in?”

  —BOB HOPE

  Let me get this straight: The networks won’t give gavel-to-gavel coverage of political conventions because they’re dull, but fight for the privilege of broadcasting all the laps of the Indianapolis 500?

  —ROGER SIMON

  Imitation is the sincerest form of television.

  —FRED ALLEN

  A television producer is someone who spends your money, picks up your laundry, books your guests, and when your show is canceled, lends you his car for you to go to the unemployment office.

  —BOB HOPE

  Ninety-eight percent of American homes have TV sets—which means the people in the other two percent of the households have to generate their own sex and violence.

  —FRANKLIN P. JONES

  Some sports I can’t watch on TV. I don’t mind the games—I don’t like the interview after the game. Because the winning players always give credit to God while the losing players blame themselves. Just once I’d like to hear a player say, “Yeah, we were in the game—until Jesus made me fumble!”

  —JEFF STILSON

  You can always tell when television executives are in a restaurant: they keep ordering and canceling, ordering and canceling.

  —BOB HOPE

  Thought and Thinking

  If I look confused, it’s because I’m thinking.

  —SAMUEL GOLDWYN

  If you make people think they’re thinking, they’ll love you. If you really make them think, they’ll hate you.

  —DON MARQUIS

  The rich are nothing but poor people with yachts.

  When you open a new bag of cotton balls, is the top one meant to be thrown away?

  Help stamp out and abolish redundancy!

  There’s times when I just have to quit thinking . . . and the only way I can quit thinking is by shopping.

  —TAMMY FAYE BAKKER

  It’s not an optical illusion, it just looks like one.

  The father was very proud when his son went off to college. He came to tour the school on Parents’ Day, and observed his son hard at work in the chemistry lab. “What are you working on?” he asked.

  “A universal solvent,” explained the son, “a solvent that’ll dissolve anything.”

  The father whistled, clearly impressed, then wondered aloud, “What’ll you keep it in?”

  —GILBERT GOTTFRIED

  Einstein explained his theory to me every day, and on my arrival, I was fully convinced that he understood it.

  —CHAIM WEIZMANN, PRESIDENT OF ISRAEL, ABOUT A TRANSATLANTIC CROSSING WITH ALBERT EINSTEIN

  What’s the difference between apathy and ignorance? I don’t know, and I don’t care!

  Time

  Everywhere is walking distance if you have the time.

  —STEVE WRIGHT

  A man was trying to understand the nature of God, and asked him: “God, how long is a million years to you?” God answered: “A million years is like a minute.” Then the man asked: “God, how much is a million dollars to you?” And God replied: “A million dollars is like a penny.” Finally the man asked: “God, could you give me a penny?” And God said, “In a minute.”

  Backwards thinking. I plan dates backwards. The movie’s at ten, that means I pick her up at nine, that means I’m in the shower at eight, that means I’m running at seven, that means I leave work at six, that means I get to work at nine, that means I’m asleep the night before at midnight, that means . . . I’m late now. I can’t make it.

  —LARRY MILLER

  We prefer the old-fashioned alarm clock to the kind that awakens you with soft music or a gentle whisper. If there’s one thing we can’t stand early in the morning, it’s hypocrisy.

  —BILL VAUGHAN

  Tourists

  There was a hijacking of a tourist bus. Luckily, it was filled with Japanese tourists—they got more than two thousand photographs of the hijackers.

  —
JAN MURRAY

  I was walking around Taiwan and bought some flip-flops for my feet. I said, “I wonder where these were made.” I looked under the bottom, it said, “Just around the corner.”

  —GEORGE WALLACE

  A timid tourist stopped a New York City cop. “Can you tell me how to get to Carnegie Hall,” she asked, clearing her throat nervously, “or should I just go fuck myself?”

  Transportation

  I’m astounded by people who want to know the universe when it’s hard enough to find your way around Chinatown.

  —WOODY ALLEN

  Love the questions at the airport because, they make you feel real intelligent. “Sir, do you know what’s in your luggage?”

  “No. I tied a sock around my eyes and packed with my feet. I’m thinking hot dogs and gunpowder.”

  —KEVIN JAMES

  Two tour groups visited England. They happened to rent a double-decker bus, with one group downstairs and the others upstairs. The downstairs group was singing and dancing and the group upstairs just sat there. Finally, one of the downstairs people went upstairs and asked why they weren’t having as much fun. “That’s easy for you to say,” said one of the upstairs guys, “You have a driver.”

  —FREDDIE ROMAN

  If the ‘black box’ flight recorder is never damaged during a plane crash, why isn’t the whole damn plane made out of that shit?

  —GEORGE CARLIN

  Travel

  “What do National Geographic and Penthouse have in common?

  Both have great places you’ll probably never visit.

  To give you an idea of how fast we traveled: we left Spokane with two rabbits and when we got to Topeka, we still had only two.

  —BOB HOPE

  The wealthy Iranian tourist was outraged at being searched by customs upon his arrival at JFK Airport. “New York is the asshole of the world!” he screamed.

  “Yessir,” said the customs official. “Are you just passing through?”

  A naive fellow boarded an ocean liner for a fancy cruise and was amazed at the grand scale of shipboard life. The ballroom was the size of a ball field, the couches seated ten couples, the banquet tables stretched for what seemed like miles. After a considerable amount to eat and drink, he asked the steward directions to the men’s room, but got lost en route and fell into the Olympic-size pool. Splashing frantically toward the ladder, he screamed in a panic, “Don’t flush! Don’t flush!”