2500 Jokes to Start 'Em Laughing (2 page)

It's really a problem—especially around Christmastime. What do you give to the customer who has everything—and most of it's yours?
There's even the No-Pay Christmas Carol. When they start giving you those hokey excuses, you sing, “O come now, all ye faithless!”

When it comes to paying bills—he who hesitates is forced.

We use the Faye Dunaway Approach on collections.

Our bookkeeper's name is Faye, and if you don't pay in thirty days, she'll Dunaway!

Did you know they wrote a song about what our customers say when our bookkeeper calls them for money?
LET ME STALL YOU, SWEETHEART.

Business wouldn't be so bad if customers didn't take a paper dispenser attitude toward their bills. When they find one in their letter box, they
PULL DOWN AND TEAR UP
!

I'm beginning to wonder if all our accounts are Russian. I think they read it: 30 days
NYET
!

I suffer from a very expensive ailment—alcoholic acupuncture. I'm always getting stuck for drinks.

What's so unique about acupuncture? We've had people who practiced it for years. They're called muggers!

Let me make one thing perfectly clear—American doctors have always practiced acupuncture. The only difference is:

Chinese doctors give you the needle with the treatment.

American doctors give you the needle with the bill.

My doctor has taken up acupuncture but I don't think he's too good at it. Every time I drink a glass of water I look like a fireboat!

If you don't think acupuncture really works, when was the last time you saw a sick porcupine?

As I understand it, acupuncture works on almost anything—with the possible exception of the Goodyear blimp.

Personally, I couldn't take acupuncture. I'm too squeamish. I need gas just to have my eyeglasses adjusted.

This happens to be
SMALL BUSINESS WEEK.

If you want to keep your business small, it's easy.

Don't advertise.

Road signs are a real indication of what an area is like.

For instance, upstate you have signs saying
DEER CROSSING.

In Yellowstone you have signs saying
BEAR CROSSING.

In Africa you have signs saying
ELEPHANT CROSSING.

And on Madison Avenue you have signs saying
DOUBLE CROSSING.

They took a poll on Madison Avenue and here is what people in the advertising industry are worried about most:

Inflation, unemployment, crime, and armpits.…

Not necessarily in that order.

Advertising has really changed our thinking.

This morning my wife put on eye shadow, eyeliner, and eyelashes.

I said, “What are you doing to your eyes?”

She said, “Making them look natural!”

You can always spot somebody in the advertising business. If he left his troubles on the doorstep, you wouldn't be able to see the house.

I've been in advertising for twenty years now.

When I fill out a questionnaire and it says
RACE
—

I put down
RAT
!

Advertising has to be the most insecure business ever. I know one agency that starts off every memo with: Now fear this!

There's a new deodorant called “Afternoon on Madison Avenue.” You put it on and you'll never be noticed. It smells of martini.

Every time they bring out a new product they call it
IMPROVED.
Kinda makes you wonder what they were passing off on you last month.

They always talk about beer as having full-bodied flavor. What does that mean—full-bodied? You don't know whether to drink it or take it to a motel.

If there were any truth in advertising, they'd call it fatteccine.

I know an eighty-year-old man who married a sixteen-year-old girl and the wedding invitations were so appropriate. His name was in Gothic type and her name was in crayon.

My grandfather is ninety-three years old and he still has a gleam in his eye. He keeps missing his mouth with the toothbrush.

I never believed in the tooth fairy until I lost one of my false teeth. And the very next morning I found something under my pillow—a plastic quarter.

You know you're old when they put all the ingredients for your birthday cake in a pan, light the candles, and it bakes itself!

You know you're over the hill when you stay in one of those hotel rooms with a mirror on the ceiling—and all you want to do is watch yourself gargle.

Sixty-five is when your sex drive goes into Park.

They say that fellas over sixty still have their sex drive—although sometimes it feels like they're taking it in an Edsel.

I'm at that age where I don't even breathe heavily at X-rated movies—unless they're one flight up.

You know you're slipping when you have to put tenderizer on puffed rice.

Old age is when the only thing you can really sink your teeth into is water.

No, Virginia, Polident is not a damaged parrot.

Kids say, “Never trust anyone over thirty.” Senior citizens say, “Anything less than fifty-two and you ain't playing with a full deck!”

Old age is when parents find out that stockings support and children don't.

I'm at that cereal age. I'm beginning to feel my corns more than my oats!

I don't wanna complain about getting older, but do you know how it feels when a crook says, “Stick 'em up!”—and you have arthritis?

I don't even remember when I was young. Sometimes I think I went directly from Dr. Spock to Dr. Scholl's!

I'm beginning to think my wife lied to me about her age. Who do you know has a recipe for curds and whey?

Isn't it terrible the way people lie about their age? If my wife were as young as she says she is—the best man at our wedding would have been a cop!

It's amazing. My wife tells everybody she's twenty-nine and yet our wedding invitations went out with a three-cent stamp.

She was young when the ultimate weapon was a rock!…

When the Avon Lady was Mrs. Shakespeare.

The nice part about air conditioning is, you finally know what to do with your winter clothes in July—wear them!

We had a big party for a returning serviceman last night. It was the air-conditioning serviceman. He brought back the part he went out for in August.

Did you ever pause in your daily activities and take a moment to think about deep, momentous, significant things? Like: What did hernia doctors do for patients before they invented portable air conditioners?

They say that a portable air conditioner really supplies you with cold air, and that's right. By the time you get three neighbors to help you carry it upstairs—it's November!

It's like I was trying to explain to my boss today—the only reason I keep a bottle in my desk is to ward off the chill from the air conditioning.

I'm no flier. I even get dizzy looking into a plate of deep-dish apple pie!

I love it when they say, “Ladies and gentlemen, we are in a holding pattern over Kennedy Airport but we expect to land in just a few minutes.” Then they start showing
Gone With the Wind.

You can't imagine how they frisk you at airports these days. Embarrassing? I took off two hours before the plane did!

I think the airlines
should
have a special youth fare for Europe: $49 going and $3,488 return.

The airlines know what they're doing. They're building planes so big, pretty soon there won't be anybody left on the ground to complain about the noise.

I'm fascinated by these planes that carry three hundred people and have only twelve washrooms. Now I know what they mean by a holding pattern.

There's one problem with air travel. Over every airport in the United States today there are things that are stacked. These are called stewardesses.

But have you noticed how most stewardesses are a little deaf? They go up to a fella and say, “Is there anything I can do for you?” That's why I think they're a little deaf. They never hear his first request!

The airlines are having a terrible problem with seats—like finding enough people to fill theirs!

Airlines are so desperate for business, I called one of them and said, “What's the fare to Los Angeles?” The clerk said, “$150.” I said, “That's too much.” He said, “Let's talk.”

It's scary. I flew on one plane that was so empty, the pilot and co-pilot were holding hands. I think that was the reason.

It's called the Terra Firma Airline. If its planes were firma, there'd be less terra!

I feel so sorry for airline pilots. I really do.

Do you realize when an airline pilot walks down the aisle to the washroom, he can never hurry?

Ashes to ashes; dust to dust;

If cigarettes don't get you, the atmosphere must!

They say the air is free. Sure it's free.

Look at it. Who'd want it?

Air pollution is really something. I never figured to see the day when indirect lighting is the sun.

It's amazing what air pollution is doing. For instance, we have flowers in our garden that are purple, brown, and yellow. What makes it so amazing, they're lilies!

Air pollution really upsets me. Somehow I never figured to see the day when artificial respiration would be better than the real thing.

Air pollution is so bad, I happen to know that leaves aren't falling—they're jumping.

I'll say one thing for this town: It's made me very polite. Today I tipped my hat three times. Once at a woman and twice to get the soot off.

Remember the good old days, when if you ate outdoors the black specks on your food were pepper?

We've got to do something about air pollution. I just saw the first robin of spring fall out of a tree.

The air in this city is unbelievable. Now I know why birds sleep on one foot. They're using the other to hold their nose!

A new organization to improve the environment sent Howard Cosell a button. It's for his lip.

A city agency said that air pollution is beginning to level off. That's right—at about the fortieth floor!

We could be in a lot of trouble. As I understand it, the city's going to deal with pollution as soon as it can see its way clear.

But air pollution has done wonders for raising kids. Yesterday I heard a mother say, “Junior, don't stick your tongue out at your sister. You'll get it dirty!”

I never asked for much out of life. I just wanted to be born into a family where soul food was beef Wellington.

Everybody is trying to get ahead of everybody else. It's like the whole world has turned into a subway seat.

Thomas Edison said that genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration. I dunno. I hate to think of anyone that sweaty handling electricity.

They say that kids today don't know what hard work means. They certainly do. That's why so many of them are on welfare.

I go to one of those movie-rating antique shops. The proprietor looks G and what he does to you is X.

An antique is when you pay five hundred dollars for something the previous owner paid five dollars for—to cart away.

Antiques have become so popular, right now there are 15 million Americans who have things that are old, funny-looking, don't work, and are only kept around for sentimental purposes. Some of these are called antiques—and the rest are called husbands.

The whole technique in going into an antique shop is, when you see something you want, pay no attention to it. Spend all your time looking at something else, then just casually ask the price of the first item—and you'll really fool the proprietor. 'Cause up till then, he had been giving you credit for intelligence.

My wife is so crazy about antiques, I just realized what I'm married to—a junkie junkie!

My wife is kind of gullible. She has the only painting of the Lord's Supper that has a Diners Club card on the table.

One time she spent three hundred dollars for a clock that belonged to the late King George III. I don't want to say anything about this clock, but now I know why he was late.

Apartment builders have finally come up with something to make a long story short—seven-foot ceilings.

Last night my wife shook me awake and said, “There's a robber in the house.” I said, “I know. The landlord lives downstairs.”

I'll tell you how much heat my landlord sends up. I have a bottle of pills that says:
KEEP IN A COOL PLACE.
I use the radiator.

When I took the apartment he said he sends up heat religiously. And he does—once a week.

We live in one of those high-rise apartment buildings. Very high-rise. This building is so high, the elevators show movies.

If you call the first floor, it's long distance.

We live in an apartment that's so high up, they give you three utilities—gas, electricity, and oxygen.

We live on the forty-ninth floor and we also have an apartment on the second floor—in case we want to spend the night in town.

Can you imagine living on the forty-ninth floor? We don't take out the garbage—we bring down the Commandments!

And it's really a problem living on the forty-ninth floor. Yesterday I called up the superintendent and I said, “You gotta do something. We're afraid to look down.” He said, “Because of the height?” I said, “No. Because of the roaches!”

The rental agent said, “It comes with electricity, heat, and running.”
I said, “Running what?” He said, “I dunno. We've never been able to catch one!”

And it's in a great neighborhood. When you leave the building, the doorman doesn't say, “Good evening.” He says, “Good luck!”

The Army saves you a fortune on newspapers. If there's trouble anywhere in the world, they send you right over. You don't have to read about it.