In Praise Of Shaggy Dogs

My niece, Shelby, recently decried the fact that people are too whiny as of late, and I agree. Folks take themselves much too seriously. They have to lighten up.

And so, as New Year's Day inches ever closer, let us end the year on the upswing with a perfect New Year's Resolution: Resolve to tell at least one joke a day. Resolve to make more people laugh. Resolve to resurrect the art of telling "The Shaggy Dog."

More about this a bit later ...

I love good jokes -- no! great jokes! Years ago, I liked the ones that contained expletives every other word, the ones that were juiced up with lurid, sexually-graphic content that might have made Larry Flynt blush. Think traveling salesman and the farmer's daughter and XXX-rated.

Today, I like them tamer in content, context, timing and language. Of course a joke should be and must be a bit edgy, but it also has to be able to stand up for itself in mixed company. Sometimes, cornier is better.

Like this one...

This shitaki mushroom walks into the saloon, goes over to bar and shouts to the bartender, "Set me up with a shot and a beer." The bartender snaps, "We don't serve your kind 'round here!" And then he proceeds to throw the mushroom out the door. To which, the mushroom says: "What the hell did you do that for? I'm a fun guy!"

Ouch! Cite: Sam Huber.

How about this one: This duck waddles into the drug store, goes down to the back and says to the pharmacist: "I'd like to buy a box of rubbers, please." The druggist says, "OK. I'll play along. Will that be cash or charge." To which the duck says, "Oh, just go ahead and put them all on my bill!"

Double Ouch! Cite: Bob Dotchin.

Which leads me back to Shaggy Dogs.

A Shaggy Dog is a very long joke, told with tempo and patena that builds and builds ... that leaves one groaning, and then smiling when it ends. Isaac Asimov, who wrote a classic about the essence of humor several years ago, attributes the genre to the one about the bum who returns a shaggy dog to a millionaire in order to collect a reward. (I'll save you all the gory details and skip directly to the Punch Line: "My dog was not that shaggy."

I'm particularly fond of the Shaggy Dog about the Jewish son who decides to send his Mother a Yiddish-speaking parrot for her birthday. It is one of the only jokes I know of that contains a double punch-line. Here 'tis:

"Momma! Did you get the bird?"

"Yes, Marvin. It was delicious!"

"Momma! Don't tell me you cooked the parrot. It was a gift to you, it cost me a Thousand Bucks and, by the way, it spoke Yiddish!"

"So why didn't he say something?"

OY! Cite: Jerry Levy.

Parrots are funny. So are otters, seals, penguins, oysters, and Sarah Palin.

The task for me in 2011? How can I amalgamate all of these into one good joke?

By the way, here's a definition of an "Oyster."

It's a person who laces Yiddish idioms into most of his conversations.

Ouch, Oy! and Happy New Year!