Jokes you need explaining to you

[solidified gruel merchant]

Stewart Lees' Comedy Vehicle S3E1- Shillbottle

"And you know what? HE'S very good!

Yes! If Adolf Hitler came round today, you'd send a limousine anyway. That's who you are."


Whassy on about?

[Absorb the anus burn]

Referencing a lyric by The Clash (White Man In Hammersmith Palais).

I hope that doesn't helps.

[Bobloblawslawbomb]

Friends episode 1 of season 7 - Chandler can't get an erection and he asks Joey for advice.

Chandler - 'has it ever happened to you?'
Joey - 'yeah......once'
Chandler - 'what did you do?'
Joey - 'did it anyway'

I don't understand. Does he simply mean he jammed his soft cock inside a woman or is there something I'm missing?

[Utter Shit]

Yeah I think he means he put it in soft. Or possibly folded it over to give the appearance of girth, if he had the requisite length.

[Icehaven]

Either that or he misunderstood the problem because he wouldn't be able to grasp that the concept of not being able to get it up even exists.

[up_the_hampipe]

Norm Macdonald was on Conan being charming towards a beautiful young actress or singer or something. At one point he says "if you were to take my pulse right now, you'd have to subtract 8". What dat mean?

[Icehaven]

I put a cartoon from Private Eye on fb ages ago as I didn't understand it, and neither did any of my friends. Then a few weeks later in PE's letters page there were several letters from other readers also decrying it's inscrutability. I'll try and find it but I still don't get it.

[darby o chill]

Norm Macdonald was on Conan being charming towards a beautiful young actress or singer or something. At one point he says "if you were to take my pulse right now, you'd have to subtract 8". What dat mean?

◔̯◔

[Pseudopath]

Norm Macdonald was on Conan being charming towards a beautiful young actress or singer or something. At one point he says "if you were to take my pulse right now, you'd have to subtract 8". What dat mean?

I think he's inferring that his penis his eight inches long and this somehow results in an increase of 1 bpm/inch.

EDIT: Yeah, what darby o chill said.

[up_the_hampipe]

I think he's inferring that his penis his eight inches long and this somehow results in an increase of 1 bpm/inch.

EDIT: Yeah, what darby o chill said.

Hmm, well that's unseemly.

[studpuppet]

Yeah I think he means he put it in soft. Or possibly folded it over to give the appearance of girth, if he had the requisite length.

Perhaps he'd spoken to Rudy van Winkle, and didn't want to go the way of Dean Dorsey?

[Jumblegraws]

I put a cartoon from Private Eye on fb ages ago as I didn't understand it, and neither did any of my friends. Then a few weeks later in PE's letters page there were several letters from other readers also decrying it's inscrutability. I'll try and find it but I still don't get it.

I think you're referring to the one with the nondescript man putting his electronics away after some mundane exchange with some other character, in a joke that was supposed to be about privacy-intruding technology or something? There was a letter written in about that one that made me feel less alone.

[Captain Crunch]

The pig says "my wife is a slut".

There's that bit in Wayne's World when he pulls up next to the old couple in the car.  I can't really make it out but it sounds like "pardon, me you have any grey (something)", what was that joke please? 

[McChesney Duntz]

There's that bit in Wayne's World when he pulls up next to the old couple in the car.  I can't really make it out but it sounds like "pardon, me you have any grey (something)", what was that joke please?

It's a reference to a once-ubiquitous TV commercial for Grey Poupon mustard - here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwOCOm9Z0YE

(Wait - hadn't seen it in years, but - is that Paul Eddington from Yes Minister or just an incredible simulation?)

Actually, that ad is a variation in itself - it was so popular (or at least well-known) that they were making humorous-ish variations on it. Here's, I think, the original: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6WADh8vk3A

[a duncandisorderly]

It's a reference to a once-ubiquitous TV commercial for Grey Poupon mustard - here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwOCOm9Z0YE

(Wait - hadn't seen it in years, but - is that Paul Eddington from Yes Minister or just an incredible simulation?)

deffo eddington, (just) before he got ill.

[EbbyVale]

deffo eddington, (just) before he got ill.

Yup. And the other actor is Ian Richardson, pre House of Cards.

[bigfatheart]

The pig says "my wife is a slut".

Kramer doesn't really get comedy. He's the only person laughing when Jerry does his deliberately bad routine about cancer. There's an early episode where he pitches some material to Jerry that, besides not being funny, is weirdly mean-spirited about heart attack victims. So I guess Kramer's idea of comedy is laughing at other people's misfortune, so his idea for Elaine's cartoon is that it would be funny for the pig's complaint to be about being cuckolded. Repeatedly.

The Fast Show sketch where Charlie Higson changes a light bulb and is suddenly surrounded by bears - is it just whimsy or is there something more that I'm missing?

[Dogbeard]

Another Stewart Lee one. When he's doing his bit about the countryside, and his country-living friends are exhorting him to come and stay, and they say, several times, "bring some coke Stew!". Are they asking him to bring cocaine because they're so bored living in the country, which has never seemed right, or is the joke something else?

[Autopsy Turvey]

Another Stewart Lee one. When he's doing his bit about the countryside, and his country-living friends are exhorting him to come and stay, and they say, several times, "bring some coke Stew!". Are they asking him to bring cocaine because they're so bored living in the country, which has never seemed right, or is the joke something else?

That, there's not much to do after dark, but also because if he's coming from London it'll be easy for him to get loads and it's trickier to find where they live, I thought.

[the]

The 'bring some coke' joke is just serving to highlight the insincerity of their newfound conversion to the purity of country living, ie. it's great and a different refreshing honest way of living - PS. immediately get me some hard drugs because I'm full of shit and I miss metropolitan life and I've failed to even convince myself that this is the way I want to live. It's a joke about hypocrisy, inauthenticity and the flimsiness of the new path that their change of lifestyle recommends.

The Fast Show sketch where Charlie Higson changes a light bulb and is suddenly surrounded by bears - is it just whimsy or is there something more that I'm missing?

Just whimsy. I don't know if it was written by Bob Mortimer (a writing contributor to The Fast Show) but it has more than a whiff of his humour about it.

[magval]

It was.

[Jockice]

The one about a pigeon that my sister told me when I was in my early teens. Can't remember exactly what the joke was but presume the pigeon was supposed to represent a penis. She looked at me pityingly and went: ''You don't get it do you?'' Nope. And I still don't.

[rasta-spouse]

In Carpet Remnant World I don't understand the 'City Meats' thing Lee goes on about at the end. He just starts talking about it and its weird.

[Pseudopath]

Not sure which of his specials it was in but Anthony Jeselnik used to do a gag that went as follows:

I used to mow the lawn at a battered women's shelter...if you know what I mean.

What's he on about?! Is it just that he deliberately took a job there in order to be around vulnerable women?

[lankyguy95]

I presume mowing the lawn is a euphemism. Although the link between that and battered women seems at best a bit of a stretch so I guess I... don't know what he means.

[up_the_hampipe]

I presume mowing the lawn is a euphemism. Although the link between that and battered women seems at best a bit of a stretch so I guess I... don't know what he means.

A battered women's shelter is a very inappropriate place to try and pick up chicks. That's all it is. Adding "if you know what I mean" instantly turns a seemingly innocent sentence into something sexual, he had to pick something fairly mundane sounding to get the surprise.

[Twed]

Really crap, imagine being a professional comedian and one of your jokes is "that's what she said".

[weekender]

I presume mowing the lawn is a euphemism.

Mowing the lawn means pube shaving.

The man is is suggesting that he was in a relationship where he shaved his pubes ("Mow the Lawn") and the woman didn't (her "Battered Women's Shelter" is her hairy vagina).

Feel free to question the hilarity of what he was suggesting, but linguistically I think it's this.

[up_the_hampipe]

Really crap, imagine being a professional comedian and one of your jokes is "that's what she said".

Oh ffs.

[lankyguy95]

Mowing the lawn means pube shaving.

The man is is suggesting that he was in a relationship where he shaved his pubes ("Mow the Lawn") and the woman didn't (her "Battered Women's Shelter" is her hairy vagina).

Feel free to question the hilarity of what he was suggesting, but linguistically I think it's this.

If it's that... fucking hell.

I think hampipe's suggestion seems more likely.