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I always knew Dangerfield was a joke-stealing hack....
Ok, not quite, but strikingly close.
Ancient Greeks pre-empted Dead Parrot sketch
ATHENS (Reuters) – "I'll tell you what's wrong with it. It's dead, that's what's wrong with it."
For those who believe the ancient Greeks thought of everything first, proof has been found in a 4th century AD joke book featuring an ancestor of Monty Python's Dead Parrot sketch where a man returns a parrot to a shop, complaining it is dead.
The 1,600-year-old work en led "Philogelos: The Laugh Addict," one of the world's oldest joke books, features a joke in which a man complains that a slave he has just bought has died, its publisher said Friday.
"By the gods," answers the slave's seller, "when he was with me, he never did any such thing!"
In a British comedy act Monty Python's Flying Circus sketch, first aired in 1969 and regularly voted one of the funniest ever, the pet-shop owner says the parrot, a "Norwegian Blue," is not dead, just "resting" or "pining for the fjords."
The English-language book will appeal to those who swear that the old jokes are the best ones. Many of its 265 gags will seem strikingly familiar, suggesting that sex, dimwits, nagging wives and flatulence have raised laughs for centuries.
FAR-FETCHED CLOAK
In many of the jokes, a slow-witted figure known as the "student dunce" is the butt of the jokes. In one, the student dunce goes to the city and a friend asks him to buy two 15-year-old slaves: No problem,' responds the dunce. If I don't find two 15-year-olds, I'll get one 30-year-old.'
In another, someone asks to borrow the student's cloak to go down to the country. "I have a cloak to go down to your ankle, but I don't have one that reaches to the country," he replies.
The manuscript is attributed to a pair of ancient comedians called Hierocles and Philagrius. Little is known about them except that they were most likely the compilers of the jokes, not the original writers.
The multi-media e-book, which can be purchased online ( http://www.yudu.com/oldestjokebook ), features veteran British comedian Jim Bowen, 71, reviving the lines before a 21-century audience.
"Jim Bowen brings them back from the dead. It's like Jurassic Park for jokes," Richard Stephenson, CEO of digital publisher YUDU, said in a statement.
For Bowen, much of the material seemed very familiar: "One or two of them are jokes I've seen in peoples' acts nowadays, slightly updated: they put in a motor car instead of a chariot."
Other one-liners in Philogelos may baffle a modern audience, such as a series of jokes about a lettuce, which only make sense in light of the ancient belief it was an aphrodisiac.
(editing by Peter Millership)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081114/od_nm/us_comedy
I always knew Dangerfield was a joke-stealing hack....
No respect...no respect at all...
I get no respect I tell ya. I went to make an offering at the temple of Aphrodite and even the statue at the altar told me, "Not right now. I've got a headache."
I get it!
No respect I tell. I once thought I overheard my mother in law comparing me to a god. Turns out she was telling my wife she should leave me "Bacchus he's so fat. Bacchus he's so lazy. Bacchus he's so stupid."
I'm a big fan of "The Seven Words You Can Never Say at the Forum."
"No, no, no....he's stunned!"
I'm not saying Socrates has appe es, but rumor has it after every meal he licks his Plato clean.
What's the difference between Icarus and a pederast? One flies too close the sun. The other has some sons too close to his fly.
I never knew slaves could pine for the fjords...
Comedy.
Gold.
Nothing gets me laughing quite like a good slave joke.
Me too. I was just thinking to myself "my day isn't complete until I can laugh at a good slave joke".
A priest of Apollo, A priestess of Aphrodite, and a slave walk into a bar...
Great Thread!
SFIE-- clearly you were a Greek vaudevillian in a past life!
Here's a classic
"Knock knock."
"Who's there?"
"A slave on the run!"
"A slave on the run who?"
"Seriously, just open the door. There's some Spartan kids that are going to murder me as a rite of passage! By Zeus' beard, open the doors before it's too late!!! No, oh gods, nooooooooooooooo! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"
They actually have a flash player extract of the first 22 pages or so.
I read though a few of the jokes and just didn't get a couple:
"A student dunce is walking down the street when he sees his family doctor coming toward him. He hides his face and ducks behind a wall.
A companion asks him why and he replies: "It's been so long since I have been sick, I am embarrased to face him."
Here is one I actually recognized:
A student dunce wants to teach his donkey not to eat too much, so he withholds food from it. When it dies, he grumbles: "Just my luck! The moment he really learns not to eat, he up and dies!"
Here is another good slave joke:
A student dunce is voyaging on a very stormy sea. When his slaves start to wail, he tells them, "Don't cry, in my will, I've set you all free."
A student dunce buys stolen vestments. To make them unrecognizable, he smears them with pitch.
Timeless, I tell you...
It has been ages since I heard a good pitch joke!
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