by Robert Orben
Also by Robert Orben
THE JOKE-TELLER’S HANDBOOK
THE AD-LIBBER’S HANDBOOK
THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ONE-LINER COMEDY
ORBEN’S CURRENT COMEDY
(a topical humor service for public speakers)
eISBN: 978-0-307-81752-5
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 78-22538
Copyright © 1971, 1972, 1979 by Robert Orben
All Rights Reserved
v3.1
CONTENTS
Cover
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Introduction
A
Accountants
Accounts Receivable
Acupuncture
Advertising
Age
Air Conditioning
Airlines
Air Pollution
Ambition
Antiques
Apartments
Army
Army Clothing
Army Food
Astrology
Astronauts
Autumn
B
Babies
Bachelors
Baldness
Bank Robbers
Bankruptcy
Banks
Banquets
Baseball
Basketball
Bathing Suits
Beach
Beauty Contests
Ben Hur
Bible
Birth Control
Birthday Parties
Birthdays
Body-building
Books
Boss
Bumper Stickers
Business
Butchers
C
Camping
Car Repairs
Cars
Cars (New)
Cars (Used)
Chess
Children
China
Christmas
Christmas Presents
Christmas (Santa Claus)
Christmas Trees
Church
City Life
Cleanliness
Closings
Clothing
College
College Admissions
Competition
Computers
Conservation
Consumerism
Conventions
Cooking
Credit
Crime
D
Dance Schools
Dating
Daughters
Deejay Lines
Defense
Definitions
Dentist
Diets
Direct Mail
Dissent
Divorce
Doctors
Doctors’ Fees
Dogs
Dollar
Drinking
Driving
Drugs
Drunks
E
Earthquakes
Economics
Education
Elections
Energy
Executives
F
Fashion
Fast Foods
Fat Farms
Father’s Day
Fishing
Florida
Flu
Flying
Food
Food Prices
Football
Frankenstein’s Monster
Fund-raising
Funerals
Fur
G
Gambling
Gardening
Government
Government Spending
Graduate School
H
Hair
Halloween
Health
Health Food
Hecklers
Highways
History
Hollywood
Home Movies
Honeymoons
Hospitals
Household Appliances
Houses
Housework
I
Income Tax
Income Tax Preparation
Inflation
Introductions
J
Jobs
Jogging
Judges
July Fourth
L
Landlords
Las Vegas
Lawns
Lawyers
Life Insurance
Life-styles
Little League
Logic
M
Marriage
Marriage Counselors
Mayors
Medical Insurance
Medicine
Middle Age
Ministers
Money
Morality
Mosquitoes
Mothers
Movies
Music
N
Neighborhoods
Newspapers
New Year
New York City
Nostalgia
Nudity
O
Office
Oil Spills
Openings
Optometry
Overpopulation
Overweight
P
Parcel Post
Parties
Personalities
Pets
Philosophy
Playboy
Plumbers
Police
Political Campaigns
Political Candidates
Political Comment
Political Conventions
Politicians
Politics
Pollution
Postal Rate Increases
Post Office
Poverty
Presidents
Prison
Psychiatry
Public Relations
Q
Questions and Answers
R
Racetrack
Radio
Railroads
Real Estate
Recessions
Recycling
Relatives
Religion
Rent
Resorts
Restaurants
Retirement
Rock Music
Russia
S
Sales Meetings
School
School Buses
Secretaries
Selling
Senior Citizens
Sex Books
Sex Education
Shopping
Show Business
“Show Me”
Skiing
Small Towns
Smog
Smoking
Snow
Soap Operas
Social Security
Sons
Speakers
Speakers’ “Ad Libs”
Speakers’ Comments
Sports
Spring
Stockbrokers
Stock Market
Summer Camp
Summer Jobs
Supermarkets
Swingers
T
Talk Shows
Taxes
Teenagers
Telephones
Television
Television Commercials
Thanksgiving
Theft
Travel
Troubles
Turtles
U
Unemployment
Unions
United Nations
V
Vacations
Valentine’s Day
Vasectomy
Voting
&nbs
p; W
Wall Street
Washington (George)
Water Pollution
Wax Fruit
Weather
Weddings
Weight Watchers
White House
Wives
Wigs
Winter
Women’s Liberation
World Conditions
X
X-rated Movies
INTRODUCTION
There is no better, faster, or more effective way to reach out and grab an audience’s attention than by the adroit use of humor. An apt, well-timed joke can soothe the hostile, focus the uninterested, and hypo the enthusiastic.
Here are more than 2500 short, sharp laugh-getters that can be easily added to speeches, lectures, presentations, or casual conversation. They are arranged into several hundred categories for ease of selection. The subject matter is topical and the construction modern. Most are one-liners that develop the thought, the straight line, and the punch line in as few words as possible. The one-liner moves with a snap and a sizzle that create a sense of spontaneity lacking in anecdotes and stories. It is the humor of today.
Touching all speech bases, you will find openings and closings, plus random and specific comment invaluable to anyone who has ever been called upon to “say a few words.” Even the material in the various subject categories has been arranged so that it forms a rough continuity. All you have to do is select and speak.
Those who can bring a smile, a giggle, or a belly laugh into our day are the most welcome of friends, neighbors, or business associates. It has often been said that humor is contagious. With the help of this book, you can be a carrier.
Bob Orben
ACCOUNTANTS
Our Accounting Department is the office that has the little red box on the wall with the sign saying: IN CASE OF EMERGENCY, BREAK GLASS. And inside are two tickets to Brazil.
Have you noticed how everybody’s a comedian these days? Yesterday our accountant said he had a wonderful system for reducing our bills. I said, “That’s great. What’s it called?” He said, “Microfilm.”
Our accountant has such a vivid way of putting things. Yesterday I asked him what our profit picture looked like. He said, “Well, let me put it this way: If you were a trapeze artist, you wouldn’t want our net!”
We have a bookkeeper who’s shy and retiring. He’s shy $200,000. That’s why he’s retiring.
Some company reports use the Dolly Parton technique.
They put a good front on everything.
ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE
Accounts receivable are bill-gotten gains.
Maybe you heard of our billing department.
It’s known as the House of Ill Compute.
Life is so unfair. I have fourteen accounts that have gone bad and a secretary who won’t.
There’s nothing more frightening than sending a large shipment to a new account and then getting a D & B report that shows their assets are in the low five figures—$101.38.
I called up one account and said, “You know something? We’ve done more for you than your own mother.” He said, “How do you figure that?” I said, “She only carried you for nine months. We’ve been doing it for a year!”
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!
ACUPUNCTURE
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.
ADVERTISING
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.
AGE
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.
AIR CONDITIONING
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.
AIRLINES
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.