by Eva Blank
When is a sheep like a dog?
When it has fleece.
What do pigs see when they go to the ballet?
Swine Lake.
Why are pigs always in fashion?
They’re sty-lish.
What do you call a go-go-dancing pig?
Shakin’ bacon.
What did the pig say when he fell down the stairs?
“Oh, my achin’ bacon.”
What happened when the pig couldn’t get up from his fall?
He called a ham-bulance.
A woman takes her hamster to the vet, and after a quick look at the creature, the vet pronounces it dead. Not happy with the vet’s declaration, the woman asks for a second opinion. The vet gives a whistle and in comes a Labrador retriever. The dog sniffs at the hamster and pokes it a couple of times before shaking his head.
“Just as I thought,” says the vet, “your hamster is dead.” Still not happy, the woman asks for a third opinion. The vet opens the back door and in bounds a gray tabby. The cat jumps onto the table and looks the hamster up and down and nudges it with her paw for a few minutes before looking up and shaking her head.
“Yes, your hamster is definitely dead ma’am,” says the vet. Finally convinced, the woman asks how much she owes.
“That will be $500, please,” the vet answers.
“You are charging $500 just to tell me my hamster is dead?” says the woman, bewildered.
“Well,” says the vet, “there’s my prognosis, the lab report, and the cat scan.”
Where did the pig go to recover from his fall?
The hog-spital.
Which skunk lives in a church?
Pepe le Pew.
What kind of books do skunks read?
Best-smellers.
What do you call a teddy who wears flannel and cuts down trees for a living?
A lum-bear-jack.
What does the cow like to do on her day off?
Go to the moovies.
How do you play leapfrog with a hedgehog?
Very carefully.
TOMMY: I lost my dog yesterday.
SARAH: Oh no! Why don’t you put an ad in the paper?
TOMMY: Don’t be silly—he can’t read!
CRITTER JITTERS
Creepy, Crawly, Slimy, Slithery Things
A tourist was fishing off the coast of Florida when his boat tipped over. He could swim, but he was afraid of alligators and hung on to the side of the overturned boat. Spotting an old beachcomber standing on the shore, the tourist shouted out, “Are there any ’gators around here?”
“Naw,” the man hollered back. “They haven’t been around here for years!”
Feeling safe, the tourist started swimming calmly toward the shore. About halfway there, he asked the guy, “How’d you get rid of the ’gators?”
“We didn’t do anything,” said the beachcomber. “The sharks got ’em.”
What do you call a mouse who hangs out with a bunch of pythons?
Lunch.
What do you get when you cross a parrot with a woodpecker?
A bird that talks in Morse code.
A woman goes into the local pet shop and asks the owner for a pet that can do everything. The owner thinks about it and says, “How about a dog?”
The woman replies, “No, I had a dog before. He was great but all he did was eat, sleep, and play fetch. I want a pet that can do everything!”
The owner thinks some more and says, “How about a cat?”
The woman replies, “No way! A cat certainly can’t do everything; in fact, I’ve never seen them do anything! I want a pet that can do everything!”
The owner thinks for a long time and then says, “I’ve got it! What you want is a millipede!”
The woman looks at the owner skeptically and says, “A millipede? I can’t imagine a millipede doing everything. But okay, I’ll try a millipede.”
When the woman gets the millipede home, she’s eager to try him out, so she says to him, “Please clean the kitchen.” Thirty minutes later, she walks into the kitchen and it’s spotless. All the dishes are cleaned and neatly put away. The cabinets are clean and the floor is waxed. She’s absolutely amazed.
Wanting to see what else he can do, the woman says to the millipede, “Please clean the living room.” Twenty-five minutes later, she walks into the living room, and again everything’s perfect. The carpets have been vacuumed. The furniture was cleaned and dusted. The woman is once again impressed.
The woman thinks to herself, “This is the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen. This pet really can do everything.” Wanting him to do more, she says to the millipede, “Run down to the corner store and get me a newspaper, please.” The millipede walks out of the living room.
Ten minutes go by and no millipede. Twenty minutes go by and still no millipede. After thirty minutes the woman is starting to wonder what’s going on. It should have taken the millipede only a couple of minutes. But forty-five minutes later and still no millipede.
Deciding to look for him, the woman goes to leave out the front door. She opens the door and the millipede is just sitting on the front steps. The woman becomes furious. She says, “Hey! Where have you been all this time? I asked you 45 minutes ago to go to the corner store and get me a newspaper. Then I come to find you and you’re sitting down on the job. What’s going on?”
The millipede replies, “I’m going. I just have to put my shoes on!”
What did the fly say to the flypaper?
“I’m stuck on you.”
JACK: Say, Jill, how did you get a swollen nose?
JILL: I bent down to smell a brose in my garden.
JACK: Not brose; it’s rose, Jill. There’s no B in rose.
JILL: There was in this one!
A snail goes into a car dealership. She asks the salesperson if they sell red convertibles. The salesperson answers, “Yes. But do you have a proper license, and the money to pay for the car?” The snail replies, “Yes, I’ve got both. The thing is, I’ll only buy the car on one condition—that you have a big S painted on the sides of the car.” The salesperson thinks about that for a moment. It seems odd to him, but it isn’t every day that he sells an expensive convertible, so he agrees.
A few weeks later, the car is all ready and the salesperson calls the snail to tell her she can come pick it up. The snail is really pleased with her car and thanks him. The salesperson is still wondering about the reason for the big S on the car and asks, “So why did you want an S painted on the sides of the car?”
The snail replies, “When I drive by, I want everyone to say, ‘Look at that S car go!’”
What do you get when you cross a centipede and a parrot?
A walkie-talkie.
What do you get when you cross a Jedi knight with a toad?
Star Warts.
SPOTLIGHT
Monty Python’s Flying Circus
Good day, hello, and welcome to the Monty Python’s Flying Circus spotlight! Don’t know who these chaps are? Monty Python is a group of British sketch comedians known for their serious silliness. The Pythons, as they are sometimes called, were the creators and stars of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, a TV comedy series that ran from 1969 to 1974. The troupe was composed of Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin, and Terry Gilliam. Gilliam, the one American in the troupe, was the man behind the absurd cartoons featured in each episode.
Memorable sketches included “The Argument Sketch,” where a r man pays to have an argument, and “The Dead Parrot Sketch,” where an angry customer tries to get a refund from a pet-store owner who sold him a dead bird. The Pythons are known for continually cross-dressing and for finding the absurd in everyday situations. They even treated issues such as politics, the class system, and racism in a silly fashion, bringing serious topics onto mainstream television in a funny way in order to make their point.
The Pythons are also known for their theater tours, computer games, music recording
s—even a Broadway musical! Python films made it to the box office, including Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), The Life of Brian (1979), and The Meaning of Life (1983). Right! Enough of this silliness! In the words of the Python’s trademark line (which was also the title of a 1971 film), “And now for something completely different!”
BABY SNAKE: Mom, are we poisonous?
MOM SNAKE: We most certainly are!
BABY SNAKE: Are you sure we’re poisonous?
MOM SNAKE: Yes, we are the most poisonous snake in the world. Why?
BABY SNAKE: I just bit my lip!
Two ants wandered into a large-screen TV. After crawling around for hours and hours the first ant started to cry. “I think we’re lost! We’ll never get out!”
“Don’t worry,” said the second ant. “I brought along a TV guide.”
What does a reptile wear on its feet?
Snakers.
Why couldn’t the frog find his car?
It got toad away.
What’s the strongest insect in the world?
A snail. It carries its house on its back!
How does a bee get to school?
It takes the buzz.
PRACTICAL JOKE
Want to really gross out your classmates? Tell them you’ve eaten dudu.
After they recover from the shock, tell them it’s an African specialty made of fried, salted bugs: ants, bees, crickets, and cicadas. Mmm, tasty!
What do you call an insect that goes “Buzz-mzz-ummz-mzz”?
A mumble bee.
A snail is mugged by three turtles, but when the police ask the snail to give a description of what happened, all he can say is, “I don’t know, officer. It all happened so fast!”
Why do bees buzz?
Because they can’t whistle.
THE MAKING OF A COMEDIAN
Step 2: Rehearsing
Although many comedy routines sound as though they were made up on the spur of the moment, every good comedian spends a great deal of time rehearsing. Even improv comedians have to practice! Rehearsal helps you make your routine smooth. You need to practice your pacing: when to pause, what to emphasize. You need to set the j right tone: cheerful, somber, sarcastic.
Think of yourself as a joke samurai. A samurai is a Japanese warrior whose code of conduct forbids showing any sign of weakness before others. A good joke samurai should never let the audience see his or her weakness.
Every professional comedian has spent time practicing the art of joke telling, and has studied his or her punch lines really well. Just remember, if an audience thinks that ‘ you don’t know what you’re doing, they’ll be too uncomfortable to laugh even if you’ve said something hilarious. Ask an adult to explain any of the material in this book that you don’t understand before you go out and dazzle your friends.
A man was driving down a lonely country road when it began to snow heavily. His windows fogged up, and his wiper blades were badly worn and soon fell apart. The man couldn’t see out of the front of his car anymore and he couldn’t continue to drive, so he stopped the car. Then he got out and started to turn over large rocks. Finally, he found two frozen snakes. He straightened them out and stuck them flat onto his wiper blades, and they worked just fine. Haven’t you ever heard of “wind-chilled vipers”?
Why doesn’t a python use silverware?
Because he has a forked tongue.
Once upon a time in a magical land, there lived a snake named Nate. In this land, actually rather close to Nate’s house, there was a great road, and next to this road was a lever. The lever was ancient, and the myth around the lever was that if you were to push it, it would trigger the end of the world. One day, Nate was slithering down the road. When he came upon the lever, he began crossing the road so he could get a look at it. At the same moment, a truck came zooming around the corner, and the driver found himself in a dilemma: either hit the snake and run him over, or swerve, hit the lever, and end the world. Needless to say, the driver ran over Nate and went on his merry way. What’s the moral of this story?
Better Nate than lever.
A grasshopper walks into a bar and the bartender says, “We have a drink named after you.” The grasshopper replies, “You have a drink named Albert?”
A millipede ran into a centipede on the street. The millipede said in surprise, “Wow, what are the odds of this?!”
“Oh,” answered the centipede, “about 10 to 1.”
What did the termite do when she couldn’t carry the twig on her own?
She hired an assist-ant.
A frog is walking along one day when he comes across a fairy. “For forty bucks,” the fairy says, “I can turn you into a prince.” “Wow!” exclaims the frog, and gives the fairy fifty dollars. The fairy changes the frog into a handsome, dashing prince. The former frog is overjoyed.
“It’ll be so much easier to get a date for the ball now,” he I thinks.
So the prince asks the fairy for the ten bucks that was left over so he can rent a really snazzy limo to the next ball. The magic fairy gives him the money and is about to leave when suddenly the prince shrinks down in his boots, turns green, and is once again a frog. Shocked and despairing, the frog stares at the magic fairy. “What ‘ happened?” he asks.
“Well,” she replies, “You gave me fifty bucks and then asked for your change back.”
What do you get when you cross kangaroos with geckos?
Leaping lizards!
What kind of lizard loves to tell jokes?
A silly-mander.
Why is it so hard to fool a snake?
Because you can’t pull its leg.
Why did the bug family stay home on their last vacation?
The roach motel was full.
Why did the mama ladybug ground her kids?
They were bugging her.
What is a frog’s favorite soda?
Croaka-Cola.
Some Boy Scouts from the city were on a camping trip. The mosquitoes were so fierce that the boys had to hide under their blankets to avoid getting bitten. Then one of them saw some lightning bugs and said to his friend, “We might as well give up. They’re coming after us with flashlights.”
FOWL PLAY
Birds of a Feather Flock Together
What do you get when you mix a bird with a blender?
Shredded tweet.
What shape is like a lost parrot?
Polygon.
What do you call a bird that’s been eaten by a cat?
A swallow.
What do you call the second bird that’s been eaten by the same cat?
An after-dinner tweet.
One day a man walked into a bird shop carrying a beak. “I’m looking for a bird to match this beak,” he said to the owner.
“No problem,” said the owner. “I’ve got one that’ll fit the bill.”
Why did the bird make fun of everyone?
It was a mockingbird!
ALEX: Did you hear the story about the peacock?
TRISH: No, but I heard it’s a beautiful tale!
Why did the teacher send the duck to the principal’s office?
He was making wisequacks.
How do baby birds know how to fly?
They just wing it.
Why did the bird sit on the fish?
The fish was a perch.
If a seagull flies over the sea, what flies over the bay?
A bagel.
What do you get when you cross a duck with a large reptile?
A quack-odile.
Is chicken soup good for your health?
Not if you’re the chicken!
Who tells the best chicken jokes?
Comedi-hens.
Why did the duck become a spy?
He was good at quacking codes.
SPOTLIGHT
Miranda Cosgrove
Miranda Cosgrove was discovered at the very young age of three. She was at a restaurant with her family, singing and dancing around the table, when sh
e was approached by an agent. Soon, she was appearing in commercials for McDonald’s and Burger King.
She then moved on to play minor roles in several television shows. It was her first movie role, as the know-it-all teacher’s pet, Summer, in School of Rock (2003) with Jack Black, that really launched her career. The movie was a box office hit and helped her get her first major TV role, as the little sister on Drake & Josh, where her character made her TV brothers’ lives as miserable as possible—in the most hilarious ways!
The show ended after three seasons, but her talent landed her the lead role in her own hysterical TV series, iCarly. Miranda even got to put her musical talents to use, performing the theme song to iCarly along with former TV big brother Drake Bell. And in 2008, she starred in the movie iCarly: iGo to Japan.
In addition to filming the show, she also lends her voice to animated movies. She was Margo in Despicable Me (2010) and its sequel (2013). Movies, TV, singing … What will she do next?
A lady goes into a pet store one day. “I’m really lonely,” she says to the clerk. “I need a pet to keep me company.”
“Well,” replies the clerk, “how about this nice parrot? He’ll talk to you.”
“Hey, that’s great,” says the lady. She buys the parrot and takes him home. The next day the lady comes back to the pet store. “You know, that parrot isn’t talking to me yet,” she says.
“Hmm, let’s see,” says the clerk. “I know! You buy this little ladder for his cage. He’ll climb the ladder, and then he’ll talk.” So off she goes with a newly purchased ladder. The next day she comes back again.
“Hey, that parrot still hasn’t said a word,” she says to the pet-store clerk.
He thinks a minute. “How about this little mirror?” he says. “You hang it at the top of the ladder. The parrot will climb the ladder, look in the mirror, and then he’ll talk to you.”
“Okay,” she says, and buys the little mirror and goes home. But the next day that same lady is back in the shop. “Well, I’m getting a bit discouraged,” she says. “That parrot still won’t talk to me.”