Friar's Club Encyclopedia of Jokes

by Barry Dougherty

“Thank you, son. But why did you say that?”

  “Because if you have a great day, I’ll have a great day.”

  I saw a bumper sticker the other day that said, “Jesus is my best friend.” Boy, his dog must be pissed.

  Furniture is the other thing my wife likes to push around.

  Three students at the CIA Academy were about to graduate. The instructor called them into a room and said to the first one, “Take this gun and go into the next room. I want you to assassinate whomever you find there. If you don’t do this, you don’t graduate.”

  The man took the gun and went into the next room, where he found his wife.

  Taking one look at her, he returned to the instructor, threw down his gun and quit, saying, “I can’t do this.”

  The next man went into the room and saw his own wife. He hesitated a moment, then he, too, resigned.

  The third man took the gun and went into the room. The instructor heard six rapid shots, followed by screams, thuds, crashes, then silence. Then the door opened and out came the third agent all bloody, and his shirt in shreds. He said to the instructor, “You idiot, you gave me blanks! I had to strangle her!”

  Why do Japanese Sumo wrestlers shave their legs?

  So you can tell them apart from feminists.

  Why are elephants wrinkled?

  Have you ever tried to iron one?

  If a pickpocket would go through my pockets now, all he’d get is exercise.

  After about his seventh or eighth drink, the bum looks up from his glass on the bar and sees a horse standing next to him. This would have struck him as odd, except that he was too drunk to notice anything out of the ordinary.

  “Hey,” he said to the bartender, “there’s a horse standing next to me.”

  “I know,” replied the bartender, wiping a glass. “That horse comes in here all the time—and you know, once, just once, I’d like to see him show some kind of expression. He must be part Vulcan or something.”

  The bum looked at the horse’s face. A better poker player could not exist on this earth. “Uh-huh.”

  “Tell ya what,” the bartender suggested, “I’ll give you a free round of drinks if you can make him laugh.”

  The bum thought for a second or two, then said, “Sure.” He took the horse by the reins and led him into the men’s bathroom. A moment later, he and the horse came out again, and the horse was laughing uproariously.

  Stunned, the bartender poured the bum’s free round of drinks without taking his eyes off the animal.

  “That was amazing!” he told the bum as he finished off his last drink. “I’ll give you another free round of drinks if you can make him cry!”

  Smiling, the bum said, “All right,” and once again led the horse into the men’s room. When they came out a minute later, the horse was wallowing in tears. Shaking his head and rubbing his disbelieving eyes, the bartender poured the bum his second round of drinks.

  “You’ve gotta tell me,” he said as the bum finished his drink, “how on earth did you get that horse to laugh and cry?”

  “Well,” said the bum, clearing his throat with pride, “First I told him that my dick was longer than his, and then I proved it.”

  Fighting for peace is like fucking for virginity.

  There are these two nude statues, one of a man and the other of a woman, standing across from each other in a secluded park. A few hundred years after they’ve been put in place, an angel flutters down to them. A wave of his hand, and suddenly the statues come to life and the man and the woman step down from their pedestals.

  The angel says, “I have been sent to grant the mutual request you both have made after hundreds of years of standing across from each other, unable to move. But be quick—you only have fifteen minutes until you must become statues again.”

  The man looks at the woman. They both flush and giggle, and then run off into some underbrush. The sound of great rustling comes from the bushes, and seven minutes later, they come back to the angel, obviously satisfied.

  The angel smiles at the couple. “That was only seven minutes—why not go back and do it again?”

  The former statues look at each other for a minute, and then the woman says, “Why not? But let’s reverse it this time—you hold down the pigeon, and I’ll shit on it.”

  A yuppie opened the door of his BMW, when suddenly a car came along and hit the door, ripping it off completely. When the police arrived at the scene, the yuppie was complaining bitterly about the damage to his precious BMW.

  “Officer, look what they’ve done to my Beeeeemer!” he whined.

  “You yuppies are so materialistic, you make me sick!” retorted the officer. “You’re so worried about your stupid BMW, that you didn’t even notice that your left arm was ripped off!”

  “Oh my gaaawd,” replied the yuppie, finally noticing the bloody left shoulder where his arm once was. “Where’s my Rolex?”

  How many mice does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

  Only two, but the hard part is getting them into the lightbulb.

  A man was found murdered in his home. Detectives at the scene found the man facedown in the bathtub. The tub had been filled with milk, and the deceased had a banana protruding from his buttocks.

  The police suspect a cereal killer.

  Did you hear that one of Santa’s elves tried to commit suicide?

  It seems he had very low elf-esteem.

  Why isn’t there mouse-flavored cat food?

  Did you here about the psychic amnesiac?

  He knew in advance what he was going to forget.

  What is the definition of a WASP?

  Someone who gets out of the shower to take a leak.

  Mistakes

  I don’t want to make the wrong mistake.

  —YOGI BERRA

  To err is human, but to really screw up requires a computer.

  As long as the world is turning and spinning, we’re gonna be dizzy and we’re gonna make mistakes.

  —MEL BROOKS

  The only thing I regret about my life is the length of it. If I had to live my life again, I’d make all the same mistakes—only sooner.

  —TALLULAH BANKHEAD

  A company we know is encountering so many errors, it’s thinking of buying a computer to blame them on.

  Money

  A study of economics usually reveals that the best time to buy anything is last year.

  —MARTY ALLEN

  Inflation is when you pay cash for something and they ask to see your driver’s license.

  Among the things money can’t buy is what it used to.

  —MAX KAUFFMANN

  Bills travel through the mail at twice the speed of checks.

  —STEVEN WRIGHT

  There’s a phrase we live by in America: “In God We Trust.” It’s right there where Jesus would want it: on our money.

  —STEPHEN COLBERT

  The seventy-seven-year-old tycoon and his twenty-six-year-old bride were on their way from the wedding reception to the honeymoon suite at the Plaza when he had a tremendous heart attack. Paramedics labored furiously over his frail body as the ambulance rushed across town.

  The millionaire’s pulse remained feeble and erratic, however, and one of the medics turned to the young bride. “How about giving your husband a few words of encouragement, Mrs. Dillon? I think he could use them,” he suggested.

  “Okay,” she agreed with a shrug, leaning toward the stretcher. “Bill, honey, I hope you perk up real fast. I’m so horny I’m ready to hop on one of these cute guys in white.”

  The best things in life are free. And the cheesiest things in life are free with a paid subscription to Sports Illustrated.

  One dark night outside a small town, a fire started inside the local chemical plant. Before long it exploded into flames and an alarm went out to fire departments from miles around. After fighting the fire for over an hour, the chemical company president approached the fire chief and said, “All of our secret formulas are
in the vault in the center of the plant. They must be saved! I will give fifty thousand dollars to the engine company that brings them out safely!”

  As soon as the chief heard this, he ordered the firemen to strengthen their attack on the blaze. After two more hours of attacking the fire, the president of the company offered $100,000 to the engine company that could bring out the company’s secret files. In the distance, a long siren was heard and another fire truck came into sight. It was a local volunteer fire company composed entirely of men over sixty-five. To everyone’s amazement, the little fire engine raced through the chemical plant gates and drove straight into the middle of the inferno. In the distance the other firemen watched as the old-timers hopped off their rig and began to fight the fire with an effort that they had never seen before.

  After an hour of intense fighting, the volunteer company had extinguished the fire and saved the secret formulas. Joyous, the chemical company president announced that he would double the reward to $200,000 and walked over to personally thank each of the volunteers. After thanking each of the old men individually, the president asked the group what they intended to do with the reward money. The fire truck driver looked him right in the eye and said, “The first thing we’re going to do is fix the damn brakes on that truck!”

  I’ve been rich and I’ve been poor; rich is better.

  —SOPHIE TUCKER

  Beverly Hills is so exclusive—it’s the only town in America where Taco Bell has an unlisted number. And so rich—it’s the only place I’ve seen a Salvation Army Band with a string section.

  People who say money can’t buy happiness just don’t know where to shop.

  —TOM SHIVERS

  My father got my mother a telephone in the limousine. Big deal, every time it rings he has to run down to the garage and answer it.

  —LONDON LEE

  Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons.

  —WOODY ALLEN

  Money really isn’t everything. If it was, what would we buy with it?

  —TOM WILSON

  The kid had swallowed a coin and it got stuck in his throat, and so his mother ran out in the street yelling for help. A man passing by took the boy by his shoulders and hit him with a few strong strokes on the back, and he coughed the coin out.

  “I don’t know how to thank you, Doc . . .” his mother began.

  “I’m not a doctor,” the man replied. “I’m from the IRS.”

  When a fellow says, “It ain’t the money but the principle of the thing,” it’s the money.

  —ELBERT HUBBARD

  Mothers and Motherhood

  My friend Myron tells me, “Last year on Mother’s Day the whole family got together for a big dinner, and afterward, when Mom started to clean up, I said to her, ‘Don’t bother with those dishes, Mom. Today is Mother’s Day. You can always do them tomorrow.’”

  —JOEY ADAMS

  There’s not a lot of warmth between me and my mother. I asked her about it. I said, “Mrs. Stoller. . . .”

  —FRED STOLLER

  If it’s five o’clock and the children are still alive, I’ve done my job.

  —ROSEANNE

  I think I’d be a good mother. Maybe a little overprotective. Like I would never let the kid out—of my body.

  —WENDY LIEBMAN

  An angry mother took her son to the doctor and asked, “Is a nine-year-old boy able to perform an appendectomy?”

  “Of course not,” the doctor said impatiently.

  The mother turned to her son and said, “What did I tell you? Now put it back.”

  The child had his mother’s eyes, his mother’s nose, and his mother’s mouth. Which leaves his mother with a pretty blank expression.

  —ROBERT BENCHLEY

  A woman came to ask the doctor if a woman should have children after thirty-five. The doctor said, “Thirty-five children is enough for any woman!”

  —GRACIE ALLEN

  When my mom got really mad, she would say, “Your butt is my meat.” Not a particularly attractive phrase. And I always wondered, Now, what wine goes with that?

  —PAULA POUNDSTONE

  My mom was a little weird. When I was little she would make chocolate frosting. And she’d let me lick the beaters. And then she’d turn them off.

  —MARTY COHEN

  The boy’s mother had bought him two new ties. He hurried into his bedroom, immediately put on one of them, and hurried back.

  “Look, Mama! Isn’t it gorgeous?”

  His mother said, “What’s the matter? You don’t like the other one?”

  Mothers-in-Law

  I haven’t spoken to my mother-in-law for eighteen months—I don’t like to interrupt her.

  —KEN DODD

  Behind every successful man stands a proud wife and a surprised mother-in-law.

  —BROOKS HAYS

  First guy: I got this bottle of brandy for my mother-in-law.

  Second guy: What a great trade!

  Over a beer one evening, Fred was going on and on about his mother-in-law—how cheap she was, how meddlesome, how petty, how overbearing, how boring. But then he leaned over and confessed that he had to give the old bird credit for one thing. There was one moment when he’d have cut his throat if it weren’t for her.

  “Huh?” His buddy was startled.

  “She was using my razor.”

  For Mothers-in-Law Day do something nice for the lady: take her out to dinner, send her flowers, divorce her daughter.

  —JOEY ADAMS

  What do you call a blond mother-in-law?

  An air bag.

  The Movies

  If my fanny squirms, it’s bad. If my fanny doesn’t squirm, it’s good. It’s as simple as that.

  —HARRY COHN

  The big guns in the movie business are usually those who have never been fired.

  You’re never disappointed in an X-rated movie. You never say, “Gee, I never thought it would end that way.”

  —RICHARD JENI

  Did you hear about the new nature movie?

  It’s the epic story of a dysfunctional salmon who only wanted to float downstream.

  After Groucho Marx introduced Sam Goldwyn [at a Friars roast], Goldwyn made a less than thrilling speech about the glories of being an independent producer. When he sat down, Groucho slunk to the microphone, flicked the ashes from his cigar, glared at Goldwyn, and sneered, “Do you suppose I could buy back that introduction?”

  Then he turned to the audience and growled, “I saw Mr. Goldwyn’s last picture, and what he’s got to be independent about, I’ll never know.”

  —GROUCHO MARX, ACCORDING TO JOEY ADAMS

  An adult Western is where the hero still kisses his horse at the end, only now he worries about it.

  —MILTON BERLE

  Music

  At a party to celebrate the success of the musical Showboat, Mrs. Kern, the wife of the composer, was approached by a gushing fan. “And to think your husband wrote that fabulous song ‘Old Man River’! It’s absolutely my favorite—”

  “No, you’ve got it wrong,” interrupted Mrs. Hammerstein. “My husband wrote ‘Old Man River.’ Her husband wrote, ‘Dum dum dum-dum, da dum dum dum-dum.’”

  Opera in English is, in the main, just about as sensible as baseball in Italian.

  —H. L. MENCKEN

  Opera is when a guy gets stabbed in the back, and instead of bleeding, he sings.

  —ED GARDNER

  What’s Beethoven doing now?

  Decomposing!

  When the orchestra began playing Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet overture, a woman noticed tears beginning to run down the cheeks of the elderly man she was seated next to. Before long he was sobbing outright, so she turned to him and said gently, “You must be an incurable romantic.”

  “Not at all,” he gulped. “I’m a musician.”

  The trouble with jazz is that there is not enough of it; some of it we have to listen to twice.

  —D
ON HEROLD

  Did you know Mozart had no arms and no legs? I’ve seen statues of him on people’s pianos.

  —VICTOR BORGE

  You know you’re going out with someone too young for you when they say, “Did you know Paul McCartney was in a band before Wings?”

  Why can’t you go to the bathroom at a Beatles reunion concert?

  There’s no John.

  Either heaven or hell will have continuous background music. Which one you think it will be tells a lot about you.

  —BILL VAUGHAN

  What do you call a guy who hangs out with musicians?

  A drummer.

  Q: What happens when you play country music backwards?

  A: Your dog comes back, you get your truck back, your momma gets out of jail. . . .

  How many musicians does it take to change a lightbulb?

  One and ten on the guest list.

  How do you know when there’s a singer at the door?

  They can’t find the key and they don’t know when to come in.

  What’s the difference between a musician and a savings bond?

  A savings bond eventually matures and makes money

  Why did the musician break open the drum?

  To look inside and see what makes all that noise.

  What should you do when a musician comes to your door?

  Pay him and take your pizza.

  N

  Nature

  I was walking along the ocean—that’s generally where you’ll find the beach—looking for ashtrays in their wild state.

  —RONNY GRAHAM

  I have a large seashell collection. It’s so large, I keep it on beaches all over the world.

  —STEVEN WRIGHT

  Adam to Eve: Hey! I wear the plants in this family!

  Negotiating

  A girl walked into the corner hardware store, found the hinges she was looking for, and brought them up to the counter.

  “Need a screw for those hinges?” asked the proprietor.

  “No,” she answered after reflecting for a bit, “but how about a blow job for the toaster in the back?”