Comments on: Funny Bones, 1908

By: Michelle Glauser

Michelle Glauser — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 16:33:29 +0000

Sheer good luck indeed. The way things are now, I worry at times that I’ll be well-educated but without employment. At least there are still reasons to keep smiling. Thanks, as always, for the wonderful posts.

By: Ray

Ray — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 00:35:33 +0000

Kind of the Bob Newhart of Mormon humor?

By: Ardis E. Parshall

Ardis E. Parshall — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 19:05:00 +0000

Hunter am a ham. You’re welcome!

Maurine, I noticed the “Stout” as I was typing this, but until I read your comment I hadn’t picked up on “Vera” as part of the joke. Ha!

Ray, 1908 is as early as any of the church magazines have a dedicated joke page — before that, jokes were used as fillers here and there at the bottom of a column. I wonder if the idea of a vaudeville routine in print was so new that it took a while to realize that short-and-snappy works better? Don’t really know — but if you think these are long, you should see some of the half-pagers I didn’t include. They take forever to set up a gag line.

By: Ray

Ray — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 18:26:44 +0000

Great, as always. Any idea why these are so much longer than many of the others?

By: Maurine

Maurine — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 18:08:06 +0000

My mother was born in 1908, so I tried to put these jokes in that context. My favorite one is “Corrected.” I loved the play on words in “The Seats Were Safe” with the lady’s name of Vera Stout, which made the joke twice as comical.

By: Hunter

Hunter — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 18:04:36 +0000

“Teacher – Jimmie, correct this sentence: “Our teacher am in sight.”

Jimmie – Our teacher am a sight.”

Ha! I just have to use that one sometime. Thanks for this.