Humor is a very subjective thing. What can leave someone rolling on the floor laughing until they are gasping for air while another person might just shrug their shoulders at the same thing. People have different tastes, after all. Though I don’t understand how some people don’t think that “Scrubs” was the funniest show, ever. Here’s an example of how a joke can either be funny or not.
We see the legendary George Burns in an office. While getting his ubiquitous cigar ready, he explains he’s more of a story-teller than a joke-teller. He talks about an actor named Wilton Lackaye, an actor who did summer productions on Broadway. Lackaye was on the same billboard as a vaudeville act and one time those people found the veteran actor in a bar. They were so honored to share billing with him and they wanted to buy him a drink. He declined, saying that he’d just lost his mother. One of them said, “We understand. We just lost our trunk.”
When Burns told the joke, I’m sure that it made a lot of people who were watching look at each other and go, “Huh?” I didn’t get it either when I watched it. One of the YouTube commenters explained that the Vaudeville lifestyle mean living out of one’s suitcase. That trunk was extremely valuable, and to them they equated it as being important as Lackaye’s mother who died. Yeah. I’ve heard better myself.
This was from a TV movie that aired in 1984 – other people that told their jokes included Ernest Borgnine, Jack Lemmon and Spencer Tracy. I didn’t listen to the other ones, but I do hope they were less groan-worthy as this one. George Burns was a very funny man, but even the best can come up with a clunker, I guess. I hope he doesn’t show up as God now to chastise me for not getting his joke…
What’s the best joke you ever heard? Please leave them in the comments. Clean ones, please. Also, it would be great if you “Like” us on Facebook. No joke.
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