By Tim Sanders

(This column originally appeared on Sept. 24, 2001. According to the expiration date, it will be good until September 2006.)

1. Consider your audience. I know an excellent joke about a drunken Irishman, a Dublin pub, and a bag full of snails, but take my word for it, it is not the kind of joke to tell a drunken Irishman.

A speaker at an American Bar Association dinner in a large Midwestern city decided to amuse his audience with what he thought were a few harmless jokes. He got through an anecdote about a busload of corporate lawyers going over a cliff, and even survived another about a shark refusing to attack a divorce lawyer out of professional courtesy. But when he suggested that one of the organizers of the event, a respected personal injury lawyer who’d recently undergone surgery to correct a deviated septum, had actually injured himself chasing a parked ambulance, several dozen enraged litigators wrestled him from the podium and he was fortunate to escape in one piece. Since he failed to finish his speech, he was later sued for breach of contract by the organizers of the ABA dinner. That speaker would have been wiser had he told doctor jokes. Lawyers love doctor jokes.
 

2. Never, ever say "Stop me if you’ve heard this." In 1998, Cleveland postman Newton Brill’s wife, Brenda, hit him in the head with a large iron skillet when he announced at the dinner table "Stop me if you’ve heard this" and then launched into that weary old tale about the duck in the drugstore, purchasing Chap Stick. She told authorities "I must have heard Newton tell that stupid story a thousand times. I just couldn’t take it anymore." Fortunately, Brill’s head wound was not fatal. His wife, however, complains that "He can’t remember jokes anymore, but now he recites really bad poetry all day. I swear, if I hear Emily Dickinson’s ‘I felt a Funeral in my Brain’ one more time, I’ll drop an anvil on his head."
 

3. Never tell half a joke. While this may sound obvious, there have been several times when my wife would attempt to tell me a joke she’d heard recently which she assured me was hilarious.

" . . . and then Porter Wagoner looks that chicken straight in the eye and says . . . wait . . . let me get this right now . . . he says . . . uh. . . oh what was it he said? Or maybe it was the chicken that looked Porter Wagoner straight in the eye and said it. Wait, let me start from the beginning. Maybe it wasn’t Porter Wagoner. Who’s another country singer who sings off key and looks goofy? Uh, let me see . . . Okay, it had to be Porter Wagoner. Porter Wagoner is touring the country with a chicken, and this chicken plays the piano. No, that’s not it. Maybe it was an accordion. Now how did that go? Let me think. Oh nuts, I don’t remember it now, but take my word for it, when I heard it I thought I’d die laughing. Why can’t I remember jokes?"
 

That kind of thing can drive a husband nuts.

4. Avoid jokes which require a response. You know, the "If the entire Alabama football team were to compose a letter, would it be a consonant or a vowel?" or the "How do you get a psychologist out of a tree?" kinds of jokes. You always run the risk of someone answering what is supposed to be a rhetorical question and either scuttling your little joke or at least throwing your timing way off.

When I was nine or ten, my dad and a bunch of his deer hunting buddies were sitting around the kitchen table spinning hunting yarns. I’d recently discovered the humor section of the Boy’s Life magazine, and had found a little joke which I considered hilarious.

"Hey Dad," I asked, "What did one skunk say to the other skunk in church?"

Now the answer I was looking for–one which I assumed would just crack Dad and his buddies up–was "Let us spray."

But since Dad was a Baptist minister, he wanted to know if it was a Baptist church.
"Yeah, Okay," I said, "It was a Baptist church."

"Then," Dad replied, "that skunk told his friend ‘we might as well leave, we can’t make a scent around here.’ "

Now that answer didn’t seem all that funny to me. But to Dad, whose congregation was not always forthcoming with raises, and to his buddies, a couple of whom were also Baptist ministers, his answer was a real hoot. They hee-hawed for longer than I thought necessary, and then asked me if that was the answer I was looking for. I lied and told them it was. I knew my little answer would fall flat. Timing is everything, and the moment was gone.

5. Don’t give your punch line away. Consider, if you will, the following joke, which involves ministers, not skunks:

A Presbyterian minister, a Methodist minister, and a Baptist minister (and their wives) are all riding together, en route to a ministerial conference. Unfortunately, engrossed in a heated theological argument, the Presbyterian drives his Yugo into the path of an eighteen-wheeler.

Standing at the heavenly gate, the Presbyterian minister is approached by St. Peter.
"ID, please." St. Peter says.

The minister is surprised. "ID? I’m the Reverend Neville Bosworth of the First Presbyterian Church of Weems, Nebraska. I’m an important clergyman, and I’m not used to waiting. Please let me in."

"Not so fast," says St. Peter. "I’ve got to look over our record books."

In a few minutes St. Peter returns. "I’m sorry, Rev. Bosworth," he says, "but our records show that during your life you were more concerned with worldly things than spiritual matters. More specifically, you were concerned with money. You paid close attention to each Sunday’s offerings, berated your parishioners about tithing, and were constantly requesting salary increases. You were consumed by the love of money, which as you know is the root of all evil. In fact, so enamored were you of money that you married a woman named Penny."

The Presbyterian minister turns and walks away.

Next St. Peter addresses the Methodist. "I’ve found your name in the record books too," he said, "and while indeed you were not enslaved in your life by the almighty dollar, you were consumed by a debilitating desire for liquor. You were constantly making trips to the liquor store for brandy, your drinking habit caused problems in your family, and in it’s been recorded that you got into the communion wine on several occasions."

"I believe you’re overstating the case, your honor," says the poor minister.

"You think so? Then tell me this: what is your wife’s name?"

"Uh . . . Sherry," says the hapless pastor. He, too, leaves, forlorn.

At this point the Baptist minister turns to his wife. "C’mon, Fanny," he says, "there ain’t no use in us hanging around here."

Now, that is a perfectly serviceable joke, and you can easily adjust it to fit almost any audience by simply changing a denomination here or there. But if you have a wife like mine, who sweetly suggests, "Tim, why don’t you tell everybody the one about the Baptist preacher and his wife, Fanny?" you know how a remark like that can take all the air out of a joke and leave it merely a shell of its former self.