 From Hollywood the CBS radio workshop Funny thing happened to me on the way to the studio. I met a woman who sleeps with cats a woman who sleeps with cat Yeah, Mrs. Cat CBS radio presents the CBS radio workshop dedicated to man's imagination the theater of the mind This afternoon the workshop examines another little understood aspect of man's behavior humor in colloquy for the Joe Miller joke book Produced in Hollywood by William N. Robson and conducted by dr. Frank C. Baxter professor of English literature at the University of Southern, California Dr. Baxter if you fear that your radio is receiving two programs Simultaneously here one of very old jokes and the other a talk on literature then don't touch the dial Believe me. This is all one program Now my own interest in the ancient wheeze is a scholarly one Stepping from the fact that jokes have always had a very real part in literature at least as long as we have the spoken word Moreover, there's always been a heartening feeling of immediacy about jokes not only because so many are topical But because in one way or another we all use jokes with gratifying Regularity some of us tell a joke to fortify a point we wish to make to entertain To enhance ourselves thus in the opinion of others or perhaps we tell them for the Laudatory purpose of relieving the tedium of some dull occasion Now I can best show you what I mean by Bringing you a few examples perhaps of a classic joke a classic teller and a typical occasion Let's start with a man who's almost a semi-pro in the field the after-dinner speaker Friends and put away your watches. I'm not going to talk for an hour In fact, the brevity of my remarks reminds me of what Abe Lincoln once said when his tailor suggested Maybe Lincoln's legs were too long. No Sam the president said I reckon they're just long enough They reached the ground don't they? And all of us have met this next fellow the self-appointed life of the party hey You heard the latest story about the farmer's daughter. Well the farmer did and now she can never darken his door again Even learned men with professional degrees use jokes tellingly that's for example now the glib and successful trial lawyer Ladies and gentlemen of the jury. I assure you I'm implying no criticism of my worthy opponent who found it necessary to Addest you for two hours and a half But he did put me in mind of an old farmer. They say Andrew Jackson came across one day It seems the farmer was feeding his new one piece of straw at a time neighbor Oh Hickory finally said feeding your mule that way. Isn't that going to take a long time? Well general the rustic said slowly reckon it will but what's time to a stupid old jackass? I Let's not overlook the determinedly cheerful wife who feels she has to greet her husband Gailey when he returns Magruling day at the office. No Henry just lie back there and relax while I tell you Do you know what one merry-go-round horse said to the other merry-go-round horse Henry yeah Let's get off this merry-go-round and get married. I'm sick and tired of going around with you Oh And finally finally the man who's living depends on telling jokes the comedian hey buddy Do you know why cream costs more than milk? No, tell me my boy Why does cream cost more than milk because stupid it's harder for the cows to sit on those tiny little bottles And they're happily there ends our illustrations Now admittedly these were old old jokes, but if you make the common error of classifying them as joe millers You're wrong. They're much older Every one of those jokes in one form or another was already old before joe miller was born Professor professor are you trying to tell us that there actually was a joe miller? Yes Although the records are unclear as to the year of his birth We do know that he died in london in 1738 I get it joe miller lived. It's his jokes that died Oh on the contrary joe miller died his jokes live on forever, but I'd always heard joe miller was uh You know sort of a myth an excuse for a bum joke No, miller was an actual person But oddly enough not only did joe miller never utter a joke himself The book bearing his name was published more than a year after he died Oh, come on. You know, I think joe miller's still alive and he found my payroll as a writer under an assumed name He's my brother-in-law Dr. Baxter you made some pretty fantastic allegations. Are you able to prove any part of them? Well, yes counselor It happens that I have with me several monographs written by joe miller's own contemporaries in a court of law doctor That would be inadmissible as evidence. It's hearsay out and out hearsay However, since you claim he's dead acceptable proof would be the corpus itself. Oh, that's pretty ridiculous, isn't it even for a lawyer It isn't quite as impossible as it might at first seen Oh, now what sort of mumbo jumbo is that either you can produce joe miller or you cannot You know, I don't see why I shouldn't try to produce him in this bridey murphy age of supersonic animation Automation mechanical brains technology more baffling than merlin Even though I do not pretend myself to be a pure scientist merely a sometimes student This cause is a worthy one and the end of I succeed in materializing joe miller merits the means The means are never very far away these days Now here beside me. I just happened to have a mammoth mechanical brain I insert this punch card in it I depress button a so I throw the switch mark go go go And behold we get Yes, joe. We read you five by five. This is dr. Frank Baxter of the university of southern california. Ah, yes, dr Is there some service i'm able to perform for you some forgotten speech of will shake steels or ben johnson for chance No, joe not today, but right now i'd like you to drop down here It is down, isn't it joe Good well, then would you drop down for a few moments? Provide the answers to the questions I have for you Well, now let's see let me focus Yes, now go past that first thunder head on the left Turn sharp at that fluffy gathering of cumulus and then slide down the slightly tarnished rainbow Straight ahead. Ah, yes, friend Baxter. I see it now Roger wilco and out And which of you chances to be the usher in literature dr. Baxter. I'm the dominio I want you to know how much I appreciate this cooperation of yours least I can do for a fellow student and player Now how may I serve you? Would you just tell my friends here who you are what you were what connections of any you had with that famous book Entitled joe miller's jests. Oh joe miller's jests The pucks on it and the fulsome knaves who poisted it upon a half-witted world I bite my thumb at them, sir. We'll stipulate the pucks miller, but let's get to the testimony The professor here alleges you never wrote a joke. I sir and or never spoke one You see good friends. I was a leading tragedian in london theaters and a splendid one if I say so myself Which I gladly do I was a leading tragedian and not a comic clown At the time in london we had a self-styled critic of the drama a suet head one john motley The motley was an obituary of a tavern I frequented which was the gathering place for all the mounty banks and roisterers From the theaters royal of covent garden and drury lane John gay he who wrote the beggars opera among other things Mr. Professor lacy all of them the actors the writers of midday This was that famous public house on portsmouth street. Hi friend domini Well to get on this this nave this motley had a good thing going for him which profited him much Although it was equally a brim with chicane. Are you mean he had a racket? He invented the rackets this violet Would enact her by motley all the ale and sack he could hold Motley in turn would publish glowing notices on the player's performances A trap into which I would not fall good for you, mr. Meller. No, I mean thanks madam And here perhaps it is best I explained that my chiefest misfortune was the maid I had wed my wife Come lay but a complete shrew So perhaps you can understand that after an evening's performance I would repair to the tavern Spurning motley and his noisome companions and sit alone at the table the boniface reserved for me exclusively Dreading the hour when I must return to me home And de miller so all right already then what happened well after my concentrate buffs To buy his good opinion Motley became so enraged he determined he would shame me a ruin me reputed the leading perjudian so One day when he came upon an ancient jest so creaky of the joint it was repulsive He determined his chance to destroy me had come He waited until every Friends imbibers and countrymen lend me your ears I have a jest to tell you a rib tickler just told me about that ever popular tragedian none other than Joe miller Here's the jaypers miller told it to me A man asked his neighbor but late married to a widow how he agreed with his wife Marvelous well the neighbor replied when I am married she is married when I am sad She is sad but when I go out I am married to go from her and when I return she is sad to see me Thus instead of being greeted with groans and catcalls Motley was filled with amaze to find he had evoked gales of legs slapping laughter Bitter and baffled he managed to get aside john gay And beseeched him to explain this unexpected outburst of mirth holding his side gay manny Oh friend motley don't you see it isn't a horrid jest What makes it comical is that a vinegar visits like that hand-packed miller should tell it I motley that's what makes it funny joe miller telling any joke And there I was hoist by motley's own bitter They didn't blame you for the bad joke mr. Miller they mad them to the contrary They found that to ascribe adjust to me was better insurance than had it been written by Lloyd's coffee house So from that night on all ancient jakes told in the city were laid at my door But motley at first deflated finally reeked his revenge on me. How did he do that show? So identified that I'd become with jests and jives that my very presence in a play would set an audience to convulsions And since I was a trotidian soon no theatrical manager in london would give me employees I died not too long after a broken man Well granting all that you still haven't explained that book bearing your name. Hi I come now to that sit up upon my demise one thuddeus reed a shrewd publisher of folios Sort out motley and proposed he collects the deadliest of the jokes being told and published them as Joe miller's Motley refused to have anything to do with the publication which might perpetuate my name until Retempted him with visions of heady profits motley lend dear to me. There is a fortune in the book of jests I would not be associated with joe miller that's neary is Unfriendly uncounted not for say A hundred now for a thousand pounds. Yeah How much friendry From a book of jokes, I know not except the rewards are limitless Recall you myles covey dales bible published in 1535 Covey dales obtained the funds to publish the bible by issuing a collection of jokes nine years earlier The one eclips a hundred married tales and a century ago in 1630 the court jester archie armstorm Published his book and both volumes still are in good demand at the store Mill john will you join me in this enterprise? I but on one condition all under knows of my distaste for joe miller And I do not wish to be made a laughingstock I shall set down these jokes, but not under my own name We shall create a pseudonym for the acknowledged editor excellent john And there you have the entire Sordid story of joe miller's guests or the wits barimicum Edited by elijah jenkins s squad published by t reed anodomini 1739 Now joe that was a story well told indeed. Thank you dr. Baxter one and all And now my duty has been discharged. I must be going for sooth. How far sooth are you going joe? Ha ha ha Plague on you sir a pox and a plague on all hollow heads who practice what never did I preach? My lady esteemed gentlemen, it is past the time when I must return Uh Parting is such sweet sorrow joe wait. I feel I should repay you somehow for all the trouble to which we put Hey, he's gone just vanished Can you blame even him after that gosh awful pun of yours? How far sooth are you going? True the pun is the lowest form of wit Well, perhaps certainly shakespeare used many puns the great john milton even had satan make them puns are the basis of a lot of Good humor like the joke I open up with you all laughed at it the one about mrs. Katz Well, that wasn't a bad joke yet. There's another perhaps more acceptable version if you care to hear it Very well then may I ask our joke demonstrators for version 13b of the mrs. Katz joke I never thought I'd get here. I was just attacked by a man eating rabbit a man eating rabbit Yeah, I was in a restaurant and a man eating rabbit through a punch at That was pretty good doctor, but uh, was it original heaven forbid this like most jokes is What is technically known as a switcheroo? Now, let me show you how this is done historically Uh joe miller's joke number 99, please A lady questioned about her age affirmed she was 40 and called upon a gentleman for his opinion I do not doubt it madam replied he because have I not heard you say so the last 10 years Now Let's see where mr. Martley got it to include in the joe miller jests Uh, let's have the parallel joke from armstrong's book published 16 30, please a court lady had dinner and speaking of her age Said she was 40 one garlant on hearing this whispered joe's companion I have not the faith to disbelieve her for I've heard her say so anytime these 10 years That's no switch doctor. That's out now stealing even the numbers 40 and 10 Yes, but the theft was armstrong's because that joke the joke he took his joke from Was current back in latin times and romantimes in cicero's day and it went like this Oh noble cicero. Fabia dollabella. Say if she is but 30 summers, would this be true? It must be true for I have heard it these last 20 years Are there are there other examples doctor? Yes. Come on professor I've got my pencil and notebook already, but they've got to be better than that Oh, there are dozens of examples hundreds some I can't even quote because of the robustness of elizabethan humor And others which today are interesting not for their shimmering wit but only to scholars who seek sources There's several jokes appearing in the hundred merry tales printed in 1500 That's a book that shakespeare knew and referred to by the way the hundred merry tales of 1500 There are jokes there as well as an archie armstrong and joe miller all similar if not the same And few of them are funny today. Well, if they were funny ones doctor, why aren't they today? Let me give you one final example Now here's another joke just as it appears in armstrong 17th century book Two dutchmen one very tall the other of exceeding low stature were walking together A pleasant gentleman seeing them said to his friend yonder go high germany and the low countries You call that a joke doctor? Yes at one time it was a joke and a good joke and it enjoyed great vogue But now using it as a springboard Let's take a much more recent version which states back only a few years when the american fair demand marcus low And the producer lee schubert were familiar figures on broadway And marcus low and lee schubert happened to pass one day and this was their greeting highly. Hi, hello So you see that will shakespeare was right when he wrote in loves labors lost Adjusts prosperity lies in the ear of him who hears it never in the tongue of him who makes it Yes doctor, but you're quoting shakespeare, of course, haven't you a theory of your own about what's funny and why? Well, as a matter of fact, I have a lot of This is a dangerous business now if one of you will be good enough to move that chopping block a little closer I'll loosen my collar and lay my neck on the block. Okay, professor. Let's not keep a frantic world into spenders waiting for Have you given your theory a name doctor? Well, I suppose so it seems to me by the way that that when we laugh Most of the time we laugh at someone who was doing something we'd like to do We're also inhibited and ruled and regulated by laws that whenever we see any person Getting off second base safely doing something that we'd like to do and can't We acknowledge with a warm satisfaction of laughter the existence of one of our fellows who for a moment gets free We say off into ourselves. Uh, I wish I'd said that I wish I had done that Or I wish I'd seen that you might call this the I wish I theory I wish I well, uh, but doctor that's pretty much a generality, isn't it? Yes, of course No one theory explains all jokes, but to be specific Why doesn't one of you tell his favorite joke to the others and see if they think it's funny We're not professionals. Why not let the comedian tell one of his Let's let's take this one. The scene is an asylum and inmate is looking over the wall watching the gardener work Finally, he says Hey, buddy, what are you doing? The gardener says why I'm putting fertilizer on the strawberries The other guy screams, how do you like that? I put cream on mine and they call me crazy I Mind dr. Baxter's I wish I very I wish I hadn't heard You don't know what's funny and what isn't well, let's see if we do or not I'll tell one. I know knock them in the aisles It seems a farmer and his daughter were in the farmer's car driving back home with the money They'd just gotten in town selling their eggs Well, suddenly the farmers by two armed bandits approaching so he whispered to his daughter Mary quick stick that money in your mouth and hide it Well, the girl did as she was told and the holdup man couldn't find the money which made them so sore They kicked them out and took the car Well, once he was sure they were safe the farmer said, I guess we was lucky. All right But if you're more had been along we could have shaved the car too Uh gentleman can't we have some order here? Gentlemen, please dr. Baxter could I speak with you a moment good professor why joe miller back again? What brings you back to I heard this idiotic argument and I came back to assure you it was none of my doing sir Of course it isn't but my I'm glad you're back. You left before I could ask you to dine with me Well, I uh, I really shouldn't you know, uh hate traveling off to dark, but Well, I shall make an exception. Good doctor Even so doosid long since I've had any solid food and uh, what shall the menu be? Well now how would a steak a steak this thick strike you? Perfection itself, but then let's see then perhaps a salad of tossed california greens Oh, the very words fairly titillate the gastric juices And what shall we have with the coffee? Why anything you choose joe would you have strawberries doctor? You have all the strawberries your heart desires. Oh, not for me good friend who strawberries for you Why joe why strawberries for me? Because I want to see what you put on your strawberries Well, that's it good friends joe miller's jests or the wits what he make them Oh, may joe and his jests both leave us and rest in peace You've been listening to the cdf radio workshops production of colloquy four the joe miller joke book With dr. Frank c baxter professor of english literature at the university of southern california Colloquy four was written directed in hollywood by paul franklin Included in the cast where virginia greg joe kerns peter leads ben right dawes butler Howard mcnear jane velo and joe forte sound effects by gusts bays