Flack's Daily Smack - Jokes I Got 20 Years Too Late

RSS Bot · March 18, 2008

Here are a couple of jokes that took me over 20 years to finally get the punch line.

Joke #1: In the 1936 Three Stooges classic film Disorder in the Court, through a comedy of errors (which pretty much describes every situation the Stooges ever found themselves in) a man's toupee ends up attached to Larry's violin bow (at the 8:30 mark). After Larry mistakes the hair piece for a tarantula, Moe grabs the bailiff's gun and shoots the toupee multiple times. When Larry picks the toupee up from the floor, Moe says, "Tarantula? I just shot five holes in a divot." Larry is then smacked, for good measure.

What I Missed: A "divot" is the small piece of turf that gets scraped up while golfing.

In My Defense: Shortly before the above scene takes place, there is another scene in which Curly is advised to "drop the vernacular," after letting loose a string of slang words that neither the judge nor the jurors can understand. As a kid, I assumed "divot" was slang for "toupee."

Joke #2:Weird Al's song "I Want a New Duck," based on Huey Lewis' "I Want a New Drug" (as was Ray Parker, Jr's Ghostbusters, apparently), is filled with dozens of duck-related jokes. ("I want a new duck / One that won't steal my beer / One that won't stick his bill in my mail / One that knows the duck stops here.") What I missed was a sly play on words at the end of the second chorus: "One that won't drive me crazy, waddling all around / One who'll teach me how to swim and help me not to drown / And show me how to get down ... How to get down baby."

What I Missed: "Down" is a layer of feathers that comes from birds, often used in sleeping bags, coats and pillows.

In My Defense: "I Want a New Duck" was released on 1985's Dare to be Stupid. In the mid-80s, I frequented Yukon on Wheels, our local roller rink. Rick Dee's

was in regular rotation back then (played when it was time to shoot the duck). I always thought Al's was jokingly relating to Dee's classic song.

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