Exhibit A Puns

a zoo owner wanted a mongoose exhibit, so he wrote to the supplier - dear sir please send me a pair of mongooses, he thinks that doesn't sound right, so he throws it in the bin. try again - dear sir please send me a pair of mongeese, that doesn't sound right, so he throws it in the bin. try again - dear sir please send me a pair of mongi, that doesn't sound right, so he throws it in the bin. try again - dear sir please send me a mongoose

PS and another one

"Its bread in captivity"

The zookeeper told me it was bread in captivity.

Two bee fair, it was alright.

It was a shih tzu.

A whim away, a whim away, a whim away!

"They must cost a lot of Monet!"

It was a shih tzu.

It’s a real gallery of the fine warts.

As his apprentice, I once assisted him at an exhibition and managed to lose the cutting implement he uses to prepare the paper for folding. I can’t believe I lost The Rock’s Paper Scissors.

I'm quite the music history buff- always have been. My first inkling as a college student was to explore turning this into a career. So I found a music museum, wrote an impassioned essay, and somehow landed the 12-week internship.

When I got there, I met the curator, a woman named Rhonda. Like me, she had grown up enjoying music and always wanting to know more. Thanks to grants and donors' generosity, she had helped continue the museum's legacy of showcasing what might otherwise be lost to history.

The tradition of the museum had always been to let the interns work in the orchestral wing. My assignment in particular was the string section.

Now I didn't know a whole lot about the string family, but I saw some really fine specimens and decided we could perhaps tell a broader story about the progression of the instruments. And so I began studying.

After about a week of studying, I went to Rhonda and asked if we could do something different here. She was very receptive to the idea and introduced me to her assistant, Dr. Will. His PhD was in history, natch, but he still relished having everyone call him Doctor. It was funny.

Dr. Will helped me learn so much about how the family of instruments developed over time, their overall cultural footprint, etc.

Did you know a fiddle and a violin are the same thing? Did you know the viola family dates back to the 16th C.? Vivaldi wrote 25 cello concertos!

I dazzled visitors with tales of the Stradivarius, Amati and Guarneri families. I noted the increase in neck length over time. I reassured them that despite the name catgut, no cat intestines were used in the creation of these instruments—but it sure might be sheep or goat.

Sadly, 12 weeks goes by quickly when you're having fun, and I got enthusiastic letters of recommendation from Rhonda and Dr. Will, and I do miss them. Hello, you two.

I figured I could waltz (sorry) right in to more museum jobs later, but boy, was I mistaken.

I kept interviewing for the job, but after about the 10th cold shoulder, I had to find out what I was doing wrong. I had done such a good job, after all, right??????

So I fucking called the museum

got the guy who interviewed me on the line—and he wasn't thrilled to even talk to me. But I asked him, sir, why didn't I even get a call back? Weren't my qualifications good?

He said, yes, BUT.......

"...we simply can't hire someone who has exhibited a history of violins."

Eet's a gouda show!

(This probably makes more sense if you're British.)

Doing his rounds one day and when he got to the bird enclosure he noticed a load of the birds had died. Unsure as to what he should do with the bodies he tossed them into the big cat exhibit.

The next day he was cleaning out the primates and noticed the lifeless figure of an ape laying on the floor... not wanting to perform a proper burial and besides- he wasn't earning much more than minimum wage anyway so he tossed it into the big cat enclosure.

On his third day the zookeeper came across his colleague who kept bees, it seems they'd got sick and a lot of the hive had perished. Not to worry, the zookeeper scooped them onto a shovel and tossed them into the big cat exhibit. It's the circle of life he thought to himself.

The next day there was a lot of excitement in the zoo. A new lioness had arrived. The lioness stalked out of the trailer...sniffed at the unfamiliar lion next to her...

"So, what's the food like in this place then?" She asked awkwardly.

"It's actually not that bad" replied the lion. "Over the past few days we've had Finch, chimps and mushy bees"

Badum tssss! ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Yeah, for any non brits that read all that: Fish, chips and mushy peas is a classic English dish. So...yeah...that's the joke.

He was exhibiting bad brie-havior

The Joy Division song was in turn named after a novel by J. G. Ballard. This makes 'The Atrocity Exhibition' the book the song the album is named after is named after.

It's called the Fresh Prints of Bel Air.

...they must have received a Cézanne desist

Trevor loved tractors. And I mean, really loved tractors. Forget any obsessions or high-level interests you may have, chances are they pale in the face of Trevor’s love for tractors.

Every day Trevor would get up, in his tractor-themed bedroom in his tractor-themed house, with its tractor-themed wallpaper and tractor-themed carpets, and he would make his bed with its tractor-themed duvet and tractor-themed sheets. He would go downstairs in his tractor-themed pajamas into his tractor-themed kitchen, with its tractor-themed tiles and cupboards, and he would eat his breakfast while perusing the latest tractor-themed magazine or annual.

Trevors’s degree in Agricultural Engineering hung on his living room wall, along with a copy of his thesis, which centred around (you guessed it) tractors. The living room was decorated with all sorts of tractor-related trinkets, including die-cast models, paintings and drawings.

The hedges in Trevor’s front garden were trimmed in the shape of tractors. His lawn was vividly decorated with tractor-driving garden gnomes, and his garden furniture was constructed from various parts from vintage tractor designs.

Trevor just had one thing missing from his otherwise tractor-centric life; he had never actually owned, nor driven, a real tractor.

Not for his lack of trying, of course. Trevor had been to many tractor shows over the years, and visited many farms with friends of his, but none of the tractors he had seen had ever been quite right. Trevor was so knowledgeable about tractors that every single one he had come across had possessed some hidden trait that he wasn’t keen on. His first experience of driving a real tractor had to be perfect.

One day, Trevor was flicking through one of his favourite publications, Powertrain Quarterly, when there was a knock at the door. Trevor answered, and it was his friend and fellow tractor enthusiast, Jeff.

Trevor welcomed Jeff in, and over tea and crumpets served on tractor-themed crockery, they discussed the merits of aluminium drawbars and front-end loaders. Eventually Trevor pressed Jeff to explain the reason for his visit.

“Well” said Jeff, “As I’m sure you know the convention comes to town later”.

The convention. Trevor had been thinking of little else the past three weeks. The neighbouring town annually threw a convention for farmers, particularly farmyard machinery. There would be combine harvesters, lawnmowers, and of course, tractors.

“Yes of course” replied Trevor

Next week the museum I work at begins a three-week run of what we call Bubblefest. There will be bubbles everywhere, a bubble laser show, all kinds of exhibits and interactive shows explaining some of the science involved with bubbles. So I need some jokes and puns to replace the old standby of "my pop is bigger than your pop!"

It wasn’t very impressive. They had a bunch of exhibits but they were all basically empty and the only animal I found in the place was a dog. I think it was a shitzu

We were at an exhibition, and there was an Army Ambulance with a practice dummy on a trolley hanging out the back. He turned to me and said

.

.

.

Look, Plastic Surgery!

My grandfather was a farmer and he loved getting dressed up every year for the local fair and exhibiting his prize chickens.

For this occasion, my grandmother would spend the entire year searching through thrift shops looking for silly neckties for him to wear, and she loved finding ones with chickens on them.

When he died a couple of years ago, he bequeathed them to me in his will. When my grandmother handed me the bag full of them, my eyes welled with tears and I smiled thinking about my grandfather looking in the mirror and straightening his tie.

Why am I telling you all of this back story? Because the last time I tried to tell this to someone and I didn't give context, they thought it was weird that I was so excited about inheriting my dead grandfather's hen tie collection.

We went with our 2 boys. Leaving the alligator exhibit, she said to our older son, "Say, 'Bye, alligators!'"

... At which I loudly huffed and vehemently pointed out the missed opportunity.

"I mean, 'see ya later, alligators!'"

I was looking at the taxidermy wild animals and was standing in front of the case with a baby ocelot. A family with two young kids were also standing behind me and I hear the husband say,

"Ocelot? More like Oce-little!"

I found this absolutely hilarious, but his wife just rolls her eyes and shuffles the kids to the next exhibit.

While he was looking at the otter exhibit I walked up and said "well here's one but where's the otter one?"

My wife and I were recently at a small local zoo with our 1-year-old son, and we approached an exhibit with a couple of ravens.

Wife: "It's so sad that the ravens are separated by a fence"

Me, out of nowhere: "I know, they're like Crow-meo and Juliet"

Her eyes rolled back so hard I thought I was at Walmart

It was a thorough exhibition of the jean-ealogy.

(I know I just posted something a little while ago, but I just found this subreddit today and thought of another good dad story)

As a child I had an immense fear of bees. So, one day my dad and I were at the Museum of Science in Boston together checking out the exhibits. In one room there was a huge (actual) beehive encased in glass with hundreds of bees inside. Attached to the glass was a plastic speaker thing so you could put your ear against it and hear all the buzzing. So I mustered up some courage and gave it a go. As I was getting a good listen, my dad went "bzzzzZzzzzz" and tickled my ear with his finger. I freaked the fuck out, and swatted furiously all over the place. I cried, and was all mopey and pouty for the rest of the day.

In hindsight, I realize that that was an opportunity that just had to be seized.

Took the kids to a bug museum this weekend and was walking behind this other dad and his kids for a good bit of the time. When we get to the leaf cutter ant exhibit, my three year old loudly says something to the effect, "Look at all those ants!". The dad turns around and says, smugly, "How do you know they aren't uncles?" My kids groan, his kids groan, all in a dad's work, right? Then his daughter, who was probably 8 or 9, pipes up, "Well, Dad, since they're all female, it's safe to say that are, in fact, aunts!"

Her timing was impeccable. She's going places.

Went to the state fair with the family the other day where they're celebrating 200 years! Came across a bison exhibit and I told the family, "look everyone, it's Tennial!" After about 8 seconds of silence....groans all around.

Even the baby started crying

So i made a pit stop at ol' GC to kill off a gift card from Xmas.

I needed one of those little plastic egg shakers (musicians will know) and some drum sticks. The two gentlemen were very rad & we stood around shootin' the shit for a bit.

Then the one who had my plastic shaker in his hand went to exhibit its shaker-y-ness only for it to fly out of his hands (on accident of course) and nail me in the chest.

The other gentleman responded with "That's not what he meant by drum throne!"

I swear I heard angels singing as they descended down a badly played Stairway to Heaven.

We were in the bird exhibit and a family was nearby.

"Daddy! Come look at the toucan!"

"Honey, listen, it's just got one can"

The best part was that he never even acknowledged the pun. Stated it matter of fact.

My wife and I took our daughter, niece, and nephew to the zoo today. We were standing in front of the anteater exhibit when I protectively put my hand in front of my wife and whispered, "watch out, you don't want to get too close to these things..."

My neice: "Why not??"

Me: "Oh you're fine. It's her (indicating my wife). These things are aunteaters."

slight pause followed by collective groan

So we were going to see an Impressionist exhibit at the art museum and my friend, in her best Jerry Maguire voice, goes "Show me the Monet!"

At the local Aquarium with my wife and 6month old, walked into the Land a Sea carnivorous mammals (Mostly Otters) exhibit.

Wife: I only see one otter.

Dad(Me): I see anOtter one...

Me and my dad were at the aquarium and spotted a sturgeon (a fish).

Dad: I wonder where he got his PHD? Me: I don't know, but he probably does brain sturgery.

My dad nods his head and we continue through the exhibit.

A while back, my boyfriend and I drove down to his parents' house to go to the airport the next morning (it's about 3 hours from us, and they live near it).

About 5 o'clock the next morning, boyfriend, his father, and myself were all on our way to the airport (his dad was driving, dropping us off, we were both in the backseat), and we pass a billboard. It had pictures of dinosaurs all over it, and was advertising an animatronic dinosaur exhibit at the local zoo. BF's dad looks at it, chuckles and says "Must be an OLD sign." And then he laughs, and laughs, and laughs.. all to himself up there.

The best/worst part of this is that on the way to their house the day before, we passed that same billboard. Boyfriend made the same, exact joke. Looking at his dad is like looking into his future.

We eventually got to the gibbon exhibit where my son noticed one of them hanging off the cage, grunting and pooping.

Son: Oh jeez, Dad look at that.

Me: He's gibbon it all he's got.

To which my sister about choked on her mountain dew

My parents visited me last weekend. Short on ideas, we decided to hit up a widely-respected art museum. They had some new exhibitions, some of which were a little outside our personal tastes and expectations.

We walked into a photography exhibit and saw, along one wall, a sheet of green. This sheet of green was a little higher and taller than the average door, and stretched all the way down that bit of wall plus a few feet onto the floor.

"Oh," I said, "a green screen. That's kind of a neat little thing to have here. Sort of an homage to that style of film, I guess?"

Little did I know. In hindsight, I don't know why I expected anything different.

My father and I approached the plaque beside it. There we learned the truth: This was not a green screen. No. No, this was a specially printed photograph.

A photograph... of a green screen.

There we stood, astonished at the audacity of the thing before us. "My God," I said aloud, "This, right here, this is something else. This is just plain genius. Can you imagine getting money for something like this? Why didn't we come up with this? This is gold!"

To which my dad simply responded, "No, son...

... it's green."

My father volunteers at the zoo in Phoenix and so when we visit he loves to give us tours and lots of information about the animals we see.

We were walking by the coati exhibit and he was noting that coati can turn their feet backwards in order to more easily walk down trees. He then turned to my son and said, "their feet kind of look like bear feet, don't they?"

"Yeah," my son answered.

Dad then asked, "do you know why?"

My son was really interested and asked, "why?"

Completely deadpan, my father looked at him and said, "because they don't have any shoes on."

I got two. This was at a wildlife preserve while my family and I were visiting Alaska.

1. SCENE: Lynx exhibit. WILDLIFE PRESERVER: "And these are our 2 lynx, we found them as kittens and they have always lived here." DAD: "They're lynx, huh? So where do they take me if I click on them?"

Aftermath: She didn't get it.

2. SCENE: Moose area. DAD: "What do you do if a bear charges you?" FAMILY: "Wave our arms and shout at it." DAD: "And what do you do if a moose charges you?" FAMILY: "uhh..." DAD: "You give him your credit card!"

Aftermath: The sound of 3 hand smacking their foreheads.

I work at a zoo on weekends. We were feeding the King Vultures their meat diets today.

The female almost always gets her meat stolen by the male, so we have to keep the male away while she eats the meat off the exhibit floor.

The other keeper wondered aloud why the male would want her food when he has the same thing waiting on his perch. I said "He must prefer ground beef."

Thank you.

It's a shih tzu