It was a huge catastrophe.
- Like all cherished things in this covid-crazy world, the O.Henry Museumβs famous free, family friendly celebration of the wit-in-word will take place virtually in cyberspace this year. With an awesome live cast of lively wits and tortured tongues, the online audience will be treated to all the linguistic twists, dramatic turns, and surprise endings theyβve groan to love. Expect to witness wacky word butchers and voracious verbivores from around the globe, all worming their way into your ears. Tongues of tradition, tension and camaraderie make this the premier event for the world's competitive wordplay community
- Brought to you this year by the City of Austin, Brush Square Museums Foundation, and co- sponsored by Austin's very own Fantastic Magic Camp, as well as the internationally renowned podcast, Pun Intensive, The O. Henry Museum Pun-Off World Championships Punslingers Competition: Online Edition will commence Saturday, November 21, 2020
- Preliminary live rounds begin Saturday, November 21, 2020, at 11:00am CST, lasting about 2 hours. Later that evening, live competition resumes at 7:00pm CST with head-to-head prime time heats. - See Pun-Off.com for schedule details, links, and more.
[Austin, TX, November 1, 2020] - Although traditionally held outdoors on a single day in the spring, the first portion 2020 the O. Henry Museum Pun-Off competition known as Punniest of Show was conducted via video in October. Now on Saturday, November 21, 2020, PARD will bring you their most popular second segment, O. Henry Museum Pun-Off World Championships Punslingers Competition: Online Edition
This free, fun, and family friendly event will take place online this year, but with special twists, turns, and surprise modifications to make it the perfect 2020 event for the world's competitive wordplay community.
The O. Henry Museum Pun-Off World Championships have been an Austin institution for 43 years. As usual, the contest will feature a cavalcade of word-class wordsmiths from across the globe, all worming their way into your art. Join and enjoy us as they compete to spontaneously spit out the most absurd words youβve ever heard.
The event will be live streamed at PunIntensive.com.
And the wife says "if I died would you get remarried?" The man says " no don't ask that it's absurd". The wife asks for the next few days until she asks once more and he says "yes." The wife then says "would you sell the house?" The man says "no" she says "would you sell our bed?" The man replies " no no it's our bed" the wife says "would you give her my golf clubs? The man replies "no she's left handed"
When I was about 5 years old, my dad told the greatest dad joke. Heβd be driving the family through our neighborhood and would say βLook! A man wearing a dress!β My siblings and I would look around and laugh with my dad. We loved when he would say this (it was like an absurd scavenger hunt) but my mother absolutely hated it. βWhere? What are you talking about Tom?!β She actually got angry since she couldnβt see the man wearing a dress either. Since he would do this on a semi-regular basis to make us laugh, it became a problem with my mom and she ended up getting so angry as to forbid him saying it ever again.
I never really understood what was going on since I was so young, but I really missed the man wearing a dress joke. At one point, I thought the joke referenced a nearby business with a kilted man for a mascot. A few years ago, I asked my dad what the joke was.
βOh! It wasnβt the sign,β he told me. βWe had a family in the neighborhood with the last name βManwaringβ. When we would drive by their house, Iβd point at their mailbox and say βLook, a Manwaring address!ββ
I was too young to read at the time so it took 20 years to be in on his brilliant pun.
Poetry is good for amateurs; literature is best left to prose.
I've somehow made a hobby of creating (often very nerdy) puns, wordplay, and absurdities. Some of them have been sold on t-shirts. Most of them just end up as a FB status. They are not (at) all great, but they are original, so far as I know. Now I'm going to leave them here.
I am not a dad at the moment, but I've learned the art of pretty clever puns in college. Some are mine, some are spins on inspirations, others are more on the joke side of dad.
What does a radioactive cat have?
18 half-lives
Ventriloquists are like psychiatrists, they both talk through things.
What is my vision?
To make the world 10% better?
No, it's about 20/20...
The invention of the shovel was truly a groundbreaking discovery.
Dad: I invested in some uranium, but I lost money.
Friend: What happened?
Dad: The Profit decayed.
We have received a report of a hole being discovered in the ground, our investigative team is looking into it.
There was an explosion at a local film manufacturing company, the story is still developing as we speak.
A local theater put together an act about jokes.
It was a play on words
SΓΈ, I hΓͺΓ‘rd yΓΆΕ« lΓ¬kΓ« fΓΆrΓ©igΓ± aΓ§ΔΔΕtΕ‘
As an airline mechanic would say, the job has lots of ups and downs.
My New Years resolution will probably be 25 megapixels, or 4K, not sure yet...
There was a river in Egypt no one believed existed, it was known locally as De-Nile.
Dad-Epitaph:
I thought I'd never live to see this day come.
There are two things that are guaranteed to open doors in life.
Push and Pull!
(How to keep an idiot in suspense)
What do you get when you cross a joke with a rhetorical question?
A man builds robotic snakes for a living, I guess you could say he was a... python programmer!
A researcher's obsession with mixing stone, sand, lime, and water has yielded concrete results.
A madman once attacked a rider on his horse.
The rider had to goto hospital, the horse remains in stable condition.
A man bought a paper shop, it blew away in the wind last night.
Science is all about learning the rules, setting off an absurd amount of explosives, and then writing down what happened.
It has recently been discovered that scientific research causes cancer in rats.
Dad: Did you pick up your room?
Kid: No, I tried but it's too heavy.
Because they're long fellows.
My dad just busted that one out and the absurdity is killing me.
So the other day I heard a great joke that I decided to share with my girlfriend. I sent her this: "What is an australians favorite metal?" She answered that she didn't know, but knowing me it'd be something absurdly stupid.
Now would be a good time to tell that in my native language "gold" is a cute nickname you call your SO, kinda like "honey" in English.
When I answered "Gold", she replied almost instantly "Yes sweetie?"
I'm so proud of her.
A man is sprinkling a powder all over the streets, when a policeman walks up to him and asks what on earth he is doing. The man replies saying keeping the elephants away of course! It's elephant repellent!
The officer replies, don't be absurd, there are no elephants here. The man replies saying then it must be working!
So my Pops asks if I could help him get the Christmas "stuff" down from the loft with him. We have a loft above the garage where we store seasonal decorations.
He'll go up in the loft and I'll stand on the middle of the ladder, where he hands me the plastic containers, which I'll place on the floor.
As soon as he gets up there I see that the most accessible and logical box to take down first is the one with the wrapping paper. I reach for it and he shoos me away coming up with an excuse to leave it up there for the time being.
Right then and there I knew exactly what he was doing and I couldn't stop it.
We get the absurd amount of containers down until there's only the one left. He hands it too me and says, "Whelp.. that about wraps it up. Haha."
It's not even that good and I knew it was coming for the whole half-hour, but never the less I rolled my eyes and gave him his moment of glory. He deserves it.
My son, currently 'enduring' a semester abroad in Florence, Italy, messages me: "Remind me to tell you about the history of gianduja. It's absurd."
My response: "Yeah, I heard it's kind of nutty."
No applause, please. I'll be here all week. Try the lasagna.
