Audience Of One Puns

"… UNO! DOS!" *POOF* And he vanished without a Tres.

He was performing his act and got the the final trick. On the count of three he would vanish. The audience yelled “one”, and the magician smiled, “two”, and he disappeared without a tres.

A comedian backed by the Mafia was doing a show in New York. In the audience was group of foreign religious leaders, in town for a UN conference. Oddly, that group was very vocal in their heckling of the poor comic. Particularly vociferous was the Hindu leader from India.

Noticing this from offstage, the Mafia Don told one of his thugs to make his way to their section and menacingly "encourage" them that they should "shaddap already".

The thug asked the Don if there was one of the group who should receive... "extra-strength" encouragement. The Don replied "Yes. Weigh down upon the Swami ribber".

In the version they're doing, the bass section plays a bit at the start, then just sits there til the final part of the last movement. So, they decide to leave the concert and go out for drinks.

While at the bar down the street, they meet a European nobleman, and they become good friends. Unfortunately, the guy had been gorging himself on crappy bar food, and he quickly falls into a food coma.

One of the basses drunkenly checks his watch and says, "crap! We're not going to get back on stage in time!" As they're sprinting back, one of them says, "actually, I thought this would happen, so I tied some of the pages of the conductor's score together - that way, he'll have to slow the tempo way down with his right hand while undoes the knots with his left!"

And so they get back just in time to finish the Symphony, and the audience is none the wiser. The conductor, however, was furious.

After all, they'd left him at the bottom of the 9th, with the score tied, while the basses were loaded, and the Count was full.

One of the classic  Abbott and Costello  routines, where Bud Abbott takes advantage of a common math mistake that we all make to fleece his pal, Lou Costello, out of all of his money.  The skit ends with a simple ‘read my mind’ routine that takes Lou’s last remaining bill.  This routine was done  many  times, both in the movies and their radio show.

Bud Abbott: Do me a favor, loan me $50.
Lou Costello: Bud, I can’t. I can’t loan you $50.
Bud Abbott: Oh, yes, ya can.
Lou Costello: No, I can’t. All I got is $40.
Bud Abbott: All right, give me the $40 and you’ll owe me 10  
Lou Costello: Ok, I’ll owe you 10.
Bud Abbott: That’s right.
Lou Costello: How come I owe you 10?
Bud Abbott: How much did I ask for?
Lou Costello: 50
Bud Abbott: How much did you give me?
Lou Costello: 40.
Bud Abbott: So you owe me $10.
Lou Costello: That’s right.  [Pause] But you owe me 40.
Bud Abbott: Don’t change the subject.
Lou Costello: I’m not changing the subject; you’re trying to change my finances. Come on, Abbott give me my $40.
Bud Abbott: All right, there’s your $40, now give me the 10 you owe me.
Lou Costello: I’m paying you on account.
Bud Abbott: On account?
Lou Costello: On account I don’t know how I owe it to ya.
Bud Abbott: That’s the way you feel about it, that’s the last time I ask you for a loan of $50.
Lou Costello: But how can I loan ya $50, now. All I got is 30.
Bud Abbott: Well, give me the 30 and you’ll owe me 20.
Lou Costello: Ok. This is getting worse all the time. (Look at audience) First I owe him 10, now I owe him 20.
Bud Abbott: Well, why do you run yourself into debt?
Lou Costello: I’m not running in, you’re pushing me!1
Bud Abbott: I can’t help it if you can’t handle your finances. I do all right with my money.
Lou Costello: And you do all right with my money too.
Bud Abbott: Now I asked you for a loan of $50. You gave me 30, so you owe me 20. 20 and 30 is 50.
Lou Costello: No. No. No. 25 and 25 is 50.
Bud Abbott: All right, here’s your $30, now give me the 20 you owe me. Fine guy, won’t loan a pal $50.

While waiting for the final song of my niece's orchestra concert to begin the conductor turns to the audience and says "one moment please, we are missing our basoonist." Without skipping a beat I say "WELL HE BETTER GET HERE SOONIST!" My family was unimpressed.

(This is more parody/satire than a pun, but I tried to make sure it had puns.)

1. No more than half the people attending can wear trucker hats.

2. The fences must be measured and spaced using meters. It doesn't matter if you're putting them in someone's yard.

3. If you pull up a fence post, you cannot reuse it. In fact, you cannot use recycled posts from other people's yards.

4. Don't keep up with the Jones'. But if you can't avoid this, make sure you give the Jones' the credit due for coming up with it first.

5. You can bring lunch as sort of a potluck affair, but do not bring canned meat products from Hormel.

6. If you bring a fence post, it must look like a fence post. If it might be confused with something else, make sure the box or protective wrapping calls it a fence post.

7. When announcing the event, you are not allowed to make references to punch or people getting in line for punch. Just like Fight Club...

For now, we have no rule about promoting one stock car event over another as you work, or discussing other controversial matters. That won't change as long as you don't abuse this. Please keep your fence posts in good taste and suitable for all audiences. But if you do bring risque fence posts, make sure to cover them with a shroud labeled adult only, and I won't pull them up, provided the other rules are followed.

and today, we were playing a game of "Yes, Let's!" If you're unfamiliar, that's a group improv exercise where one person says "Let's do a thing!" and everybody else replies "Yes, let's!" and then proceeds to act out the scene. After acting out said scene, somebody freezes, then everybody freezes, and then someone else starts one.

In this case, it was "Let's go to a Michael Jackson tribute concert!" Now, we'd just been coached to assume distinct roles in an attempt to construct a coherent narrative, and so I, as an awkward, scrawny, blond white man, slipped effortlessly into the role of a shitty Michael Jackson impersonator. And I must have been doing something right, because the rest of the group quickly formed a scene as the audience, security, and crew, and stupidity ensued as I sucked at being Michael Jackson for all I was worth.

A few people started heckling, and then one of the audience members barged past security and mimed punching me in the head, whereupon I dramatically spun and dropped to the floor with a resounding THUD (knowing how to fall is a useful skill). The reaction was about a third laughs, a third stage-gasps, and a third just confusion. But I did get a few compliments after the exercise on my impression and my theatrics.

So I'd say that was a pretty big hit.

A long, long time ago in Egypt the Israelites were held as slaves. One day the evil Pharaoh passed a decree that no Israelite could cut the grass outside their house.

The grass grew and grew, covering the houses and making it quite an ordeal for the Israelites to go to work in the morning, which put a bit of a strain on the old pyramid building that was all the rage at the time. But Pharaoh didn't care and the edict still stood. No Israelite could cut the grass outside their home.

Eventually the elders had had enough and called upon Moses, who had a bit of a rapport with Pharaoh, being brought up together and all that jazz.

"Moses, you must convince Pharaoh to see sense and let us remove the grass from outside our homes!" they implored.

Moses nodded, picked up his staff and sought an audience with Pharaoh.

In the royal chambers, Moses approached Pharaoh. "Yes, Moses? How can I help?" asked Pharaoh.

Moses stood tall, stared deep into Pharaoh's eyes, raised his staff aloft, cleared his throat and with a booming voice said, "Pharaoh! Let my people mow!"

The other night, my wife and I went to this corporate outing at Medieval Times with work. For those who don't know, it's a pretend jousting tournament with a bunch of food and no silverware unless you ask for it. The Knights also ride around on horseback and try to keep everyone involved and have a good time.

So one of the things they do, is give a 'favor' to to people in the audience. Typically, pretty ladies and little girls. My wife got such a favor (carnation). Gave her some mock jealousy, and our evening continued.

So on and our way home, I asked:

"So, how was your night? "

" It was pretty good. "

" Good. How about your evening? "

She's still glaring at me, three days later.

My band had a performance yesterday. We have three saxophone players. One of plays only Alto saxophone, one of them alternates between playing Alto, Tenor and Baritone saxophone and the last plays both Tenor and Baritone saxophone.

The second two kept swapping each other's instruments or one of the other saxophones they had in the background. So at one point we had to wait for them to change while the rest of us were all ready to start playing the next song.

So, trying to make it less awkward for the audience I turn to them and I says 'I'm sorry, they're just playing ... Musical Instruments'

There was a collective groan/laugh from the audience and the drummer went ba-dum-tish And the trumpeter gave me a little wah wah wah waaaaaaaaaaaah

I'm still giggling about it.

First grade, I'm in the school play because, well, every one was. I can sing, always have been pretty good at it, so they gave me the job of playing Sebastian in our Little Mermaid rendition. We're singing "Under the Sea" and I look out to the audience to see my dad, in the front row, making the biggest, puffiest fish face his head will physically allow. I haven't done much acting since then.

While waiting for the final song of my niece's orchestra concert to begin the conductor turns to the audience and says "one moment please, we are missing our bassoonist."

Without skipping a beat I say "WELL HE BETTER GET HERE SOONIST!"

My family was unimpressed.