Dramatic Play Puns

A young man named John received a parrot as a gift. The parrot had a bad attitude and an even worse vocabulary. Every word out of the bird’s mouth was rude, obnoxious and laced with profanity. John tried and tried to change the bird’s attitude by consistently saying only polite words, playing soft music and anything else he could think of to clean up the bird’s vocabulary. Finally, John was fed up and he yelled at the parrot. The parrot yelled back. John shook the parrot and the parrot got angrier and even more rude. John, in desperation, threw up his hands, grabbed the bird and put him in the freezer. For a few minutes the parrot squawked and kicked and screamed. Then suddenly there was total quiet. Not a peep was heard for over a minute. Fearing that he’d hurt the parrot, John quickly opened the door to the freezer. The parrot calmly stepped out onto John’s outstretched arms and said “I believe I may have offended you with my rude language and actions. I’m sincerely remorseful for my inappropriate transgressions and I fully intend to do everything I can to correct my rude and unforgivable behavior.” John was stunned at the change in the bird’s attitude. As he was about to ask the parrot what had made such a dramatic change in his behavior, the bird spoke up, and asked very softly : “May I ask what the turkey did?”

I'd like to thank my friend John for sending me this dumb joke

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.