Heckling Puns

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".

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.

"Philogelos" or "The Laughter Lover" is a collection of 265 ancient Roman jokes, written in the 4th century AD. Some of them feel... very appropriate for this sub:

• A boy caught sight of a deep well on his country-estate, and asked if the water was any good. The farmhands assured him that it was good, and that his own parents used to drink from that well. The boy expressed his amazement: "How long were their necks, if they could drink from something so deep!"

• When a boy was told by someone, "Your beard is now coming in," he went to the rear-entrance and waited for it.

• A boy checked in on the parents of a dead classmate. The father was wailing: "O son, you have left me a cripple!" The mother was crying: "O son, you have taken the light from my eyes!" Later, the boy suggested to his friends: "Well, if he were guilty of all that, he probably deserved to die!"

• A boy came to check in on a friend who was seriously ill. When the man's wife said that he had 'departed', the intellectual replied: "When he arrives back, will you tell him that I stopped by?"

• A boy had been at a wedding-reception. As he was leaving, he said: "What a wonderful ceremony! I pray that your next marriages are as enjoyable as this one."

• A man met his friend in the street, who said: "Congratulations! I hear that you've got a new baby boy!" The man replied: "Indeed, but I'm still trying to find the father!"

• A man saw a eunuch talking with a woman and asked him if she was his wife. When he replied that eunuchs can't have wives, the man asked: "So is she your daughter?"

• A man was being heckled by a friend: "I had your wife, without paying a dime!" The man replied: "It's my duty as a husband to couple with such a monstrosity. What made you do it?'

• An incompetent schoolteacher was asked who the mother of Priam was. Not knowing the answer, he said: "Well, I suppose it's polite to call her Ma'am."

• A man, just back from a trip abroad, went to an incompetent fortune-teller. He asked about his family, and the fortune-teller replied: "Everyone is fine, especially your father." When the man objected that his father had been dead for ten years, the reply came: "Ah, then you must have no clue who your real father is!"

• A misogynist paid his last respects at the tomb of his dead wife. When someone asked him, "Who has gone to rest?," he replied: "Me, at last!"

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