LAUGH LINES : Jokes

On the first of a week’s worth of Late Shows from L.A., David Letterman previewed the program:

“In a couple of minutes, Chuck Woolery will come out and the audience will vote whether President Clinton and Paula Jones get a second date.”

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Missing from ceremonies marking new South African President Nelson Mandela’s election was the usual phalanx of Hollywood stars. Tony Peyser says the glitterati weren’t able to go because UCLA bought 4,000 tickets and sold them to scalpers.

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Peyser on the eight-hour Stephen King miniseries, “The Stand,” airing this week on ABC:

“The most terrifying thing for me wasn’t the apocalyptic battle between good and evil. It was the fact that the book was 1,141 pages long.”

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Club Watch: Comedian Diana Jordan on that lovable, roly-poly commentator Rush Limbaugh: “His new fiancee says she still loves him even after finding out how he got the name ‘Rush.’ ”

Comic Michael Green observes that attitude is everywhere in L.A.: “Even homeless people have attitude. They’re pushing their shopping carts and one sneers to the other, ‘I see you’re still driving that Alpha Beta.’ The other says, ‘Yeah, but my other cart is a Vons.’ ”

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Comedian Dom Irrera gets a little peeved when overweight people justify their condition: “They say, ‘I’m just big-boned.’ I say, ‘Yeah, that’s a pretty big bone you have hanging over your belt.’ ”

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Comic Jim Edwards on that evergreen comedy topic, serial killers: “When they catch a serial killer who’s killed 27 victims, they always find someone who says he was a loner. Well, of course--he killed all his friends.”

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The honorary doctorate that First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton received from George Washington University is disastrous, according to comic Argus Hamilton:

“Now that she’s a doctor, she’s opposed to health care reform.”

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Hamilton on Ted Kennedy’s health care plan, which would give every American insurance coverage identical to U.S. senators’:

“So apparently the plan doesn’t cover treatment for alcoholism or sex addiction.”

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Reader Henry Sakaida says his family has quite a menagerie--a parrot, four rats, a chinchilla, two finches, a cat and a guinea pig--in the living room:

My dad would come around and tease my kids by saying “Whew! It sure stinks in here!”

Finally, my 7-year-old daughter, Allison, had had enough. “Look Grandpa, it’s not really that bad,” she said. “You should have smelled our house BEFORE we got the pets.”