LAUGH LINES : JOKES
This just in: Space shuttle astronauts, who landed Tuesday, say they had trouble each time they flew over Haiti, according to comic Argus Hamilton: “The crew got whiplash watching President Clinton’s orders being carried out.”
Hamilton also reports that former L.A. Police Chief Darryl Gates became visibly upset with the way Haitian police were beating their citizens with billy clubs: “He says their grip was all wrong.”
Jay Leno (from Las Vegas), on the change of season in the world’s gaming capital: “Can’t you just feel fall in the air? That’s when the roast beef on the 99 buffet turns from green to brown.”
Leno, on Heidi Fleiss’ claims that the drugs she was taking were for asthma: “That would explain the heavy breathing when you call on the phone.”
*
Also in the news: Comedy writer Bob Mills, on California game wardens seizing 2,000 illegally obtained reptiles: “They arrested two dozen poachers and charged them with cruelty to lawyers.”
Comic Leslie Coogan, on reports that A.C. and O.J. were going to Florida and then sailing to Bermuda: “Robert Shapiro now explains the fake beard and mustache in the Bronco by saying, ‘Did I say they were for Disneyland? I meant Disney World.”
Comedy writer Alan Ray, on panda QingQing giving birth to her third cub in China: “It is said that her delivery was much like that of a human female. During labor, she was a bear.”
CNN erroneously reported Sunday that something big was up about Haiti after Wolf Blitzer saw two State Department officials going into the White House. In fact, they had been invited by Clinton staffers to come over for takeout food. “Blitzer was crying wolf,” says comedy writer Tony Peyser. “It was just a case of War and Pizza.”
*
When the census taker rang the bell, it was answered by a woman with a couple of kids tugging at her skirts.
“Would you please give me all your children’s names?” he asked.
“Robert, William, David, Oscar, John, Joe and Peter,” she said.
“Boys every time, eh?” smiled the taker.
“Oh no, sir,” she replied. “Thousands of times, nothing at all.”
--Don McKenzie, Hollywood
*
Shortly after he moved to Hollywood some 25 years ago, reader Bob Canning of L.A. visited a drugstore near what was then called Hospital Row, because of the proximity of four hospitals. A good-looking young man was surveying several cameras there and, after selecting for one, he apologized to Canning for taking so much time. It was Canning’s first star sighting--Richard Chamberlain--and he turned to the bored-looking young clerk and excitedly said: “Do you know who that was? That was Dr. Kildare.”
Snapping her gum, she looked at me blankly and shrugged: “So? A lot of doctors work around here.”