Laugh Lines : Punchlines
In the News: Sen. Bob Dole has declared war on bilingual education. If he gets his way, says comic Argus Hamilton, no one will have to learn a foreign language until they own their own factory.
Comic Jenny Church, on a religious group announcing that a line in Disney’s “Aladdin” sounds like “Take off your clothes”: More likely, Disney’s saying “Pay through the nose.”
The tabs are reporting that Lisa Marie Presley is expecting a baby. Hamilton says her doctor did an ultrasound but can’t tell whether it’s a boy or a girl--so it’s Michael’s kid, all right.
About that lawsuit protesting the recorded message that interrupts calls from California prisons to identify the caller as an inmate, Church says, “Prisoners would prefer to simply say they’re using a ‘cell phone.’ ”
Some 30,000 Singaporeans participated in a mass workout to mark Healthy Lifestyle Day. Comedy writer Paul Steinberg says, what with Singapore’s caning laws, he hopes they were using the “Buns of Steel” video.
Comedy writer Joel Nelson says Time Warner put its $8-billion offer for Turner Broadcasting in black and white, but Ted Turner insisted on colorizing it.
Comedy writer Bob Mills says the new Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in, uh, Cleveland has these unique features:
* No clocks--time is sung by Bill Haley and His Comets.
* Mummified replica of Keith Richards really is Keith Richards.
* Visitors look 20 years younger in Dick Clark virtual reality exhibit.
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Dem Bones: Anthropologists are examining the DNA of a recently discovered 4-million-year-old man. Hamilton says some things never change--they only dug him up two weeks ago and already he’s engaged to Anna Nicole Smith.
* This discovery confirms that all races of man came from a common ancestor in Africa, Hamilton adds. This just hasn’t been Mark Fuhrman’s week.
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Cirque du O.J.: Johnnie Cochran says the defense team is “taking off the gloves.” Comedy writer Jerry Perisho says they better keep an eye on those gloves--Fuhrman’s back in town.
* Comic Steve Tatham says Fuhrman, retired in Idaho and catching up on his movies, recently rented “Boyz N the Hood.” Says Tatham, “He thought it was about the Ku Klux Klan--imagine his surprise!”
* Comedian Chip Washington says if the trial lasts too much longer, O.J. will stand for Out of Jurors.
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On the way home from an evening that featured exotic dancers as part of the entertainment, Pasadena reader Kay Haugaard says, her husband offered this critique:
“I wouldn’t say that one girl was exactly fat, but as a belly dancer I think she was overqualified.”