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Which Came First:
The Egg Or The Joke?

GARY ROSENBLATT

Editor

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22

FRIDAY, JUNE 28, 1991

Heard any
good jokes
lately?
Ever wonder
where they come
from?
Maybe you've
also had the ex-
perience of starting to tell
a friend a joke you've just
heard, and your friend stops
you and says he just heard
the same one yesterday,
from someone you don't even
know.
How can that be?
Is there a little old man out
there somewhere who makes
up jokes, and if so, how does
he spread them around?
Maybe there are small,
dimly-lit factories with guys
working late into the night
mass-producing topical
humor. Maybe they even
have child labor laws,
preventing pre-teen Woody
Aliens from being exploited
in these sweatshops of mir-
th.
My friend Bill Novak, who
has co-authored books on
Jewish humor and American
humor, suggested I call
Jonathan Katz, a Boston-
based comedian, for a unique
theory about where jokes
originate. Mr. Katz told me
that most jokes come from
jails.
"That's where guys have
some time on their hands,"
he deadpanned, adding that
"some of my jokes only work
when I tell them to a bank
teller — with those bars on
the window."
A more popular theory is
that most topical jokes come
from Wall Street, and are
quickly spread by traders
via interstate and interna-
tional phone conversations,
telexes and faxes.
"A new joke," Freud wrote
in 1905, "is passed from one
person to another like the
news of the latest victory."
That still holds true, though
millions of people get their
jokes from radio and late-
night television, especially
in light of the success of
cable TV shows showcasing
young comedians.
Mr. Katz, a veteran of such
programs, knows full well
that jokes can take on a life
of their own. In an inter-
view, he explained that a
joke he told two years ago on
the David Letterman televi-
sion show went over well.

Some time later he received
a call from the talent coor-
dinator for the Johnny Car-
son show, urging him to
watch the show that night
because Tony Randall was
going to tell his joke.
And a few months later, he
was called and told that Paul
Schaeffer was going to tell
the same joke that night on
the Letterman show.
Mr. Katz said he didn't
know whether to be upset or
flattered. "The real prob-
lem," he added, "is they both
got bigger laughs than I
did."
And what was the joke?
Mr. Katz said it goes like
this: "I had dinner with my
father the other night and I
made a classic Freudian slip.
I meant to say, 'Would you
pass the salt, please?' In-
stead, it came out, 'You
creep, you ruined my
childhood.' "
(I was tempted to tell Mr.
Katz "I heard that one when
I was in elementary school
— just kidding" — but re-
strained myself.)
Rabbi Jack Moline says
there are really only a few

One rabbi-humorist
says there are only
a few standard
jokes — and lots
of variations on
the basic themes.

standard jokes — and lots of
variations on the basic
themes.
Rabbi Moline, who is a pro-
fessional humorist in addi-
tion to serving as spiritual
leader to a 430-family Con-
servative synagogue in
Alexandria, Virginia, can
cite countless examples of
current jokes as well as their
antecedents. He noted, for
example, that there are
disaster jokes, and that the
morbid one-liners that
emerged after the
Challenger explosion will
likely reappear now as
Ghandi jokes, in a slightly
different, uh, reincarnation.
The rabbi said he rarely
hears new jokes. But he tries
to be patient and not blurt
out the punch line when
someone approaches him
with a surefire quip. He
strives to use humor in his
weekly sermons and does his
best to write at least one or
two jokes a week.
"I think most rabbis try to

