When people ask me why my hair is purple, I desperately want to tell them that it's to remind them of all the war orphans, but I know for a fact that no-one would get it.

What do you think is funny that you would never say to anyone because it would take an hour of explaination and it's really not worth it?

-- Kymm Zuckert (hedgehog@hedgehog.net), January 08, 2001

Answers

Kymm, I absolutely do not get that joke, but it -does- remind me of "When the War Is Over," that awful musical about Jewish war orphans fleeing the Nazis on Christmas Eve.

To answer your question, I suffer from Gay Tourette's Syndrome (TM), the uncontrollable urge to speak in movie dialogue, and I've gotten some pretty blank stares when I respond with obscure bits from obscure movies which I find completely hilarious and relevant to our conversation.

/Robert

-- Robert (rbdimmick@earthlink.net), January 08, 2001.

Oh, so *that's* what that's called. I've always wondered since I met my friend R. (apparently every question in the universe can be resolved via either Rodgers & Hammerstein or Tina Turner).

The scene in one of the Sandman novels where Chaucer is telling Langland what the public *really* wants...

Making a pilgrimage to St. Louis-du-ha!ha! Quebec.

The exceptionally devoted - and daft, IMNSHO - nature artist on Quebec tv wandering around moose territory brandishing about a moose rack and bellowing mating calls. To this day I have trouble explaining away the silly smirk on my face when moose are mentioned.

-- Peg Duthie (nashchick@ivillage.com), January 08, 2001.

All the time. My family has it's own bunches of silly custom-quotes, some from movies, (a going-to-bed song adapted from "Springtime for Hitler" from The Producers) a lot from children's books (no fighting, no biting) and some from incidents that no one outside our lil unit would know about. I can usually keep them in, but often expect my closest friends to know what i'm talking about.

-- Kathryn (iceqween@brandeis.edu), January 08, 2001.

Is that joke a reference to that movie "The Boy with Green Hair"? I never saw the whole thing, but I think it was about war orphans, right?

By the way, I've been visiting your site regularly for the past month or so, and I think it's way cool. The photo of young you with the horse is great.

I have a tendency to quote Firesign Theatre, which a lot of people don't get, but I also quote old TV commercials and shows which more people DO get: "Ancient Chinese secret, huh?"

-- Rachel (bravebutterfly@hotmail.com), January 08, 2001.

Sigh. One of my favorite jokes is:

Q. How do you catch a unique bird? A. Unique up on it.

You know... you sneak... you neak... unique. Oh never mind.

My boyfriend loves me totally but hates that joke and thinks i suffer from a mild form of retardation whenever i tell it. My mom did giggle enough that she spilled her drink, but doesn't find it anywhere near as hilarious as i do.

My best friend cracks up over that joke. That is one reason she gets to wear the "best friend" name tag.

-- Sherry (sherina@masc.ca), January 09, 2001.

My dad and I have developed some vaudeville-type routines over the years, everything from "Say goodnight, Dorothy" ("goodnight, Dorothy") to stupid puns, none of which I can think of right now of course.

-- Dorothy Rothschild (dorothyr@spies.com), January 09, 2001.

Everything that *I* think is funny is invariably funny and easily accessible, of course, but would that my friends shared my universal wit. Recently one of my best friends has become enamored with a comic strip called "Snake n'Bacon" that features, well, a snake and a strip of bacon. Every panel consists of the snake saying "Ssss," and the bacon saying either "I'm a piece of bacon," or other bacon-related things such as "I'm good on a sandwich," or "Pat me down with a paper towel to remove excess grease." I am NOT MAKING THIS UP. Anyway, one of this guy's other friends is also a tremendous Snake n'Bacon fan and when the two of them get together all they need to do to amuse one another is exchange "hilarious" Snake n'Bacon quotes until everyone else in the room wants to disembowel them both.

Snake n'Bacon actually are occasionally mildly funny, such as when the captions talked about the rash of Snake n'Bacon knockoffs including Asp n'Ham and Newt n'Prosciutto.

-- Kim Rollins (kimrollins@yahoo.com), January 11, 2001.

My dad and I sign letters to each other with "S.O.D." which either stands for "Silly Old Daddy" or "Silly Old Daughter" or "Soggy Old Doughnut." And whenever it snows, I always think of Winnie-ther-Pooh saying "Tiddly Pom."

-- Elizabeth (elizfitch@yahoo.com), January 16, 2001.

Tiddly Pom!!! My brother & I sing that whenever we're cold. = )

-- kathryn (iceqween@angelfire.com), January 17, 2001.

There's a true story about an eyebrow hair that's hilariously funny only to me and one friend, and we get horrified looks from anyone we've ever tried to explain it to.

-- Catherine (catcoicrit@earthlink.net), January 17, 2001.