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From: ph@wucec2.UUCP (Paul Hahn)
Newsgroups: net.jokes
Subject: Re: Offensive humor
Message-ID: <1305@wucec2.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 31-Jan-86 21:27:07 EST
Article-I.D.: wucec2.1305
Posted: Fri Jan 31 21:27:07 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 1-Feb-86 20:41:59 EST
References: <428@mmm.UUCP>
Reply-To: ph@wucec2.UUCP (Paul Hahn)
Organization: Washington U. in St. Louis
Lines: 54

In article <428@mmm.UUCP> mrgofor@mmm.UUCP (Michael Ross) writes:
>Can anyone supply a joke that is completely inoffensive to anybody
>(yet still funny to someone)? 
>	I really would like to hear some non-offensive jokes, if anybody
>can think of any. Please post them, let's see if anybody is offended.

	    Here are two.  The first one was offered as a counterexample
	to the idea that only dirty jokes are funny (by whom, I've
	forgotten).

	    A mother mouse was taking her large brood for a stroll
	across the kitchen floor one day when the local cat, by a feat
	of stealth unusual even for its species, managed to trap them in
	a corner.  The children cowered, terrified by this fearsome
	beast, plaintively crying, "Help, Mother!  Save us!  Save us!
	We're scared, Mother!"
	    Mother Mouse, with the hopeless valor of a parent protecting
	its children, turned with her teeth bared to the cat towering
	huge above them and suddenly began to bark in a fashion that
	would have done any Doberman proud.  The startled cat fled in
	fear for its life.  As her grateful offspring flocked around her
	shouting "Oh, Mother, you saved us!" and "Yay!  You scared the
	cat away!" she turned to them purposefully and declared:
	    "You see how useful it is to know a second language?"

	    The next joke I got from M*A*S*H; Hawkeye declared it to be,
	possibly, the funniest clean joke he had heard in his life.

	    A circus foreman was making the rounds inspecting the big
	top when a scrawny little man entered the tent and walked up to
	him.  "Are you the foreman around here?" he asked timidly.  "I'd
	like to join your circus; I have what I think is a pretty good
	act."  The foreman nodded assent, whereupon the little man
	hurried over to the main pole and rapidly climbed up to the very
	tip-top of the big top.  Drawing a deep breath, he hurled
	himself off into the air and began flapping his arms furiously.
	Amazingly, rather than plummeting to his death the little man
	began to fly all around the poles, lines, trapezes and other
	obstacles, performing astounding feats of aerobatics which ended
	in a long power dive from the top of the tent, pulling up into a
	gentle feet-first landing beside the foreman, who had been
	nonchalantly watching the whole time.
	    "Well," puffed the little man.  "What do you think?"
	    "That's all you do?" answered the foreman scornfully.  "Bird
	imitations?"

	    Note: to anyone who is offended by these jokes on behalf of
	cats, foremen, or anyone/anything else whom they consider to be
	portrayed in a less than flattering manner in them, I say FUGH!
	FUGH to you!  (I'll let you wonder how it's pronounced, too.)

						--pH
/*
 *	    "That's not funny!"
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