So Kathleen and I were watching the HBO rebroadcast of the Robin Williams concert special. And Williams at one point told a joke about the combining of Easter and Ground Hog Day into one holiday, so that Christ would be resurrected, see his shadow, and there’d be 2000 more years of sin.
And Kathleen sat bolt upright and said in surprise, “That’s my joke!”
“What do you mean?”
“I told that joke to Harlan!”
Now you have to understand, Harlan Ellison is pals with Robin Williams. So I called Harlan. I said, “Hey, Harlan, did you tell Robin Williams the joke about Christ seeing his shadow?”
Yup. He did.
I hung up the phone, turned to Kathleen and said, “You were right. Robin Williams just told a joke on national television because you told it to Harlan Ellison.”
She sat there with a look of wonderment, watching Williams shvitzing like three middle aged Jewish men on the screen. “My life has officially taken a turn into the truly bizarre,” she said.
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I have heard that Robin Williams is like a hoover when it comes to jokes…he just sucks them all up into his brain and they come out in a random fashion when he does standup. I know I’ve heard a couple of the jokes from his HBO broadcast in other venues, but as always, I can’t remember where.
What a novel idea. This could be a trend. What other holidays and celebrations could be combined?
Christmas and the Second Klingon Rite of Ascension
You walk down a gauntlet of hanging stockings, but only one has gifts in it. Pick the wrong one, you get zapped with painstiks. Decorate the tree with k
I can think of a few, Luigi, but I have the taste not to say them. (He’s a good friend, he knows where I’m going with this:D).
Just another proof that Robin Williams is not funny. He has to “steal” jokes from other people.
Personally, as a Christian I think the joke is tasteless and offensive.
Yves, do you SERIOUSLY think that comedians invent all of their material out of thin air? Humour just doesn’t work like that. What makes a good comedian is their ability to engage an audience and interpret humourous situations in such a way that it reaches the most amount of people.
Have you tried doing stand-up? Take it from someone who has: if you suck, it’s not your material, it’s your delivery.
Personally, as a Klingon I think the joke is tasteless and offensive.
You have to at least credit Mr. Williams for ‘stealing’ a very funny joke. He knows good humour when he hears it.
My world-famous critically acclaimed author friends rarely tell me any good jokes. I need to find funnier world-famous critically acclaimed author friends.
Personally, as a Ground Hog I think the joke is tasteless and offensive.
The provenance of the joke is interesting, but the joke is hardly new in any case. I have a Bruce Springsteen bootleg from 1995 when he tells a similar joke.
I know for a fact that 1) Robin Williams is funny and 2) he’s such without “stealing jokes from other people”.
Ironically enough, I say this because I was at the 1986 Harlan Ellison Roast which had Williams as the concluding roaster. 20 minutes of total stream of consciousness, riffing off many of the comments that had just been said that evening. No way a significant amount of that materal could’ve been “stolen”.
Personally, as a Christian, I find the joke uproarious. Christ is yummy, anyway, why don’t people see that…he’s like sticky hot JAM.
Personally, as a Christian, I have a sense of humor and I thought the joke was creative and funny.
Great story! Loved the ending. 😀
Your wife should appreciate this: The scary thing is, that joke sounds suspiciously like one I’ve been telling for years. The one about three Japanese businessmen who die and go to Heaven. Upon arrival they get the ubiquitous third degree from St. Peter regarding the true meaning of Easter. (You have to imagine the bad Nipponese accent and the ad-lib component.) One mutters something about a guy in a red suit and presents for all the little kiddies, and he gets the boot. The next mumbles something about the Easter bunny and eggs and chocolate, and he gets the boot. The last one says, “Oh, yes. When Jesus dies, and they put him in his tomb… Three days later he comes out again… and if he see his shadow…” (This joke works much better with a bad bushido accent.)
Of course, this joke would have limited appeal in Britain. Over here, nobody had even HEARD of Groundhog Day until the Bill Murray film came out, and even now most people won’t believe it is an actualy holiday over there and not just made up for the film.
Heck, I can’t beleive that the Groundhog Day isn’t just made up for the movie myself. I just can’t understand taking a fat, furry, sleeping animal out of it’s box and making some silly prediction about the weather. Heck, our winters here in Texas are over before they do the stupid thing anyway.
BTW, I’m also against waking up fat, furry, comic-shop running men before they want to be woken up. 🙂
jeff
No Paul, i’m well aware of the fact that alot, if not most, comedians serve us “microwave reheated leftover jokes”.
And yes, i’ve had the experience to do stand-up a few time and did alright. I had actually “auditioned” for the national school of humour in Montreal just before i met my wife and moved to florida. [http://www.enh.qc.ca/francais.htm]
Sorry it’s only in french.
Yves wrote: ‘No Paul, i’m well aware of the fact that alot, if not most, comedians serve us “microwave reheated leftover jokes”. ‘
– It just seems to me that, for someone with such an obviously intimate knowledge of comedy, you are being unreasonably harsh on Robin Williams for doing something that you acknowledge most (and I would argue all) comedians do. I firmly believe that, much like there are supposed to be only 6 basic stories and all a writer can do is reinterpret them in a new and interesting way, there are also about 6 basic jokes and a comedian has to do the same as the aforementioned writer. All jokes can be traced back to these ‘primal’ roots; the trick is in the interpretation and delivery.
None of this is intended as an attack on you in any way; I’m just having trouble reconciling your experience as a comic with your rather unreasonable attacks on someone else in the same field.
I’d love to be able to check out your link by the way, but unfortunately I speak not one word of French. My fiancee, however, is darn near fluent in the language, so I’ll get her to check it out and see if she can translate any of it for me. (I’m sure a lot of the humour would be lost in the translation though, sadly.)
Paul wrote: None of this is intended as an attack on you in any way; I’m just having trouble reconciling your experience as a comic with your rather unreasonable attacks on someone else in the same field.
No worries Paul, i’m am very hard to vex and didn’t take anything you said as an attack.
I wouldn’t call my statement unreasonable. I don’t really enjoy watching Robin Williams based on the simple fact that i don’t enjoy listening or watching the “coked up/on speed” type giberish he does to get a laugh. It gets old really fast and more or less gives me a headache. It’s like Carrot Top with Plutonium batteries.
I’d much rather listen or watch anything by the late Bill Hicks. Although he was crude, his humour was pretty intelligent. His material was also stolen by Denis Leary at multiple times.
If you get a chance, read American Scream : The Bill Hicks Story by Cynthia True.
Yves wrote: ‘I don’t really enjoy watching Robin Williams based on the simple fact that i don’t enjoy listening or watching the “coked up/on speed” type giberish he does to get a laugh. It gets old really fast and more or less gives me a headache.’
Now THAT’s a reason for disliking Robin Williams I can understand (and even relate to at times). Based on his style rather than his material.
We’ll have to agree to disagree on the Bill Hicks front, though. I can’t get into his comedy, despite having seen his act lots of times. (I always try to like a comedian when I first see them; I’m not one of these peope who sits down and more or less says: Okay, buddy, prove yourself to me or I’ll hate you forever).
Of course, that being said, I’m not the world’s biggest Robin Williams fan either… My tastes in comedy run more along the lines of Billy Connolly, Eddie Izzard and Steve Wright.
It just goes to show: diff’rent strokes for diff’rent folks…
I want everyone to understand that I am not mad/upset or anything else about Mr. Williams using a version of a joke that has been around a while that I just happened to tell Harlan. I have heard about 4 variations on the joke and Mr. Williams added a 5th variation to the set in his monologue. I just was a bit stunned when I realized that I had played a game of 6 degrees that went to 2 degrees (1 degree?) and was said out loud on HBO. Peter had told Harlan the Virginians joke after he has heard it from someone else. Good jokes should be shared so all of us can have a good laugh.
Kathleen
“Minor artists borrow, great ones steal. All art is clever theft. Conscious that he is stealing, the artist seeks to cover his traces. In doing so, he expresses himself despite himself. The art of covering one’s tracks is the art of creation.” -Ned Rorem
Eddie Izzard, now you’re talking!
Thats all I had to say. Back to what you were doing now…. 😉
Yeah, I was going to say that I’ve heard that punch line too.
Another funny joke from Colin Quinn on SNL Weekend Update. This past Wednesday was Ash Wednesday, the official start of the holy time of Lent. The Pope, in order to be more modern, has decided to change the name of Lent to March Madness.
That joke left me in stitches.
Jeff said:
Heck, I can’t beleive that the Groundhog Day isn’t just made up for the movie myself. I just can’t understand taking a fat, furry, sleeping animal out of it’s box and making some silly prediction about the weather. Heck, our winters here in Texas are over before they do the stupid thing anyway.
Wolfie sez:
Heh, that’s because, like all things American, the holiday is like a billion times removed from the original. It comes from the Euro-pagan holiday of Imbolc, or Candlemas, and the original animal used was the hedgehog (the groundhog was just the American replacement, just as the pumpkin was for the squash at Samhain/Hallowe’en, and the Turkey was for the pheasant at Mabon/Thanksgiving–yes, that used to be a European holiday). But even the hedgehog really had only a small part to play in the holiday, which was to celebrate the return of the sun and the approach of spring. The youngest girl of each houshold would get up early and dress as the sacred Maiden, with a crown of candles, and bring light and food to each of the rooms of her family (assuming they HAD multiple rooms). The hedgehog being afraid of its shadow was supposed to mean there would NOT be six more weeks of winter. Honestly, we screw up everything here, but then again, we may be justified, at least in the north. There usually IS six or MORE weeks of winter in Chicago and higher after that date, and of course the critter’s going to run if there are humans standing around.
Perhaps of further interest, the practice of colouring eggs was originally a tradition of Ostara, the Saxon holiday celebrating rebirth and honoring the Goddess of Spring, Eostre, on the Spring Equinox. Why did they do it? Eggs were a fertility symbol, so women painted fertility symbols on them and ate them to CONCEIVE CHILDREN. Rabbit, chicken, lamb, and duck were also eaten at this time, for the same reason, and were thought of as sacred animals of Eostre, particularly the rabbit. So, as a pagan, I find it quite amusing to see my “born-again” uncle painting eggs and looking for what the “Easter Bunny” left with his wife and ELEVEN children at Easter. *G* And yet he won’t let them celebrate Hallowe’en because it’s “originaly a pagan holiday”. Go figure.
So Robin Williams coughed up a tasteless joke? Enh, doesn’t surprise me. I’ve always thought he was tremendously overrated, and I remember at least two times when National Review put the slam on him. Did you know that he only takes his beard out of the drawer whenever he’s playing serious roles in the movies? Seems that he just can’t emote properly without it. I’m hoping that he’ll fade away into obscurity sooner of later. I just can’t believe this man could rise to such popularity off of one of the worst sitcoms on TV, Mork & Mindy. Could anyone else here stand that? Not me, that’s for sure. Bleah.
Robin Williams mooching a joke? I’m shocked, shocked to find gambling going on this establishment. Whatever–I still laughed…the only time I got annoyed was the joke he mooched from Bill Hicks…
Let us keep in mind that not only is telling jokes obtained from other sources nothing new, but some comics built a career on it. Milton Berle, one of the all-time greatest, was nicknamed “The Thief of Bad Gags.” The story goes that Berle and George Burns heard someone utter some choice bon mot, and Berle said, “Ðámņ! I wish I’d said that!” And Burns replied, “Don’t worry, Milton: You will.”
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Personally as a Jew and a groundhog, I find the joke confusing.
I had this happen to me once. In the middle of watching “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” during the scene where they hit the guy and JLH finds the boot, I MST3K’d the scene as “Oh my God, we hit a boot!” I had the audience laughing three rows back.
Couple years later, “Scary Movie” comes out. What do I hear? “Oh my God, we hit a boot!”
True story. Wish jokes could be copyrighted.
Same thing happened to me about 10 years ago. I was in 9th grade and working on the school’s GATE Newsletter. I had my own column where I would do a bit I called Movies You’ll Never See. One of them I came up with was Iraqui and Bullwinkle starring Saddam Hussien and that crazy moose trying to take over Kuwait. Well, a few months after it came out, I was listening to a radio station that did the same joke!
Not only that, but Fabian Nicienza owes me too! When Thunderbolts first started under Kurt Busiek, a friend and I were throwing around story ideas and I came up with the idea then of Scourge hunting down the T-Bolts. Where’s my check Fabes!!!!!!
😉
Personally, I find all these jokes delightful! It’s interesting that so many of my fellow Davidians are as clever as our inspiration.
I heard a fairly clever religious themed joke that—-
Uh-oh, now that I see it in print, maybe “Davidians” has the wrong connotation— let’s just say “David devotees”, and leave it at that.
Hrmm. I wonder if fan posts can be copyrighted? Nahh—too ridiculous even for a fan of Bill Murray.
So, on with the joke:
There was a surgeon, a teacher and an HMO director waiting at the Pearly Gates.
Peter asked each of them why the should gain admittance to the Golden Realm, and the surgeon replied:
I’ve spent my life saving lives, and not just the big money jobs. Oftentimes I’ve given my services for free.”
He continued in the same vein, and Peter said, “Very well, you may enter.”
The teacher stated, “I’ve been inspiring children for years, moving them on to greater things, in point of fact, the surgeon who preceded me was one of my pupils.”
“You may enter.”
So, it finally was the HMO manager’s turn:
“I’ve provided affordable health care for thousands of people over the years.”
“Very well, you may enter.” He does, and once inside the gates, Peter continues, “But you may only stay for three days. After *that*, you can go to hëll.”
And on that cheery note, I bid you farewell.
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