The Old School Joke

Oh, the old school joke.

No, really. The old jokes. From school. Johnny getting one up on the teacher and that.

Do they still tell those jokes these days? It’s been a long time since I heard a new one.

Take this one:

Professor: “Give the most important fact about nitrates.”

Student: “They’re cheaper than day rates.”

Ha ha, it is to laugh.

It’s been done. Ad nauseaum. Behold:

Louder and funnier? Hardly, Gabby.

Yeah, it’s Bad Joke Uncle fodder. Speaking of which, here’s my mother’s favorite joke:

Why do gorillas have big noses? Because they have big fingers.

Yeah. It’s a groaner. But I still love the woman.

“Most humorists rely on the old formula – the formula which represents Teacher and Johnny matching wits in the classroom,” Untermeyer writes, perhaps expressing his own subconscious exasperation with these amusing, but tired japes. “It is a foregone conclusion that Johnny must win,” he concludes.

For example:

Teacher: “We have been talking about recent inventions. Now, Johnny, name something which did not exist twenty-five years ago.”

Johnny: “Me.”

I could continue. But then you’d have to kill me.