Fun stuff from the deleted archives of Wikipedia

[Namae Nai]

Nonsense jokes that must be read outloud to someone else to be funny, and are not funny when simply read.

• Jonny went in to the bakers & asked for a loaf of bread.
• Baker; "White or brown"
• Jonny; "It doesn't matter, I'm on my bike."

I believe this joke may belong to the honourable tradition of "nonsense jokes", which have the appearance of logic, but ultimately defy logic, whence the humour. (But wait -- what if the road is muddy and going by bike makes any bread brown regardless of its original color due to splattering?) Others include:

• Two nuns in a bath. One says "Pass the soap", and the other says "What am I, a radio?"


• Man goes up to other man and says "Give me a bite of your apple". First man says "It's not a pear, it's a banana."


• If I'm canoeing up a tree, how many cupcakes does it take to get to the moon? None, since vests don't have sleeves.

I lykke that joke! It makes no sense, but everyone understands it lol!


(ed. Queen of Fools) The purpose of the above jokes is something only acheived when the joke is actually told. It is almost impossible when you read them. The jokes, especially that about the nuns (can also be substituted with muffins, spatulas, or panda bears), are supposed to be told with the appearance that it is really funny, and once told, see which poor sap laughs at the joke. When you read it, you know that it makes no sense, but if you make someone think that it really is funny, they just don't get it...it all turns out okay! ;-D

The nuns joke quoted above actually appears to be a bowdlerised version of a dirty joke that was popular in British school playgrounds of the 1970's though it is possibly much older:

• Two nuns in a bath. One says "Where's the soap?", and the other says "It does, doesn't it?"

It is possible that someone who didn't get the pun ("where's" sounds like "wears") and the sexual reference wrongly interpreted this as a nonsense joke and so assumed it was OK to change the punchline to anything random.

The bread joke probably is a nonsense joke, but it could also be interpreted: Jonny rides home on his bike through the muddy streets, therefore even white bread would be brown by the time he gets it home. The title "Bad Bread Joke" is equally amibiguous: the adjective "bad" could be modifying either "bread" or "bread joke". :-)
This is a translation of a very old Slovenian nonsense joke.  
The bread joke has also been interpreted as a racial joke about segregation. The man is on his bike, so regardless of the colour of his skin, he can still get home. If he'd been travelling on public transport, being brown (i.e. black) could have caused problems on his journey home.
For some reason, particular words seem to be common in non-jokes (as they are also called). Polar bears, radios, tortoises. For instance:

• Two polar bears are sitting on an iceberg. One falls in the water, the other turns to him and says "bye bye radio!"
• A man walks into a bar with a tortoise on his head. He asks for some cheese. The bartender says "but this is a bar", so the man says "that's OK, the tortoise is paying".

I have a potato joke that is seriously funnier than all of these.

It seems obvious that nonsense jokes were unintentionally invented by confused people who didn't get it when they are first told the story, intentionnally invented for the same people by the ones who do get it, and also created to demonstrate that some things are funny enough in essence and don't need any plot addition, things such as polar bears, a radio, a tortoise. Nonsense jokes are very natural, look at the platypus for instance.

I don't think that joke with the punchline "that's OK, the tortoise is paying" really qualifies as a nonsense joke. It does have a punchline that vaguely makes sense. It's pretty much a non sequitur but not nonsense.

It has an OBVIOUS punchline - the man is confused on why it's not OK to order cheese. How is this a nonsense joke? There are tons of jokes exactly like it with the same confusion of why something is wrong.

Here's how to make sense of the tortoise joke..

• A man walks into a bar with a tortoise on his head. (tortoises are old)
• He asks for some cheese.(you obviously cant buy that in a bar, also, you have to be of legal age to buy things in a bar)
• The bartender says "but this is a bar" (in reference to the cheese),
• so the man says "that's OK, the tortoise is paying"(the man thought he was being told "you arent old enough to buy things in a bar", not "we dont serve cheese".)

All these jokes are made a lot funnier if you tell them with a group of friends who have already heard the joke, with one person that hasn't heard it. Everyone who knows in advance that it's nonsense will start laughing after the false punch-line, and the unlucky guy will think it's supposed to be funny but will have no idea whats going on. Best if the joke teller uses another joke of a similar nature, one that is equally as ridiculous, and says that it will explain the punch-line. Ex:

• "A cat and a fox are taking a bath, and the cat says to the dog "pass the soap," the dog replies "what do I look like, a radio?"
• Followed by: " a penguin walks to the top of an iceberg and says "RADDIIOOOO"

Now watch your friend try to figure it out.  You can let him struggle for days.

The nun joke can be interpreted as a reference to soap operas.

[PinkRose]

I knew this 2 weeks ago.
And was unimpressed then, too.

[Peri]

My favorite ever real nonsense quote, From Stew Ped the barbarian at a LARP event for Amtgard (Live action fantasy roleplaying) during a really bloody battle

"Man, you could pick the bodies off the field with a slingshot"

My head almost exploded trying to figure that out.



Another day at an amtgard event I was charged by a relative newb who cried out his battlecry

SPOON!

I died trying to figure that one out (it was not long after The Tick came out in its first Graphic Novel.)

I really hated fighing Newbs. They would come up with these weird moves that made no sense. I could fight right up there with the best of them, but put me up against someone who had never swung a padded stick and I got worried

I am rambling.

Live with it

[tanare]

well Peri that goes back to the very old saying. "The world's greatest swordsman doesn't fear the second greatest swordsman. No he fears the world's worst swordsman because he has no idea what the idiot will do."

[Namae Nai]

I knew this 2 weeks ago.
And was unimpressed then, too.

[ElektroViking]

~Sigh~

Newbs.
There's too many of them.
...I try to cull their population by hiring them for suicidal assasination missions.  Ooh! Or Liche bait! I've caught many of the Greater Liches with Squelling Newbie Bait.
Give'em a bag of Copper have them run around for a bit...CHING, CHING....Bandit Mating call right there...

..........ya my larping character isn't a very "nice" guy..

[Peri]

What LARP Tan? NERO maybe?

[Imeriel]

Tan, your character never did that to my newb character 

And yes, Peri, he's referencing Nero.

[ElektroViking]

umm no.
My character was SLEEPING with your character.
That's instant amnesty.

[Peri]

Going to have to look up NERO here in Texas.

There was a Dallas group a long time ago...

Not like I have the spare time anyway.

But it would be a good excuse to start Garbing again.

A friend told me that being too good with a sword was frowned upon in NPCs so I never really got out to see it