"What’s the oldest joke you remember?" Topic

I remember my Mom telling me these when I was a wee lad.

Why do firemen wear red suspenders?
So their pants won't fall down.
(I understand that in Britain some context is different. )

Where was Napoleon when the lights went out?
In the dark.

Knock, knock.
"who's there?"
"Dwayne"
"Dwayne who?"
"Dwayne the tub, I'm dwoning!"
When you are six years old, that's funny.

Not a joke in the traditional sense, but it gave us a lot of amusement, the Beatles song ‘Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da' allowed us to swear ‘Oh bloody' and reference bras (brassiere).

Usually to do so in 1960s Britain one could except a public flogging AND deportation to Australia. But we got away with it!

What is yellow, black and highly dangerous?
Shark Custard.

Why to elephants paint their toenails red?
So they can hide in cherry trees.
Have you ever seen an elephant in a cherry tree?
No
It shows it works then.

Why do elephants wear ripple soled shoes?
To give the ants a 50:50 chance.

All three from a joke book I had at junior school in the late 1960s

I won't do the 'what goes black, white, red, black, white, red' one, as it will probably get me banned from TMP. It was popular in the playground at the time.

Martin Rapier,

All three from a joke book I had at junior school in the late 1960s

Possibly ‘101 Elephant Jokes' was the book?

Knock, knock.
Who's there?
A little old lady.
A little old lady who?
Hey, you can yodel!

What happened when the moron pulled a 5 pound booger from his nose? His head collapsed.

That stuff was comedy gold when I was little.

The legionaire and the camel…censored.

When I was a child I was given a little joke book called "Ha Ha Ha Bonk – jokes for every occasion." It was from the 1930s IIRC.

Virtually all of them are not suitable for today's audiences (sexism, stereotypes and racism seem to have been very popular in the 1930s…..)

And for quite a while before that.

I can't remember the first ever joke I heard but I do remember the first military joke I read when I was around ten years old and it goes like this.

"During an exercise umpires have decided that a bridge has been destroyed and put up signs saying this and requiring troops to swim/wade across the river. After a while the chief umpire was surprised to see men ignoring the signs and marching across the bridge. He sent an aide to stop them, but after a short while the aide came back and said "It's alright sir, the men are carrying a sign saying "We're swimming".

Pete and Repeat are in a boat. Pete falls out. Who's left?

Also, my uncle told all of the kids what I perceived to be very dirty jokes (but are actually relatively tame by modern standards) when I was young, but they aren't to be repeated here.

When I was a youngster in the 50s, "moron" jokes were all the rage.

How can you tell an elephant has been in your refrigerator?
The foot prints in the butter.

There were tons of jokes about Poles.

I remember some GREAT "Yo Mama" jokes but, you gotta be there…

A fart joke, Sumeria, 1900 BC.

"Something which has never occurred since time immemorial…"

"A young woman did not fart in her husband's lap."

What holds trains up? Bad men.

another elephant joke: What's grey and comes in quarts?

Two goldfish in a tank.

One of them says "How do you drive this thing?"

Then there's the classic Daffynition that seemed to appear in By's Life every other month.

Intense – where scouts sleep on campouts.

Who can raise things without lifting them?
A farmer.

If a runner gets athlete's foot, what does an astronaut get?
Missle-toe.

And very obtuse:
What time is it?
High tide in Hong Kong.

Or…

What time is it?
Half-past Mickey's nose.

There were tons of jokes about Poles.

Growing up, I had a decent number of Polish relatives (by genetic standards, and by the broader postwar Eastern European definition of "family". They, and the non-Polacks (I wonder if that gets beeped or cancelled), all told such jokes. And ones that targeted other (ethnic, social, religious, etc.) groups.

All of them spoke (sang, and swore in) at least a half a dozen languages. Most of them (by my birth) had advanced (what we now call) STEM degrees. All of them had gone from Nazi occupation, through being displaced from their homeland by Soviet occupation, to being homeowners with well-paying jobs (even the blue collar guys were senior shop foremen with tons of responsibility) and sponsoring others to escape to America from Soviet occupation.

It was late middle school before I figured out such jokes were actually supposed to make fun of the subject of the jokes, rather than make fun of the speaker.

Knock, knock.
Who's there?
Banana.
Banana who?
Knock, knock.
Who's there?
Banana.
Banana who?
Knock, knock.
Who's there?
Banana.
Banana who?
Knock, knock.
Who's there?
Banana.
Banana who?
Knock, knock.
Who's there?
Banana.
Banana who?
Knock, knock.
Who's there?
Orange.
Orange who?
Orange you glad I didn't say "banana"?

… speaking of bananas …
YouTube link

Passenger: is this bus going to Dagenham?
Conductor: I've been on it all morning and it hasn't Dagend anyone yet.

The knock knock banana joke sounds very familiar

A joke from my uncle

"How many mothers in law does it take to change a lightbulb?
So don't change it – I'll sit in the dark"

I did not quite appreciate that until I was a bit older

Being from Minnesota and going to college at what we affectinately called UmDeDum (University of Minnesota, Duluth). Lots of Finlander jokes, but they're only funny when told in dialect.

Kinda similar to the one John G just related, in dialect, its hilarious.

I remember "what's black and white and red (read) all over?", and the sudden light-bulb-aha! moment when I grasped the play on red and read. I was pretty young.

There was also the tv commercial for margarine that let us say "snot": "if you think it's butter, but it's snot, it's Chiffon". That was hugely funny at a certain single-digit age.

Pull my finger.

1st grade joke…'What's black, dangerous and sits in a
tree ?'

'A crow with a machine-gun'

Why have elephants got big ears?

Because Noddy won't pay the ransom.

(Not sure if Noddy and Big Ears books made it across the pond but when I was about five I always started laughing while telling this joke.)

What do you call a bear with mange?

Fredbear.

Not necessarily the first but an oldie and goodie, always makes me chuckle:
Gonna wax a little Biblical on ya

"If 666 is the number of the beast, what is 668"

Wait for it

"The neighbor of the the beast"

I can't remember what I had for lunch yesterday …🤔

Legion!!!!
Welcome back!!!

You didn't eat my Slim Jim that I hid in the mattress did you? I'm letting it age to perfection.

Ted Heath.