Everyone thought God created man before woman. That is not true. In fact, he created woman first, but with three boobs.
God: So now that you are here, how do you feel about yourself?
Eve: Well, to be honest, I feel all right, however I don’t think I need this center boob.
God: We can correct that. There, now how do you feel?
Eve: I feel great! But... excuse me, God?
God: Yes?
Eve: Now what do I do with this useless boob?
—POOF—Man was created.
Why is eating pussy better than driving in the fog?
At least when you eat pussy you can see the asshole in front of you.
What’s another name for a zipper?
A penis flytrap.
My mom sent me a self-help book called “How to Marry a Rich Man.” Chapter 1 was “Bald Can Be Beautiful.” Chapter 2 was “Height Is Highly Overrated.” And my favorite, Chapter 3: “Not Everyone Likes Anal Sex but Then Again Not Everyone Gets to Drive a Porsche.”
—CORY KAHANEY, FRIARS FROLICS IN HONOR OF PAT COOPER, 1998
As an airplane is about to crash, a female passenger jumps up frantically and announces, “If I’m going to die, I want to die feeling like a woman.” She removes all of her clothing and asks, “Is there someone on this plane who is man enough to make me feel like a woman?”
A man stands up, takes off his shirt, and says, “Here, iron this!”
What’s the definition of eternity?
The time between when you come and she leaves.
Mr. Smith, the president of a large corporation, calls his vice president into his office and says, “Dave, we’re making some cutbacks, so either Jack or Barbara will have to be laid off.”
“Well,” says Dave, “Barbara is my best worker, but Jack has a wife and three kids. I don’t know whom to fire.”
The next morning, Dave waits for his employees to arrive. Barbara is the first to come in. Dave says, “Barbara, I’ve got a problem. I’ve got to lay you or Jack off—and I don’t know what to do.”
“You’d better jack off. I’ve got a headache.”
A woman puts an ad in the newspaper: “Looking for man with these qualifications: won’t beat me up or run away from me and is great in bed.”
She gets lots of replies, but one seems perfect. He shows up at her door and says, “Hi, I’m Bob. I have no arms so I won’t beat you up and no legs so I won’t run away.”
“Yeah... but what about the ‘great in bed’ part?”
“I knocked on the door, didn’t I?”
I bang black guys, that’s my thing. It ain’t by choice, I just haven’t lost enough weight to get a white guy to fuck me. I have banged so many black guys my neighbors think my apartment is a stop on the Underground Railroad.
—LISA LAMPANELLI, CHEVY CHASE ROAST, 2002
A young woman is so depressed and desperate that she decides to end her life by throwing herself into the ocean. She goes down to the docks where a handsome young sailor notices her tears and feels sorry for her.
“Look,” he says, “you’ve got a lot to live for. I’m off to Europe in the morning, and if you like, I can stow you away on my ship. I’ll take good care of you and bring you food every day.” Moving closer, he slips his arm around her shoulder and adds, “I’ll keep you happy, and you’ll keep me happy.”
The girl nods yes. After all, what does she have to lose? That night, the sailor brings her aboard and hides her in a lifeboat. From then on, every night he brings her some sandwiches and a piece of fruit and they make passionate love until dawn.
Three weeks pass and then, during a routine search, she is discovered by the captain. “What are you doing here?” he demands.
“I have an arrangement with one of the sailors. He’s taking me to Europe, and he’s screwing me.”
“He sure is, lady. This is the Staten Island Ferry.”
What’s the best part of having a homeless girlfriend?
After you screw her, you can drop her off wherever you want.
A guy is driving his girlfriend home when she decides she wants to go to her friend’s house instead. Her friend lives far out of the way, so in return for the favor, she offers to get naked. The guy agrees and the girl takes off all her clothes.
The boyfriend is so busy looking at her that he smashes the car into a tree and gets stuck between the steering wheel and the seat. “You’ll have to go get help!” he tells her.
“But I can’t. I don’t have any clothes on—and I can’t reach them.”
“Take my shoe and cover your snatch with it, and go for help!”
She reluctantly agrees and runs off to the nearest gas station. She finds the clerk and says, “Help, my boyfriend is stuck! Can you help us?”
“I’m sorry, ma’am...but I think he’s too far in.”
A cowboy traveling across the desert comes across a lovely woman, naked and battered, her limbs tied to four stakes in the ground.
“Thank God, you’ve come!” she cries.
“If you don’t mind my askin’, ma’am, how did this happen?” asks the cowboy, climbing down off his horse.
“I was on my way to San Francisco when a whole tribe of Indians attacked our wagon train. They stole our food, kidnapped our children, torched our wagons, and left me here to die.”
“Ma’am,” says the cowboy as he unbuckles his belt, “today just ain’t your day.”
Today’s modern women think that sucking and fucking are cities in China.
—NORM CROSBY, DANNY AIELLO ROAST, 1997
The Seven Most Important Men in a Woman’s Life:
1. The Doctor, who tells her, “Take off all your clothes.”
2. The Dentist, who tells her, “Open wide.”
3. The Milkman, who asks her, “Do you want it in the front or the back?”
4. The Hairdresser, who asks her, “Do you want it teased or blown?”
5. The Interior Designer, who assures her, “Once it’s inside, you’ll LOVE it!”
6. The Banker, who warns her, “If you take it out too soon, you’ll lose interest!”
7. The Hunter, who always goes deep into the bush, always shoots twice, always eats what he shoots, but keeps telling her, “Keep quiet and lie still!”
How do you know when a male porn star is at the gas station?
Right before the pump turns off, he pulls out the nozzle and sprays it all over the car.
The madam opens the brothel door to find a dignified, well-dressed, good-looking man in his late forties. “May I help you?” she asks.
“I want to see Valerie,” the man replies.
“Sir, Valerie is one of our most expensive ladies. Perhaps you would prefer someone else?”
So Valerie is summoned and she tells the man that she charges a thousand dollars a visit.
Without hesitation, the man pulls out ten one-hundred dollar bills and hands them to her, and they go upstairs. After an hour, the man leaves.
The next night, the man appears again, demanding to see Valerie.
Valerie is surprised. She tells him that no client has ever come back two nights in a row, because of her high price. She warns him that there are no discounts—the price will still be a thousand dollars.
Again the man calmly pays the fee and they go upstairs. After an hour, he leaves.
The next night, there he is again, and again he pays Valerie and they go upstairs. Valerie’s curiosity is getting the better of her. “No one has ever been with me three nights in a row. Where are you from?” she asks.
“South Carolina.”
“Really? I have family in South Carolina.”
“I know. Your father died, and I am your sister’s attorney. She asked me to give you your three thousand dollar inheritance.”
Do you know what Rodeo Sex is? It’s when you mount your woman from behind, start out nice and slow, take her hair and pull her head back slightly, and whisper in her ear, “Your sister was better than you”—and then try to hold on for eight seconds!
Why do blondes have bruised belly buttons?
Because they have blond boyfriends.
The blacks love a big ass. That way they have something to hide behind when the cops start shooting.
—LISA LAMPANELLI, FRIARS CLUB COMEDY MARATHON FOR POLICE AND FIREFIGHTERS, 2001
One day a young woman is walking home when a man grabs her, drags her into a back alley, and starts molesting her. “Help! Help me, someone,” she cries. “I’m being robbed!”
You ain’t being robbed, lady,” interrupts the man, “you’re being fucked.”
“Well, if this is being fucked,” she says, “I’m being robbed.”
One day, the sheriff notices Billy Bob walking around town with nothing on but his gun belt and his boots. “Billy Bob,” he says, “what the hell are you doing walking around town like that?”
“Sheriff, it’s a long story!”
“Well...I ain’t in no hurry.”
“Okay, then. Me and Mary Lou was down on the farm and we started a-cuddlin’. Mary Lou said we should go in the barn, so we did. We started a-kissin’ and a-cuddlin’ and things got pretty hot and heavy—but then Mary-Lou said we should go up on the hill—so we did. Up on the hill we started a-kissin’ and a-cuddlin’ and then Mary Lou took off all her clothes. She said that I should do the same—so I took off everything except my gun belt and my boots. Then Mary Lou lay down on the ground and opened her legs and said, “Okay Billy Bob, go to town.”
How does a blonde turn on the light after sex?
She opens the car door.
Richard Belzer and I have been friends for years but we didn’t get off to such a rousing start. The first time I met him, out of nowhere, he said, “Whore.” I was so appalled I got up off my knees and I marched out of that stall with my dignity intact.
—SUSIE ESSMAN, RICHARD BELZER ROAST, 2001
A woman walks into a store and purchases the following:
1 small box of detergent
1 bar of soap
3 individual servings of yogurt
2 oranges
1 stick of women’s deodorant
She then goes to the checkout line.
Cashier: Oh, you must be single.
Woman: You can tell that by what I bought?
Cashier: No, you’re fucking ugly!
A young doctor moved to town and proceeded to set up his practice. He had a new sign painted proclaiming his specialties: Homosexuals & Hemorrhoids.”
The town fathers were upset by the sign and demanded that he change it.
The young physician was eager to please, so he put up a new sign: “Queers & Rears.”
As you can imagine, the town fathers were really fuming about that one, and they demanded that the doctor come up with a decent sign, one that would not offend the townspeople.
“Aha!” said the doctor. Soon the sign over his office proclaimed: “Odds & Ends.”
Man: Haven’t I seen you someplace before?
Woman: Yes, that’s why I don’t go there anymore.
Man: Is this seat empty?
Woman: Yes, and this one will be if you sit down.
Man: Your place or mine?
Woman: Both. You go to yours, and I’ll go to mine.
Man: So, what do you do for a living?
Woman: I’m a female impersonator.
Man: What’s your sign?
Woman: Do not enter.
Man: How do you like your eggs in the morning?
Woman: Unfertilized.
Man: Your body is like a temple.
Woman: Sorry, there are no services today.
Man: I would go to the ends of the earth for you.
Woman: But would you stay there?
Man: If I could see you naked, I’d die happy.
Woman: If I saw you naked, I’d probably die laughing.
Three nuns are talking. The first one says, “I was cleaning Father’s room the other day and do you know what I found? A bunch of pornographic magazines.”
“What did you do?” the second nun asks.
“Well, of course I threw them in the trash.”
“Well, I can top that,” says the second nun. “I was in Father’s room putting away his laundry and I found a bunch of condoms!”
“Oh my!” gasps the first nun. “What did you do?”
“I poked holes in all of them!”
At which point, the third nun faints.
What’s the speed limit for sex?
Sixty-eight. Because at sixty-nine you have to turn around.
I had the honor of meeting all of Hef’s seven girlfriends before, and it was a little weird because they’ve all been in Playboy and as I was meeting them I realized that I had come on all their faces.
—ARTIE LANGE, HUGH HEFNER ROAST, 2001
A guy has been asking the prettiest girl in town for a date and finally she agrees to go out with him. He takes her to a nice restaurant and buys her a fancy dinner with expensive wine. On the way home, he finds a secluded spot and pulls over to the side of the road. They start necking and he’s getting pretty excited. He starts to reach under her skirt and she stops him, saying she’s a virgin and wants to stay that way.
“Well, okay,” he says, “how about a blow job?”
“Yuck!” she screams. “I’m not putting that thing in my mouth!”
“Well then... how about a hand job?”
“I’ve never done that. What do I have to do?”
“Well, remember when you were a kid and you used to shake up a Coke bottle and spray your brother with it?”
She nods.
“Well, it’s just like that.”
So, he pulls out his dick and she grabs hold of it and starts shaking it. A few seconds later, his head snaps back against the headrest, his eyes roll up in his head, wax blows out of his ears, and he screams in pain.
“What’s wrong?” she cries out.
“Take your thumb off the end!!!”
According to archaeologists, for millions of years Neanderthal man was not fully erect. That’s pretty easy to understand considering how ugly Neanderthal women were.
Richard started on Homicide and then took the same character, Detective Munch, to Law and Order: Special Victims Unit. Coincidentally, “Detective Munch” is also Ellen DeGeneres’s party name.
—PAUL SHAFFER, RICHARD BELZER ROAST, 2001
A guy is riding the bus when it pulls up to the most beautiful woman he has ever seen, and she gets on. The only problem is that she is a nun. He finds that he just has to approach her anyway. “Sister, you are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen and I must have sex with you,” he says.
“I’m sorry, but I’ve given my body to God,” she replies. In a few more stops she gets off the bus.
At that point, the bus driver turns around to the guy and says, “Hey buddy, I know a way you can get her in the sack.” The bus driver tells the guy that the nun goes to confessional every day at three in the afternoon, and then he whispers something in his ear. The guy breaks into a smile, knowing he’s going to get some.
The next day at three, the guy is in the confession booth dressed as a priest. When the nun enters her side of the confessional he says, “Sister, God has told me I must have sex with you.”
“Well, if God has said it, we must do it,” she replies. “However, because of my strong commitment to God, I will only take it up the ass.”
The guy has no problem with this and proceeds to have the best sex of his life. After it is over he turns on the light and says, “Surprise! I’m the guy on the bus.”
With that the nun turns around and says, “Surprise! I’m the bus driver.”
Freddie wanted to get President Clinton impeached. Why should he be the only man in history to ever get a blow job from a Jewish girl?
—JOY BEHAR, FREDDIE ROMAN ROAST, 1999
What’s the difference between a whore and a bitch?
Whores fuck everyone at the party. Bitches fuck everyone at the party except YOU.
A couple is having sex when the man notices that with each movement of his pelvis, his partner’s toes curl up.
Later that night, they are going at it again, this time in the shower, and he notices that her toes remain still. Curious, he asks, “Why is it that when we do it in bed, your toes curl up, but when we do it in the shower, they don’t?”
“Silly,” she replies. “I take my pantyhose off in the shower!”
What do a clitoris, an anniversary, and a toilet have in common?
Men always miss them.
An exhibitionist is taking a trip on an airplane. When the man gets to the top of the stairs where the stewardess is examining the tickets, he opens his coat and exposes himself.
Says the stewardess, “I’m sorry, sir, you have to show your ticket here, not your stub.”
Mr. Feeney hired a new secretary who was young, sweet, and polite. One day while taking dictation, she noticed his fly was open. While leaving the room, she courteously said, “Oh sir, did you know that your barracks door was open?”
He didn’t understand her remark, but later on happened to look down and saw that his zipper was open. He decided to have some fun with his new employee. Calling her in, he asked, “By the way, Miss Jones, when you saw my barracks door open this morning, did you also see a soldier standing at attention?”
The witty secretary replied, “Why, no sir, all I saw was a little disabled veteran, sitting on two duffel bags!”
Richard Belzer was once known for his wonderful Mick Jagger impersonation. I say “wonderful” because he was skinny, ugly, and he once blew a guy who looked like David Bowie.
—PAUL SHAFFER, RICHARD BELZER ROAST, 2001
A guy is walking past a bus stop and says to a woman, “Can I smell your pussy?”
“Fuck off! No, you can’t smell my pussy!” the woman yells back at him.
“Oh,” he replies, looking confused. “It must be your feet, then.”
What is the difference between “Oooh!” and “Aaah!”?
About three inches.
Why can’t women read maps?
Because only the male mind can comprehend the concept that one inch equals a mile.
Three girls all have boyfriends with the same name. In order to keep themselves from getting confused when they talk about them, the girls decided to give their boyfriends nicknames. The first girl says, “I think I’ll call my man 7-up.”
“Why do you want to call your man that?” the second girl asks.
“Because he’s seven inches long and he’s always up.”
The second girl says, “I’m going to call my man Mountain Dew.”
“Why do you want to call your man that?” asks the third girl.
“Because he likes to mount me and to do me.”
Finally, the third girl says, “I’d like to call my man Jack Daniels.”
“Why do you want to call your man Jack Daniels?” the first girl asks. “That’s hard liquor.”
“Exactly.”
There are five people on a small plane, four guys and one girl. Suddenly, the engine stalls and they crash. Miraculously, all five of them survive the crash but are stranded on a small, deserted island. The four guys realize that they will need to have their natural urges satisfied, so they make up a schedule. Each guy will get a week to screw the woman as often as he wants, and then it is the next guy’s turn—and so on. When they present this plan to the woman she agrees immediately, being something of a nymphomaniac.
This arrangement works out very well for years, but then, sadly, the woman dies. The first month goes by and it is terrible; the second month is even worse; the third month is just about unbearable. When the fourth month rolls around, the guys just can’t handle it anymore—so they bury her.
Joy Behar did for ABC daytime television what Monica Lewinsky did for cigars.
—STEVEN SCOTT, FREDDIE ROMAN ROAST, 1999
Three guys go on a trip to Saudi Arabia and one day they stumble into a harem tent filled with more than a hundred beautiful women. They start getting friendly with these exotic beauties, when suddenly the sheik comes in.
“I am the master of all these women. No one can touch them but me. You three men must pay for what you have done today. You will be punished in a way that corresponds to your profession.” With that, the sheik turns to the first man and asks him what he does for a living.
“I’m a cop,” he says.
“Then we will shoot your penis off!” says the sheik. He then turns to the second man and asks him what he does for a living.
“I’m a fireman,” says the man.
“Then we will burn your penis off!” says the sheik. Finally, he asks the last man, “And you, what do you do for a living?”
With a sly grin, the man says, “I’m a lollipop salesman!”
What is it called when a man talks dirty to a woman?
Sexual harassment.
What is it called when a woman talks dirty to a man?
$3.99 a minute.
We were raised Catholic. My mother always hated it when we cursed but when I think back, I remember that all she DID was curse. She’d be like, “You son of a bitch of a bastard!” about EVERYTHING! She had such a dirty mouth, but she kept it at home, so everybody thought she was always so upstanding and Catholic. But, she’d never say “fuck” and she would NEVER say “cunt.” She always just stuck with the basics. She would say “shit” and everything like that, so one day I got sick of it. I said, “Mom, you gotta learn the f-word.” Of course, she was like, “I can’t, I can’t.” So, I taught her how to give the finger—I thought that was a nice contribution since she taught me so much. But she gave it backwards all the time, so she was always giving the finger to herself.
I took a class in Connecticut on comedy and the guy had great exercises to help us find material. He said to write a list of fifty things you love and fifty things you hate. At the time I was losing weight but I hated Weight Watchers ’cause these bitches would come in and they’d be like, “Oh, I found the greatest recipe. You take a rice cake and you put a sliver of apple and you put some cinnamon on it and you would swear to Jesus Christ on the cross that it was apple pie.” So I wrote a joke about that, and I was supposed to say at my first performance ever, “Apple friggin’ pie? Are you kidding me?”—you know, some innocent punch line. Well, I don’t know what happened during the show, but I just went off instead. I said, “Apple friggin’ pie? Why don’t you just eat ME instead?” It got a huge laugh.
I said “friggin’ pie” instead of “fuckin’ pie” because I just think it’s funny anyway. If I did that joke today, I still would say “friggin’”—it’s much funnier. There are times when curses are funnier but sometimes it’s funnier to say, “Look at this friggin’ guy.” It has more attitude.
My theory has always been, I talk this way in real life so I talk this way onstage. I would never edit myself, unless it’s during my Friars Club admissions interview so I can get in past the Jews. Then it’s like, whatever. If I don’t talk onstage how I talk offstage, I’ll seem disingenuous to the audience. It’ll seem like I’m holding back.
When I do broadcast TV, I have to find really good substitutes for curses if I want to sell the joke. I had a joke on Premium Blend once about banging the blacks. The joke is: “I may never buy a new car again but every night I get an Escalade in the old box.” Now, you can’t say Escalade, because it’s a proper noun, and you can’t say “box” when it means snatch, so I had to come up with all these words that were just as funny. I ended up saying, “I may never buy a new car again but every night I get an SUV in the old hoo-hah.” That was so much funnier than “box.” Now I say “hoo-hah” all the time because it’s funnier. Sometimes dirty is funny, sometimes the little cleaned-up version is funnier. You just never know.
I cannot believe my life consists of, “Wow, what word is better than twat?” Or, “How many times did I say ‘cunt’ onstage tonight. Did I lose count? Did I over-cunt them?” Hey, that’s a verb I just made up-“over-cunt.” I’m claiming that verb, “I over-cunted tonight.”
I hate when comics put other comics down for doing stuff. Who are you, the freaking judge and jury? The critic of comedy? You’re Richard Pryor? The minute you’re Richard Pryor, tell me what to do onstage. That’s why Bill Cosby is no good anymore. He has to criticize Howard Stern; he has to criticize Ozzy Osbourne. Hey, you banged a chick and got her pregnant. Don’t even start, Mr. Jell-O Pudding Pop. It makes me very annoyed.
There’s never a line in comedy for me. I’ll never go, “Oh my God, I’ve gone too far.” There never is “too far” because with comedy, it’s not possible to go too far. If you’re good at it, you can’t go far enough.
I do a joke that says that white women should suck black dick as payback—you know, reparations—for slavery. Because it’s a heavy subject, instead of saying, “I suck the black dick,” I think it’s much cuter when I say, “Let me tell you something, when I used to suck a white one...” and I kind of whisper it into the audience, “...I didn’t like it. It wasn’t so nice. It looks sort of veiny and gristly. Sort of like a bratwurst with a mushroom on the end.” And then, instead of saying, “When I was sucking the black cock,” I say, “With the blacks, I think I deluded myself into thinking it would taste like a big freaking chocolate éclair. It doesn’t, it’s the same shit.” I don’t know why, but it comes off cuter without using the graphic words.
It didn’t even dawn on me to be scared when I started telling racial jokes. I got such a kick out of it, I figured the audience would like it. Because, honestly, if you’ve got a good heart and you don’t mean any of the ridiculous things you say, if the audience doesn’t get it, that’s THEIR problem. That’s on them. This beautiful black woman came up to me once with this gorgeous black guy and she was like, “Oh, I love that you make fun of stereotypes. Oh my God, it’s so outlandish what you say. If anyone believes it, they’re retarded.” I was like, “Wow! Thank you.” I always thought, “Well, I don’t mean it, and it’s funny.” And it’s always whitey who has to look at the blacks to make sure they’re getting it. I’m like, “Would you stop it? The blacks are laughing. I see teeth and eyes. Shut up already.” So when I occasionally get a hate letter, I’m so sad. I act all tough but I really get upset. I think, “Oh my God, they didn’t get it. Oh shit.”
But you can only do racial jokes if there’s a ton of blacks who love you—or none at all—because you don’t want to do it if it’s gonna make one guy uncomfortable. Sometimes I’ll even go, “Black guy, listen, you’re really cool, can I do this next joke? If you say no, I don’t want to offend you because you’ve been so nice.” And he’ll say, “Go for it, baby.” And then I’ll be like, “Okay, guys, if you don’t like this joke, don’t blame me. Blame the darkie. He told me I could tell it.” Or if I sense a guy’s uncomfortable with the gay stuff, I get off him real quick because he paid money. Your job isn’t to make them miserable. Your job is to make them laugh. They’re paying a lot of money at Caroline’s, so you better freaking deliver.
Every time I’d fuck with the audience, I’d be like, Oh my God, this is great. Then I went for coaching at the Comic Strip, and this guy told me, “Oh, listen man, I know you like to do audience work but nobody makes a living that way.” Well, what about Don Rickles? “Oh, that’s an exception.” What about Mike Sweeney? “That’s an exception.” There’s always a fucking exception. Well, guess what? So am I. I had to look past that dude’s own limits and realize that something’s telling me to do this.
Sometimes in the audience I’ll get these twats—these soccer mom-types-of-bitches—who don’t know who I am. They figure, “Oh, it’s a woman comic, let’s go see her. She’s gonna talk about dating and shopping.” Well, that’s the last thing you’re gonna hear from me. So they’ll come in and think, “Oh my God, she’s the reason we have school shootings!”
There are some sensitive issues that I have—the N-word is pretty sensitive, and the AIDS and the rape. But sometimes if I see that there’s some sensitive women, I’ll just be like, “Rape is nothing to joke about but you bitches have gotta stop overreacting. It ain’t a rape if the guy is good-looking.”
Cancer, I joke about because I bought the bracelet. Once you get the bracelet of the disease, by the way, you can make fun of it. If you give a dollar to AIDS research, the joke is on, baby. I make a joke where I shake the gay guy’s hand and thank him for being such a gentleman, and say, “Great, now I have the AIDS, too... that’s not true, I already had it. You don’t lose as much weight as you’d think... Oh shut-up. You fat bitches all know if you could get it and be cured in a month, you’d get it and drop a quick eighty. Everyone wants to be skinny.” But then I show them I have the bracelet, so I can make fun of it. I show all the bracelets and say, “This is my tit cancer, my nut cancer. I’m waiting for my cunt cancer one—that’s coming tomorrow. It has hair on it.” That bracelet thing is out of control. There’s a bracelet for everything. I even bought the MS bracelet just because it’s orange and I needed it to match an outfit. I draw my own lines but I’ll never change how I am. I’ll never go, “Oh my God, I better not insult anyone.” Or, “I better not do dirty.”
All those old cunts at the Friars Club, those Jew broads, they love me. I’m always shocked because they just get it. They see your heart. They know I’m a nice person. If I get bitter, on or off stage, I’ll quit. I’d rather work at Kinko’s or do something not related if I’m not gonna be loveable. I don’t make any money by being all intellectual and all that shit. I’m not Dennis Miller.
Bill rents an apartment in Chicago and goes immediately to the lobby to put his name on the group mailbox. While he’s standing there, an attractive young lady comes out of the apartment next to the mailboxes, wearing a robe. Bill smiles at her and they begin to chat.
As they talk her robe slips open, and it’s quite obvious that she has nothing on underneath it. Poor Bill breaks into a sweat trying to maintain eye contact. After a few minutes, she places her hand on his arm and says, “Let’s go into my apartment. I hear someone coming.”
Bill follows her inside, and once the door is closed she leans against the wall, allowing her robe to fall off completely. As she reveals her beautiful nude body she purrs, “What would you say is my best feature?”
Flustered, Bill manages to squeak out, “Oh, your best feature has to be your ears!”
She’s astounded! “Why my ears? Looks at these breasts! They’re full, they don’t sag, and they’re one hundred percent natural! My ass is taut and round and completely without cellulite! My waist is slim and inviting. My skin is silky and begs to be touched. Why in the world would you say my EARS are my best feature?”
“Be-be-because,” he stammers, “when we were in the hallway you said you heard someone coming... That was me!”
A NASCAR driver picks up a girl after a race and takes her home to bed. A few hours later he falls into a satisfied sleep, only to be rudely awakened by a smack in the face.
“What’s the matter? Didn’t I satisfy you?” he asks.
“It’s not that. It’s what happened after you fell asleep that got you into trouble,” replies the angry woman. “In your sleep, you felt my tits and mumbled, ‘What perfect headlights.’ Then you felt my thighs and murmured, ‘what a smooth finish.’”
“What’s wrong with that?” asks the driver.
“Nothing—but then you felt my pussy and yelled, ‘Who the hell left the garage door open?’”
The Friars Club is the best. They judge everyone on talent. Not looks, not color. Except for Beverly D’Angelo. They let her in because she’s got big tits. What a rack. I’m not even a dyke and I want to put my face in there and see the sound it makes. Chevy, she was your beautiful wife in those Vacation movies. What sparks flew between those two! I haven’t seen chemistry like that since Rosie O’Donnell poked Tom Cruise with her strap-on.
—LISA LAMPANELLI, CHEVY CHASE ROAST, 2002
A tall woman meets a midget at a party. The midget is barely three feet tall but they are attracted to each other. After a few drinks they go back to the woman’s apartment. “I can’t imagine what it will be like making love to a midget,” says the woman.
“Just take off your clothes, lie back on the bed, spread your legs apart, and close your eyes,” says the midget.
The woman does as she is told and soon she feels the biggest thing she’s ever experienced inside her. Within a few minutes the woman has climaxed eight times.
“Ooohhhh, stop, I can’t take it anymore!” she screams in ecstasy.
“If you think that was good,” says the midget with a smirk, “Just wait till I get BOTH legs in there!”
A guy is on his first date with a notoriously loose girl. He parks the car and starts kissing and fondling her, and, as befits her reputation, she is quite responsive. The petting continues, and soon he puts his hand inside her panties. She seems to be enjoying it, but suddenly she pushes him away, screaming, “Ouch! That ring is hurting me!”
“That’s not a ring. That’s my watch!”
I once said to George Burns, “How is your sex life, George?” And he said, “It’s like shooting pool with a rope.”
—ALAN KING, RICHARD BELZER ROAST, 2001
Jack arrives at work one Monday morning with two black eyes. His colleagues are understandably curious. “Hey, Jack, what happened to you?” one of them asks.
“It’s the damndest thing! I was at church yesterday and this fat lady stood up in front of me. You know how a dress can get stuck in the crack of the butt of a fat lady? It looked funny. I figured she wouldn’t like that, so I just reached over and pulled it out with a little tug. Next thing I know, she spins around and socks me one!”
“Jeez, you got TWO black eyes in one blow?”
“Nah, after she turned back around, I figured she was angry that I pulled the dress out of her crack, so I tried to poke it back in.”
Why did God create Adam before he created Eve?
Because he didn’t want anyone telling him how to make Adam.
Two women are having lunch together and discussing the merits of cosmetic surgery. The first woman says, “I’ll be honest with you, I’m getting a boob job.”
“Oh, that’s nothing,” says the second. “I’m thinking of having my asshole bleached!”
“Whoa,” says the first. “I just can’t picture your husband as a blonde!”
If you love Richard Belzer and have a soft spot in your heart for him, we’re about to change all that. Chances are you won’t be hearing what a great guy he is—unless Paul Shaffer tells you how good he is in bed.
—FREDDIE ROMAN, RICHARD BELZER ROAST, 2001
A man is sitting on a train across from a busty blonde wearing a tiny miniskirt. Despite his best efforts, he is unable to stop staring at the tops of her thighs. To his delight, she isn’t wearing any underwear and nothing is left to his imagination. The blonde senses him staring and inquires, “Are you looking at my pussy?”
“Yes, I’m sorry,” replies the man, and promises to avert his eyes.
“It’s quite all right,” replies the woman. “It’s very talented. Watch this: I’ll make it blow a kiss at you.”
Sure enough, her pussy blows him a kiss.
Intrigued, to say the least, the man inquires as to what else this miraculous organ can do.
“I can make it wink,” says the woman.
The man stares in amazement as the pussy winks at him.
“Come and sit next to me,” suggests the blonde, patting the seat. When the man moves over, she asks, “Would you like to stick a couple of fingers in?”
“Good grief!” the man exclaims. “Can it whistle, too?”
One dismal, rainy night, a taxi driver spots an arm waving from the shadows of an alley halfway down the block. Even before he rolls to a stop at the curb, a figure leaps into the cab and slams the door. Checking his rearview mirror as he pulls away, the driver is startled to see a dripping wet, naked woman sitting in the back seat. “Where to?” he stammers.
“Union Station,” answers the woman.
“You got it,” he says, taking another long look in the mirror.
The woman catches him in the act and asks, “Just what the hell are you looking at, driver?”
“Well, ma’am, I notice that you’re not wearing any clothes, and I was just wondering how you’ll pay your fare.”
At that the woman spreads her legs wide open and says, “Does this answer your question?”
Still looking in the mirror, the cabbie asks, “Got anything smaller?”
A man is standing at the gates of Heaven. To his right is an attractive woman and to his left is a ladder. The woman says, “Come with me through the gate and spend eternity with me, or climb the ladder to success.”
The man, who had always been eager to get ahead in life, chooses to climb the ladder. When he gets to the top, the man finds an even more beautiful woman standing in front of another gate. Next to her is another ladder.
The woman says, “Come with me through the gate and all your fantasies will be realized in perpetuity, or climb the ladder to success.”
This time, the man is tempted by the lovely woman but his ambitions take over and he climbs the ladder. He again encounters a woman, and this time she is the most breathtaking creature he has ever seen.
She says, “Come with me and I will satisfy your deepest desires forever, or climb the ladder to success.”
Oh... what to do? He’d love to stay and gratify his carnal desires—but he is just so driven by greed and ambition that once again he decides to climb the ladder.
He comes to another gate—but this time there is no woman waiting for him. Instead, a chubby and rather unkempt, elderly man with a scruffy white beard approaches him.
“Are you God?” the man asks.
“No, I’m Sess.”
What do you do if your girlfriend starts smoking?
Slow down and use some lubricant.
I was in the car with my girlfriend and she said, “Kiss me where it smells.” So I drove her to New Jersey.
—GILBERT GOTTFRIED, RICHARD BELZER ROAST, 2001
A couple is on holiday in Pakistan. They are touring around the marketplace looking at the goods when they pass a small sandal shop. From inside they hear a local gentleman say, “You, out there. Foreigners! Come in. Come into my humble shop.”
So the couple walk in and the shopkeeper says, “I have some special sandals I think you will be interested in. They have a special power. They make you wild at sex, like a great desert camel.”
Well, the wife is really interested in buying the sandals but her husband feels he really doesn’t need them, being the sex god he is.
The husband asks the man, “How can sandals improve my abilities?”
“Just try dem on, Saheeb. The sandals will prove themselves to you.”
After much badgering from his wife, the man agrees to try them on. As soon as he slips the sandals onto his feet, he gets a wild look in his eyes—something his wife hasn’t seen in many years—raw sexual power!
In a blink of an eye, the husband grabs the Pakistani man, bends him violently over a table, yanks down the man’s pants and then his own, and grabs firm hold of the other man’s thighs.
The Pakistani screams, “WAIT! YOU HAVE DEM ON DE WRONG FEET!”
One day God is walking through the Garden of Eden and sees Adam standing by the fountain of life with his head under the water. God says, “Adam, what are you doing?”
“Lord, I’m gargling.”
“I can see that, Adam, but why are you doing it?”
“Well, Lord, Eve and I just got through having oral sex and I am trying to get the taste out of my mouth. You don’t mind do you?”
God thinks for a moment and says, “I guess not, Adam, but it’s going to take forever to get the smell out of the fish.”
A guy and his date are parked on a back road some distance from town. They are messing around when the girl stops the boy abruptly. “I really should have mentioned this earlier, but I’m actually a hooker and I charge twenty dollars for sex.”
The boy reluctantly pays her, and they carry on. After the obligatory cigarette, the boy sits in the driver’s seat, staring out the window.
“Why aren’t we going anywhere?” asks the girl.
“Well, I really should have mentioned this earlier, but I’m actually a taxi driver, and the fare back to town is twenty-five dollars.”
Have you heard about the new super-sensitive condom? After you fuck her, it stays and talks to her.
—JACKIE MARTLING, FRIARS CLUB COMEDY MARATHON FOR POLICE AND FIREFIGHTERS, 2001
Why is being in the military like a blow job?
The closer you get to discharge, the better you feel.
A couple of women are playing golf one sunny Saturday morning. The first of the twosome tees off and watches in horror as her ball heads directly toward a foursome of men playing the next hole. The ball hits one of the men and he immediately clasps his hands over his groin, falls to the ground, and rolls around in evident agony.
The woman rushes down to the man and begins apologizing profusely. “Please allow me to help. I’m a physical therapist and I know I could relieve your pain if you’d allow me,” she told him earnestly.
“Ummph, oooh, nnooo, I’ll be all right. I’ll be fine in a few minutes,” he replies breathlessly, as he remains doubled over in pain.
The woman persists in trying to help and he finally agrees.
She gently takes his hands away from his groin and lays them to his sides. She loosens his pants and she puts her hands inside. She begins to massage him, asking, “How does that feel?”
“It feels great—but my thumb still hurts like hell.”
After sex:
A hooker says, “Well, sweetheart, did you get your money’s worth?”
A mistress says, “Darling, did you enjoy that as much as I did?”
A wife says, “Beige... beige...I think I’ll paint the ceiling beige.”
Women, you are the stronger gender. As a man, I’ll never know what it’s like to have anything leave my body that will eventually go to college.
—JOEY CALLAHAN, FRIARS NEW FACES OF COMEDY, 2002
A young man wants to purchase a gift for his new sweetheart’s birthday, and as they have not been dating very long, after careful consideration, he decides a pair of gloves will strike the right note: romantic, but not too personal. Accompanied by his girlfriend’s younger sister, he goes to the store and buys a pair of white gloves. The sister purchases a pair of panties for herself.
While wrapping up the order, the clerk mixes up the items and the sister takes home the gloves while the boyfriend’s package contains the panties. Without checking the contents, the young man sends it to his sweetheart with the following note:
“I chose these because I noticed that you are not in the habit of wearing any when we go out in the evening. If it had not been for your sister, I would have chosen the long ones with the buttons, but she wears short ones that are easier to remove.
“These are a delicate shade, but the lady I bought them from showed me the pair she had been wearing for the past three weeks and they were hardly soiled. I had her try yours on for me and she looked lovely in them.
“I wish I was there to put them on for you the first time, as no doubt other hands will come in contact with them before I have a chance to see you again.
“When you take them off, remember to blow in them before putting them away as they will naturally be a little damp from wearing.
“Just think how many times I will kiss them during the coming year. I hope you will wear them for me on Friday night. All my love.
“P.S. I’m told that the latest style is to wear them folded down with a little fur showing.”
A guy approaches the window of a movie theater with a chicken under his arm, and asks for two tickets. The girl behind the ticket counter wants to know who is going in with him.
“Well, my pet chicken, of course!”
“Mister, I’m sorry but you can’t take a chicken into the theater!”
Annoyed, he goes around the corner, stuffs the chicken into his trousers, and returns. He buys one ticket and goes in.
Inside the theater, the chicken starts to get hot and begins to squirm, so the man unzips his fly so the chicken can stick its head out, get some air, and watch the movie.
Sitting next to the chicken man are Agnes and Myrtle. Agnes elbows Myrtle and whispers, “Myrtle, this man next to me just unzipped his pants!”
“Oh, don’t worry about it,” replies Myrtle. “If you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all.”
“I know... but this one’s eating my POPCORN!”
A man goes to a shrink and says, “Doctor, my wife is unfaithful to me. Every evening she goes to Larry’s bar and picks up men. In fact, she sleeps with anybody who asks her! I’m going crazy. What do you think I should do?”
“Relax,” says the doctor. “Take a deep breath and calm down. That’s better. Breathe deeply. Now. Tell me, exactly where is Larry’s bar?”
A guy has lost all interest in sex so his wife goes to a sex shop and buys a pair of crotchless panties. She goes home and waits for him on the bed wearing nothing except the panties. When he gets home she says, “I’m up here.” He walks into the bedroom and she says, “Do you see anything you like?” He says, “Why would I want that? Look what it did to your panties.”
—JACKIE MARTLING, FRIARS CLUB COMEDY MARATHON FOR POLICE AND FIREFIGHTERS, 2001
Why do men become smarter during sex?
A: Because they are plugged into a genius.
Q: Why don’t women blink during foreplay?
A: They don’t have time.
Q: Why does it take one million sperm to fertilize one egg?
A: They won’t stop for directions.
Q: Why did God put men on earth?
A: Because a vibrator can’t mow the lawn.
Q: Why don’t women have men’s brains?
A: Because they don’t have penises to put them in.
A woman is having a passionate affair with an inspector from a pest-control company. One afternoon they are carrying on in the bedroom together when her husband arrives home unexpectedly.
“Quick,” says the woman to her lover, “hide!” She bundles him into the closet stark naked. The husband is suspicious and after a search of the bedroom, he discovers the man in the closet.
“I’m an inspector from Bugs-B-Gone,” says the exterminator.
“Well, what the hell are you doing in my wife’s closet?”
“I’m investigating a complaint about an infestation of moths.”
“And where, may I ask, are your clothes?”
The man looked down at himself and said, “Those little bastards!”
Danny Aiello and I slept together many years ago. I was straight when I slept with Danny, but his dick was so small that I got used to it. He wore a push-up bra and panties and I got turned on and could never be with another man again.
—SANDRA BERNHARD, DANNY AIELLO ROAST, 1997
A famous pilot is having dinner with a brunette and when they finish, they head to a hotel. He calls room service and asks for a bottle of red wine. When it arrives, he opens the bottle and puts some of the wine on the brunette’s lips and then starts kissing her. She asks what he’s doing and he replies, “When I have red meat, I must have red wine.”
“Oooohh,” she says.
A little while later the pilot calls room service again and orders some white wine. It arrives moments later and he proceeds to splash it on the brunette’s breasts and then starts kissing them. She asks what the white wine is for and he replies, “When I have white meat, I must have white wine.”
Eventually, he works his way down to her cunt, pulls out a can of lighter fluid and a match, sprinkles it on her muff, and lights it on fire.
“Aaahhhhhhh! Why the fuck did you do that!?!” she yells.
“When I go down, I want to go down in flames.”
Bruce is driving over a bridge one day when he sees his girlfriend, Sheila, about to throw herself off. Bruce slams on the brakes and yells, “Sheila, what the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Sheila turns around with a tear in her eye and says, “Good-bye, Bruce. You got me pregnant and now I’m gonna kill myself.”
Bruce gets a lump in his throat when he hears this. Tears spring to his eyes. “Damn! Sheila, not only are you a great fuck, but you’re a real sport, too.” With that he drives off.
Susie Essman can be seen starring Off Broadway in the Vagina Monologues, playing the smell.
—PAUL SHAFFER, RICHARD BELZER ROAST, 2001
God was just about done creating the universe, but he had two extra things left in his bag of creations, so he decided to split them between Adam and Eve. He told the couple that one of the things he had left was the ability to stand up while urinating. “It’s a very handy thing,” God told the couple.
Adam jumped up and yelled, “Oh, give that to me! I’d love to be able to do that! It seems the sort of thing a man should do. Oh please, oh please, oh please, let me have that ability. It’d be so great! When I’m working in the garden or naming the animals, I can just stand there and let it fly. It’d be so cool. I could write my name in the sand. Oh please, God, let it be me who you give that gift to, let me stand and pee, oh please!”
Eve just smiled and told God that if Adam really wanted that so badly, he should have it. It seemed to be the sort of thing that would make him happy, and she really wouldn’t mind if Adam were the one given this ability. So Adam was given this wonderful gift. He celebrated by wetting down the bark on the tree nearest him, laughing with delight all the while.
“Now let’s see,” God said, looking back into his bag, “what’s left here? Oh yes, multiple orgasms...”
Three guys are discussing women. “I like to watch a woman’s tits best,” the first guy says.
The second responds, “I like to look at a woman’s ass. What about you?” he asks the third guy.
“Me? I prefer to see the top of her head.”
Bubba is fixing a door and he finds that he needs a new hinge, so he sends Mary Louise to the hardware store. At the store Mary Louise sees a beautiful teapot on the top shelf while she is waiting for Joe Bob to finish waiting on a customer. When Joe Bob is finished, Mary Louise asks, “How much for the teapot?”
“That’s silver and it costs a hundred dollars,” he replies.
“My goodness, that sure is a lotta money!” She then proceeds to describe the hinge that Bubba had sent her to buy, and Joe Bob goes to the backroom to find one. From the backroom Joe Bob yells, “Mary Louise, you wanna screw for that hinge?”
“No,” she replies. “But I will for the teapot.”
A woman was shaking out a rug on the balcony of her seventeenth-floor condominium when a sudden gust of wind blew her over the railing. “Damn, that was stupid,” she thought as she fell. “What a way to die.”
As she passed the fourteenth floor, a man standing at his railing caught her in his arms. While she looked at him in disbelieving gratitude, he asked, “Do you suck?”
“No!” she shrieked, aghast. So, he dropped her. As she passed the twelfth floor, another man reached out and caught her. “Do you screw?” he asked.
“Of course not!” she exclaimed before she could stop herself. He dropped her, too. The poor woman prayed to God for one more chance. As luck would have it, she was caught a third time, by a man on the eighth floor. “I suck! I screw!” she screamed in panic.
“Slut!” he said, and dropped her.
The Aristocrats is revered as one of the oldest dirty jokes in entertainment history. Long considered an “inside joke” told by comics for comics, it has been an enormous source of amusement backstage at comedy clubs and at roundtable discussions among members of the profession.
Rarely does a stand-up comic tell this bizarre and very shaggy story onstage, but behind closed doors they have all taken a crack at it, each comedian placing his own stamp on it with personal embellishments, flourishes, and demented improvisations. The Aristocrats has become a kind of acid test of talent, wit, and unflinching nerve. Who can out-cringe whom? It’s the final showdown.
In 2005, smart alecks and entertainers extraordinaire Penn Jillette and Paul Provenza threw back the curtain on the dirtiest joke of all time in an eponymous documentary featuring no fewer than one hundred comedians telling the joke and talking about it. The film’s tagline, “No nudity, no violence, unspeakable obscenity,” says it all. Despite its banishment from the AMC chain of movie theaters (apparently it lacks the requisite amount of gunplay and sexual innuendo for their tastes), it enjoyed surprising mainstream success, premiering at the Sundance Film Festival and going on to run in many theaters around the country (okay, maybe not in Peoria), to phenomenal reviews. A couple of film critics even put it in their Top Ten lists at the end of the year.
Bear in mind that, like all stand-up humor, the joke as written (or improvised) is only half the fun—the delivery is the other half. You’ll just have to trust us that, upon hearing a particularly rousing rendition of The Aristocrats, people have been know to fall on the floor, clutch their sides, and go apopleptic with laughter. That’s a sure sign that the teller has crafted and choreographed the joke to perfection.
In 2001, just weeks after 9/11, the Friars convened to Roast Hugh Hefner. Here is the version of The Aristocrats told on that occasion by Gilbert Gottfried. Hey—we needed a laugh.
A talent agent is sitting in his office and a family walks in, two kids and their little dog, and the talent agent says, “What kind of an act are you?” And all of them start taking their clothes off. The father starts fucking his wife, the wife starts jerking off the son, the son starts going down on the sister, the sister starts fingering the dog’s asshole. Then the son starts blowing his father... Want me to start from the beginning? If you missed anything, I’ll repeat it. The Amazing Kreskin is going right now, “What is he saying?”...
Then the daughter starts licking out the father’s asshole, then the father shits on the floor. The mother shits on the floor. The dog pisses and shits on the floor. They all jump down into their shit and piss and cum and they start fucking and sucking each other. And then they take a bow.
And the talent agent says... I’ll wait till you’re ready. They might have to clean this up for TV. Right now Hugh Hefner’s going, “Why can’t they write jokes the way we write the magazine? Two curvaceous nymphs and their amorous male suitor.” That’s funny from like 1702. Where was I? Oh, yes.... The son is licking out his father’s asshole. Then they shit and piss and cum all over the floor and they fuck and suck each other and they take a bow.
And the talent agent says, “Well, that’s an interesting act.” Which is kind of an understatement. He says, “What do you call yourselves?”
And they say,... “The Aristocrats!”
Penn Jillette and I always laugh at different versions of the Aristocrats that we’ve heard over the years. We always talk about Gilbert Gottfried, about Bob Saget, and about all these different people that we’ve heard tell the joke and what they did with it. For years we’ve been saying it would be really interesting to put a string of, like, ten or twenty versions together and just see what it looks like. We started with five or six people and they all met at the Improv one night and we did it in the bathroom and in the parking lot. That first night was proof that the concept was really vivid. We were like, fuck, man, we’ve got to do this. We started calling some other people, even people that we didn’t think would be interested but who we respected and admired. They all sort of got it and came on board and before we knew it, it turned into something huge.
We’ve been able to reasonably trace the joke to at least the middle of the nineteenth century and there’s a suggestion that at the time it was written it may have actually been a political statement, a comment on the actual aristocracy. A lot of the old-timers in the movie, like Larry Storch and Chuck McCann, actually heard it as the Sophisticates, which sort of places it in that 1920s café society era. “Sophisticates” kind of changes it from a political thing to more of a cultural, social thing. As Eddie Gorodetsky says, “sophisticates” is a self-imposed sort of impression, where aristocracy is real, it’s genuine. So there’s a lot of fascinating little minutia in the history of the joke.
It has gotten dirtier over the years. It definitely seems to have taken a little turn in the sixties and seventies. It got this vibe of being somewhat anti-establishment; it’s just the nature of it. At that time comedy in general took that turn, with National Lampoon leading to the early days of Saturday Night Live, a lot of recorded comedy, Cheech and Chong getting really, really, really gross and vulgar.
One of my favorite moments in the movie is when the guys at The Onion say, “What if the guy took the shit that was on the stage and rubbed it on his face and did a minstrel act?” That’s the perfect crossover, the mentality of scatology and shitting on the stage and rubbing it all over. But then you get this other layer of political correctness.
We shot Gilbert about three weeks before 9/11, and then the Friars Club Hugh Hefner Roast was about three weeks after 9/11. So we had spent time with Gilbert working on the joke, talking about it, and it was sort of percolating, it was a little further forward in the back of his mind than it might have been. It just was the perfect confluence of something inside of him, that moment, who he is, all that stuff just came together to give it this sort of resonance that nobody could have anticipated. If we hadn’t been dwelling on the Aristocrats, it’s a big question whether he would have come up with it at the Roast. Unwittingly, we actually ended up outside of ourselves creating a huge arc with the movie and a huge defining moment in the story of this joke—though we had no intention of anything like that.
In the film, I made the choice of putting the South Park clip containing the first 9/11 reference prior to the Friars Roast because I wanted the 9/11 reference to have the impact of coming out of nowhere, pushing the edges. Then a few minutes later we start telling the story about the Roast and how the Friars, Comedy Central, and Hugh Hefner raised half a million dollars for a 9/11-related charity. I thought to myself, how wonderful to have the 9/11 reference do what it does to people’s heads, have people sit back and say, “Wow, that’s really offensive, you’ve really crossed the line,” and then a few minutes later have to ask themselves, “Well, what the fuck did I do for 9/11? These guys raised half a million dollars.” That spoke volumes to me, it just brought up so many interesting conflicts.
Another interesting conflict in the film that I love watching is when Andy Richter and Doug Stanhope tell it to kids. These kids can’t understand a fucking word. It’s like telling it to your dog—but the knee-jerk reaction that people have is so interesting. Of course we’re bulletproof, nobody can say that’s horrible, because the kids can’t understand a fucking word. So saying, “Oh, that’s wrong,” is not even rational and people get to work through that. It’s so clearly pushing buttons but really there’s nothing going on there. Why is it any more edgy that there’s an infant in the room when you’re telling this joke? What makes it different is the audience, what you’re bringing to the table, your own thing. Why is this any more offensive than anything that has preceded it? Because of something in our heads. I mean those kids could be footstools.
Joketelling is really very much in the oral tradition of storytelling and I think that the great jokes deserve the kind of respect that a great haiku or a great O’Henry short story gets. There is the human condition, there’s craft, technique. And then, for a joke like this, there’s the storytelling tradition, how it changes, and the many different interpretations. Different people bring different things to bear on it. Jokes don’t really get that kind of respect, they’re just sort of thought of as disposable—but they really encapsulate things. People don’t talk about a joke the way they would talk about a poem, but I think they’re equally valid as literary entities.
If you pitch this film to anybody, “Ok we’re going to have three Academy Award winners out of a hundred comics and they’re all going to tell the same joke,” you couldn’t get a penny.
I just made this rule to myself I think out of laziness, really, but also because I wanted this to be different, nobody was given a sales pitch, nobody. I called up Drew Carey and I said, “Hey Drew, this is Penn. You know in jazz you hear people play the same song but in comedy you never hear the same joke?” and without thinking he said, “I’m in, I’m in. When do you want to shoot?” Then he goes, “What’s the joke?” I say The Aristocrats; he went, “Fucking brilliant. Let’s set it up, when are you in town?” That was the entire conversation.
I called Saget, he said, “You fucker! This is my idea. I didn’t get it yet but it’s my idea. I was going to have this idea, it’s so much more me than you. Sure.” I called up Carlin and Carlin went, “Aw, you are not smart enough to have this idea. Someone else should have gotten this idea. You’re not smart enough but we’re stuck with you. Ok, I’m behind it, just don’t fuck it up, man.”
We would come in with a camera and people would say, “Oh, what did Gilbert do, what is going on?” You see a little bit of that in the movie with Paul Reiser. He didn’t see Gilbert but Reiser had just heard me say, “Gilbert said he fisted a twelve-year old girl with a fist like Popeye.” And you see Reiser, in one of my favorite moments of the movie go, “Oh, a fist like Popeye. I had the fist and the twelve-year old, but I just didn’t have the imaging. I just didn’t know the bill I was on.” It just shows Paul Reiser giving so much respect to Gilbert and I just love that.
These professionals, they know this joke, they know how to take it and run with it and I just find this phenomenal. It’s in their genes, that comic gene, I just find that fascinating.
My feeling on this movie is there’s a hundred people in the backroom here, we’re telling filthy, dirty, ugly jokes and laughing our asses off. You’re invited but please don’t come if you’re going to be offended. If you’ve ever been offended by a joke why don’t you go see Lord of the Rings, which is my way of saying, go fuck yourself. Go see something else. My sister, who is twenty-three years older than me and I love dearly, I was brought up with her kind of as an aunt, if you can imagine, she’s seventy-three years old and your classic schoolmarm-looking, New England woman who has seen everything her little brother does. I told her she isn’t invited to this, just because she wouldn’t like it.
This movie, The Aristocrats, says really powerful stuff about freedom of speech. It says you don’t fight for freedom of speech, you take liberties and liberties don’t mean anything unless you take them. You’ve got to just say, “Oh, I’ll say whatever the fuck I want,” then you’re free. We do live in a free country where we can say whatever we want.
What I love about The Aristocrats is there is no sense. It’s not blue states and red states. Everybody tells dirty jokes. George W. Bush tells dirty jokes. If you took an aerial photo of a barbecue on the 4th of July with NASCAR people and all what’s called “true hate the red states”—which incidentally I live in and I’m not a liberal—you could take a grease pencil and circle the group of eight people standing around the motorcycle, men and women, and say, “You know, those people are telling dirty jokes.” There’s nothing more American than that: a group of people splitting off and telling a dirty joke.
The guy, who in front of everybody that doesn’t want to hear it at the picnic table says something inappropriate, he’s a dick, right? But the person who says, “I got a few good ones for you, Tom, come over here,” and you gather around and do that. That’s all we’re trying to do with this movie. We’re not trying to put it during halftime of the Super Bowl. We’re not trying to shock anybody, it’s just, “Hey, come here.”
The Aristocrats has everything going on, but I guess it gets lost in the sauce, if that’s a good way of saying that. If it’s just a joke where the punch line has to do with pedophilia or incest, audiences tend to get to feel like they shouldn’t react.
The whole show I did at the Hefner Roast was a big hit. When I made an Empire State Building joke, though, it seemed like it was the worst thing that an American could have said. Like after any event, when it’s fresh in people’s minds, everyone becomes very moralistic about everything. I just figured I hadn’t heard any out-and-out bad taste jokes about the World Trade Center yet, so I figured I wanted to jump in and be the earliest.
It’s funny with bad taste jokes, whenever something happens it seems like within ten minutes there’s at least five jokes that come out. So I wanted to be the first. It was at a weird time period where people weren’t sure if they were supposed to laugh or smile about anything. Then, of course, there was that kind of silliness with the awards shows going on, and they decided to keep the awards shows, but basically the actresses wouldn’t be showing their tits out of respect to those who perished in the World Trade Center. It was like they were all dressing down. I thought, yeah, I’m sure all of the firemen who died in the World Trade Center are somewhere going, “Oh thank God, they’re wearing that dress. Thank God Pam Anderson is wearing a turtleneck.”
In the film, The Aristocrats, they make it sound like there’s something about the joke being this deep, dark show business secret. Like someone will be killed if it’s told. No, it’s an old dick joke. It’s weird because you either like it or you don’t and if you try to explain it to someone without acting it out, they’ll just look at you because it’s almost like a non-joke joke. When I did it for my DVD, Gilbert Gottfried Dirty Jokes, I did a really extended version and someone said, “How come it took him so long to get to the punch line?” That’s someone who obviously never heard the joke, never saw the movie, someone who doesn’t quite get what it’s about.