Know of any good joke book anthologies?

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Know of any good joke book anthologies?

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1barney67
Août 24, 2013, 3:10 pm

I've been searching google and haven't found much of what I'm looking for, a good sized book with funny if not classic jokes from great comedians. So far all I have found is The Penguin Book of Modern Quotations which I have not read.

Anyone know of a joke book with jokes from various comedians?

2barney67
Août 24, 2013, 3:26 pm

Re: looking for a joke book. I guess I'm thinking of stand-up comedians.

I'm somewhat of an old-school guy. Agreeing with Groucho Marx, I think you can be funny without being dirty, though I have nothing against dirty jokes if they are funny. It's just that they are unimaginative and usally aren't funny, not when you are a mature adult. My friends and I were telling dirty jokes when I was 13, and even then they were pretty innocent. George Carlin's Seven Words You Can't Say on TV cracked us all up and is tame by today's low standards. There's a time to grow up and stop joking about sex, drugs, and farts.

My comedy pedigree includes Steve Martin (the best, check out his DVD box set of his early stand-up years and TV specials), The Marx Brothers, Woody Allen (esp. his early movies and his one concert album of his brief stand-up career), early George Carlin, Henny Youngman (master of the quick one-liner, standing there with his violin), Rodney Dangerfield (ditto), and Jerry Seinfeld (the master of contemporary stand-up comedy). Steven Wright, also in the one-liner tradition, deserves a nod.

I gradually became a fan of the surrealist comedy of Andy Kauffman after his role in my favorite TV show, Taxi, but Kauffman's style doesn't translate to print. Years ago Richard Lewis, with his manic, probably drug induced breathlessness, was one of the funniest guys to appear on Letterman. So was Jeff Altman. Gilbert Gottfried came out of that same stand-up group and is very funny but his latest book, nearly all sex jokes, was not. Jim Gaffigan showed a lot of promise with his first HBO show, but he seems to be running out of steam. I find Adam Sandler often hilarious. I discovered Mitch Hedberg through YouTube and the TV show Dr. Katz and found him very funny. Hedberg had a short run due to drugs. I like Maria Bamford but her style doesn't translate to print either. Her lifelong bout with mental illness, worse with age, has worked its way into her comedy and not necessarily for the best.

And then there's Norm, the best anchor Weekend Update ever had.

3aulsmith
Août 24, 2013, 6:53 pm

The only one I ever had was Laughing Stock which I enjoyed as a kid, though it was pretty dated even then. There's also The Little, Brown book of anecdotes which has some funny material.