ignatz mouse
Mistress of Futility
Registered: Mar 2004
Location: Still Orygun
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Nazis Say the Darnedest Things
from the May 22, 2006 New Yorker:
quote:
Shouts & Murmurs
by Andy Borowitz
The discovery of the so-called Hitler Book marks the end of a remarkable hunt through Soviet archives. . . . Perhaps the most disconcerting revelation . . . is that Hitler had a sense of humour, albeit a particularly cold one. -- The Times of London
One night in Berlin, Hitler, Goering, and Goebbels walked into a bar. Noticing that the bartender’s hands were shaking, Hitler asked him what was wrong. “We don’t get too many high-ranking officials of the Third Reich in here,” he said.
“Well at these prices, I’m not surprised,” said Hitler, pulling out a Luger and shooting him.
Speaking before an audience of thousands at the Nuremberg Rally of 1936, Hitler departed from his prepared text to share one of his favorite jokes. “A patient complaining of a sore throat goes to see a doctor,” Hitler began. “After examining him, the doctor says, ‘Your tonsils have to come out.’ The patient says, ‘I want a second opinion.’ So the doctor says, ‘OK-- you’re also of an inferior race.’ “
On December 7, 1941, Hitler opened a meeting of the Nazi high command as he often did: with a knock-knock joke.
“Knock-knock,” he said.
“Who’s there?” said Goebbels.
“Tojo,” he said.
“Tojo who?”
“Tojo the Japanese would bomb Pearl Harbor,” Hitler said, roaring with laughter.
After the successful publication of “Mein Kampf,” Hitler immediately started writing a sequel. The new book, “Adolf Hitler’s 1001 Favorite Insults,” instantly became the No. 1 best-seller in Germany and was an invaluable reference work for Nazi after-dinner speakers. A quick perusal of the book reveals that not only was Hitler a Fascist madman bent on world domination, he was also the originator of the “yo mama” joke, as these examples show:
“Yo mama so fat, the Luftwaffe mistook her for London.”
“Yo mama so lazy, she stopped after she invaded Belgium.”
“Yo mama so dirty, she hasn’t taken a bath since the First Reich.”
Even in his dealings with other heads of state, Hitler’s unique sense of humor never failed him. After signing the Munich Agreement, in 1938, Hitler broke the treaty less than a year later by invading Prague. Incensed, the British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, telephoned Hitler and demanded to know why German troops had crossed the agreed-upon border. Without missing a beat, Hitler replied, “To get to the other side.”
In 1940, Charlie Chaplin satirized Hitler in his film, “The Great Dictator.” Infuriated, Hitler vowed to star in a comedy of his own in which he would make merciless fun of Chaplin. He hired Leni Riefenstahl to direct the film, which had the working title, “The Little Bastard.” In his first script meeting with Riefenstahl, Hitler described the following comic bit: “I’ll be dressed in a tramp costume, just like Chaplin, and we’ll do the scene in ‘The Gold Rush’ where he cooks his shoe and eats it.” Riefenstahl looked confused. “What’s the twist?” she asked. Barely containing his giggles, Hitler said, “This time, he’ll choke on the shoelaces and die.”
Even in his final days in his bunker, Hitler entertained his Nazi colleagues with a near-constant stream of jokes, many of the gallows variety. In one that he was particularly fond of telling, Hitler and his lawyer appear before St. Peter at the gates of Heaven. After St. Peter reads a long list of charges against Hitler, the Führer’s lawyer launches into an impassioned defense. Finally the lawyer rests his case and St. Peter speaks up: “Hitler can come in, but you have to go to Hell.”
“Hell?” the lawyer asks. “What did I do?”
“You went to law school,” St. Peter says.
I can imagine someone writing this and it being funny. I find this almost painfully unfunny, except the bit about Chaplin choking on his shoelaces, which made me smirk. Why is it so bad? This is the New Yorker -- some editor somewhere must have thought this good humor and satire. What were they thinking? What would have made this funny?
Last edited by ignatz mouse on 05-22-2006 at 06:50 PM
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05-22-2006 06:24 PM
