A New Joke Thread

Yikes Rosie. That was horrible...I couldn't make it through the whole song. Wherever did you dredge that up from?

It was popular in the UK sometime around 1961-2, I think - we had the single when I was a child. Oh how we laughed! (I can't imagine why, listening to it now).

I remember that boomerang song, had not been reminded of it in years. And yes I loved it, and was fun hearing it again!
Several humorous novelty songs around then. Remember Ahab the Arab(pronounced AY-rab)? And his camel named Clyde. Or a song called "Witch Doctor" with the chorus of "ting- tong walla-walla bingbong."
Some of this stuff would be doubtlessly considered politically incorrect nowadays.
And how about Sheb Woolley and his "Purple People Eater?" He also did a song called "Don't Go Near The Eskimos." This was a parody of a country hit around that time called Don't Go Near The Indians,don't recall the artist. A tearjerker country ballad wherein a father explains to his son that he really is adopted from an Indian tribe as a result of some war, and that the Indian girl he has fallen in love with his sister!

The thing I regret most about modern popular music is the decline of the comic/novelty song. Around the same time as Charlie Drake (who later turned his hand to classical acting and was surprisingly good at it - I saw him in Pinter's The Caretaker & he was terrific) I was also amused by Clinton Ford who made me laugh with a number of songs such as Fanlight Fanny & The Old Bazaar in Cairo.

I doubt if Clinton Ford ever made it across the Atlantic so I'll mention a perennial favourite of mine -Frank Crummitt with The Prune Song, Abdul Abulbul Amir & many many others. Alan Sherman also deserves a mention.

Not my era or my tastes i assure you, Mr Google found it, clever fellow he is...


I read that the Australian Broadcasting Corporation banned it from their playlist in 2015 as they felt it racist, 1960s until 2015 to decide it racist, it must be the laid back Aussie thing, not wanting to rush any decision.

I have "The Ying Tong Song/I'm walking backwards for Christmas" by the Goons, and "Star Trekkin''' (can't remember who that's by) on 45s, but they're the most recent novelty songs published that I can think of offhand. I'm sure there are plenty more modern ones on the internet, but they don't seem to get to disc - possibly this is down to the decline of the single; people might by a single comic/novelty song, but would they buy a whole CD of them?

And how do you sink it the second time?
Answer; You scuba down and knock on the hatch. (Captain opens and says, "Look, we ain't falling for that trick twice!)

Don't forget the brilliantly twisted mind of Tom Lehrer; my Dad loved him and we had copies of all his albums. If you've never heard of him, he was big in the 1950's and '60s. The guy not only taught math and political science at top-notch schools like MIT and Harvard, but also played the piano performing bizarre songs he'd written. I was pleasantly surprised to see he's still alive at age 89.

He was the creator of such classics as "Fight Fiercely, Harvard" [a parody of the traditional college fight songs], "When You are Old and Gray" [a guy explaining to his wife why he'll ditch her in the future], "Be Prepared" [a revised version of the Boy Scout motto], and "I Want to Go Back to Dixie" [letting the South know exactly what he thought about race relations in the 1960's]. I'm sure you can find something of his on YouTube.

However, to me the most impressive song is "The Elements." It's exactly what the title implies, the entire periodic table of elements, rattled off in order to the tune of the "Major-General's Song" from "The Pirates of Penzance." How does anyone come up with something like that?

Then there was Tiny Tim with 'Tiptoe Through The Tulips'. A song only appreciated by large crowds when everyone had been drinking all night . LOL

I would never forget Tom Lehrer - I didn't mention him because he should only be mentioned in the same breath as ... Tom Lehrer. When you start listing all his brilliant songs you seem to end up with his complete catalogue.

The St Bees School Song which Cheryl Mosely sings on top of the bus in A Visit to Miss Chadwick part 3 is directly lifted from Fight Fiercely Harvard (with suitable acknowledgements in a footnote).

I love, in the Elements Song, the rhyming of Harvaaard with discovaaaard - a simple thing but clever in context.