Small House of Everything

Small House of Everything

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

BAD JOKE WEDNESDAY

[In 1739, a London publisher released Joe Miller's Jest, a book of jokes supposedly containing jokes by and stories about Joe Miller, a popular  comic who had died the year before.  The book was actually written by a hack writer named John Mottley.  The book became wildly popular, and went through many printings and changes; over a century later, the book contained nearly 1300 jokes.  By this time, a truly bad joke was commonly referred to as a "Joe Miller." Most of the original jokes do not translate very well in the 21st Century.  Ah, well...]

          Joe Miller sitting one Day in the Window at the Sun-Tavern in Clare-Street,
          a Fish-Woman and her Maid passing by, the Woman cry'd, Buy my Soals, buy
          my Maids:  Ah, you wicked old Creature, cry'd honest Joe, What are you not
          content to sell your own Soul, but must you sell your Maid's too?

[Old Joe, he was a laugh a minute, he was.]

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