re: #326 BongCrodny

I remember waaay back when I was a l’il bongster I laughed myself silly over an “Andy Capp” comic that featured “the boy stood on the burning deck” as a punchline.

Andy was in his fallback position on the couch, and Flo was grousing about something, maybe how they needed money for the rent, and soon.

Andy asked “What would you have me do?”

Flo replied, “Act, mate, act!”

So Andy stood up on the couch and blurted out…

The fact that I remember this comic strip some thirty years down the road is more than a little disturbing. :-)

I have the same inexplicable tendency to remember odd jokes from decades ago. I was an avid reader of the old MAD magazine of revered memory (which may explain many of my life-long attitudes). In their parody of the highly forgettable Tarzan TV series (ca. 1966) they changed the name of the sidekick chimp from “Judy” to “Judas.” This struck me as hilariously funny at the time and still does. I have no idea why though.

Another old favorite was the incredibly detailed “World Map Parody” run by the National Lampoon in the 70s. This included such place names as the “Dire Straits” (well before the band of that name), the “Disease Islands” in the Pacific (“Syphilis,” “Pyorrhea,” etc.), “Kidneystone” England, “Cornhole” Kansas, and “Slavelaborsk” and “Pavlovdograd” in the Soviet Union.