Yes, I want you to dig deep into the Ice Age or deeper and find me the
very OLDEST joke in the World.

And I am prepared to bet it's a Mother-in-Law joke.

Am I right?

Hello Probo

We can do that.  However, the most ancient of jokes are ones which
cannot be reprinted here.  The oldest surviving jokes are from ancient
Egypt and are more-or-less cartoons.

Ancient Egyptian humor fell under five basic categories. 

These are political satire, scatological humor, jokes concerning sex,
slapstick, and animal-based parodies.

For satire, commoners would make fun of leaders by showing pharaohs in
an unflattering manner.

Drawings of defecating hyenas and drunken, vomiting party guests are
among the existing examples of scatological humor, while the sex-based
jokes consisted of "innuendoes and outright erotica," he said.

Slapstick comedy included drawings that showed people suffering
unfortunate accidents, such as hammers falling on heads, or passengers
falling out of boats.

The ancient Egyptians had a special regard for animal humor and
cartoons, given the many examples of sketches on papyrus, paintings,
and other drawings such as ducks pecking at someone's behind, baboons
and cats out of control, animals riding on top of other unlikely
animals, baboons playing instruments, and animals drinking and dining.
 One papyrus shows a mouse pharaoh, gallantly posed in his chariot
pulled by two dogs, speeding towards a group of feline warriors. Yet
another papyrus depicts a lion and an antelope playing a board game.
The lion lifts a game piece as though in victory, while the antelope
falls back in his chair.

However, one written fragment from an Egyptian papyrus translates as
......."To get to the other side."

Is ancient humor still funny? Judge for yourself. Here is a typical
joke from an ancient Greek joke-book, number 9 in the so-called
"Philogelos" or "Laughter-Lover:"

"Wishing to teach his donkey not to eat, a pedant did not offer him
any food. When the donkey died of hunger, he said "I've had a great
loss. Just when he had learned not to eat, he died."

The first 102 jokes are all about the scholastikos, the educated or
over-educated man with no common sense. The word might be translated
'bookworm', 'egghead', 'pedant', 'professor' (or perhaps 'perfesser'),
or even 'poindexter'. None is entirely satisfactory, though the
stereotype persists.

The oldest "confirmed" joke in the world is actually a riddle:

Question - What animal walks on 4 feet in the morning, 2 at noon and 3 at evening? 

Answer - Man.  He goes on all fours as a baby, on two feet as a man,
and uses a cane in old age.

This is the oldest known written joke in the world.  It was posed by
the Sphinx in ancient Greek mythology and answered by Oedipus.

And last of all, the oldest practical joke was played on one of
Earth's earliest life forms; one which is still with us - the
bacteria.

You have 0.001 times as much DNA as a eukaryotic cell. 

You live in a medium which has a viscosity about equal to asphalt. 

You have a wonderful "motor" for swimming. Unfortunately, your motor
can only run in two directions and at one speed. In forward, you are
propelled in one direction at 30 mph. In reverse your motor makes you
turn flips or tumble. You can only do one or the other. You cannot
stop.

While you can "learn", you divide every twenty minutes and have to
restart your education.

You can have sex, with males possessing a sexual apparatus for
transferring genetic information to receptive females. However, since
you are both going 30 mph it is difficult to find each other.
Furthermore, if you are male, nature gave you a severe problem.
Everytime you mate with a female, she turns into a male. In bacteria,
"maleness" is a venereal disease.

Also, at fairly high frequencies, spontaneous mutations cause you to
turn into a female.

Eukaryotes have enslaved some of your "brethren" to use as energy
generating mitochondria and chloroplasts. They are also using you as a
tool in a massive effort to understand genetics. The method of
recombinant DNA is designed to exploit you for their own good. There
is no SPCA to protect you.

The last laugh may be yours. You have spent three and a half billion
years practicing chemical warfare. Humans thought that antibiotics
would end infectious diseases, but the overuse of drugs has resulted
in the selection of drug resistant bacteria. They didn't realize that
this was only the first battle, and now the war is ready to begin.

Humans think this is their era. A more truthful statement would be
that we all live in the age of the 'Great Single Cell Rebellion.'

So there you are ladies and germs.

I hope that helps

Digsalot - - - Sometimes known as Ugmek

---

Clarification of Answer by digsalot-ga on 14 Sep 2004 18:32 PDT

Woopsies - forgot the credits - - most of the story about bacteria
comes from caterina.net - http://www.caterina.net/archive/000048.html

digs

---

Clarification of Answer by digsalot-ga on 14 Sep 2004 21:53 PDT

I can't seem to get anything right today.  The 4th & 5th paragraphs
from the top should be in quotes.  I put this together from old class
notes.  I can no longer remember the prof I quoted from, but it is a
quote.

I certainly wish we had an "edit" feature for the researchers.

digs

Digs aka Ugmek

I am overwhelmed!

And all those great Comments, as a bonus!

I've never come across Ron_Maniac before but I did love his blonde
joke (Sorry Steph), and all the others.

Digs, Please remind me to take you along with me on my next
archeological expedition. As yet, I am not sure where to go because I
guess that most places have already been archeologised.

All the Very Best, to Everyone.

Bryan

Some folks believe that the Neanderthals were fair-haired, so I bet
the world's oldest joke is a blonde joke.

UGGMO: Here is good one. 
       Why we drag blondes by their hair, not by their feet?

LURBO: Me not know. Why?

UGGMO: Because if we drag by their feet, they fill up with sand.

Wow, Pinx, Where did you dig that one up from, your sister?

Psssst ... Please don't let Steph53 see this, she HATES blonde jokes.

Can't think why.

Aha!!!!!!!!!!! 

I saw that. Gee Pink.....I must get looking for redhead jokes...lol

Bryan...

After many, many hours of researching, I found this for you. The first
is even a mother-in-law joke!!!

http://www.myhollywoodstar.com/mhsjokes.html


Wonder how many blonde researchers there are here? Hmmm this has all
the makings of a great question...

Steph53

Heres a joke i think is not bad: though it is a blonde one :ashamed:.

This blonde boarded an airplane with a ticket for coach but she went
and sat in the first class section. The stewardess came over and told
her she would have to move to coach. She said "Look, I'm a beautiful
blonde, I'm going to New York and I am not going to move. The
stewardess got the co-pilot and told him the situation. He goes to the
blonde and tells her she has to move to coach. She said, "Look I'm a
beautiful blonde, I'm going to New York and I am not going to move.
The co-pilot went and got the pilot and told him about the trouble
they were having. The pilot goes to her and leaned down and whispered
in her ear. She immediately jumped up and ran into the coach sitting.
The co-pilot said to the pilot,"What in the world did you whisper to
her? The pilot said,"I just told her that first class does't go to New
York." --

pinkfreud: Enjoyed your comment. You never disappoint. Your personage
UGGMO brought to mind a coincidence: in my years in the laboratory, we
used a solvent, urethane grade methyl ethyl ketone, which was
abbreviated UGMEK. I always thought that the abbreviation was a
marvelous caveman name: UGMEK! Put down that rock!
monroe22

monroe22,

Since I am a liberal arts kind of gal, the first thing that springs to
mind about 'urethane' is that it was probably something that people
said to Macbeth.

~pinkfreud

WOW DIGS!!!!!!!!!!!

What a great answer....Just wait till Bryan wakes up to read this!!!!!!!!!

Steph53

pinkfreud: Damn, you are clever! Urethane indeed! Who but you would
have made that connection? A rhapsody of words. (Hamlet, Act III, line
48)
monroe22

Bring in the washing Noah dear -- I think it's going to rain.
---------------------------
Lets just have one last try Sara.
---------------------------
Pass the salt please Lot.
---------------------------
Did you hear the one about Methuselah's mother-in-law?
---------------------------
Caveman says to cavewoman :-
"Who's on TV tonight?"
"Cronkite."
---------------------------
And in 50 thousand years time the oldest joke will be :-
"Oh no, not another 'I love Lucy' rerun."
---------------------------
Best