The best thing about a one-liner is that it has nowhere to hide, and that’s why the really good ones still get a laugh decades after somebody first said them.
Erasing the boundary
Oscar Levant wasn’t the kind of guy to leave much room for interpretation. He said, ‘There is a thin line between genius and insanity. I have erased that line.’ The quote was associated with him as far back as 1959.
He was known in those days as a concert pianist as well as a smart television personality. Levant performed George Gershwin’s music and appeared in films. He became almost as famous for what came out of his mouth between performances.
Marriage advice with a twist
Phyllis Diller wasn’t the kind of woman who needed a long setup to make a joke about marriage. She wrote the line, ‘Never go to bed mad. Stay up and fight’ in her 1966 book Phyllis Diller’s Housekeeping Hints, and it’s pretty funny.
The line turns familiar relationship advice upside down in eight words, although it was nothing new for her. She spent years joking about home life and her fictional husband, Fang. Marriage jokes were very much her forte.
One last family request
It seems that Rodney Dangerfield’s relatives never gave him much peace. At least, that’s how he made it seem in his act. One of his darker lines went, ‘My uncle’s dying wish was to have me sitting on his lap. He was in the electric chair.’
He was quoted in a 1979 Washington Post profile, years before he became a familiar face in movies like Caddyshack. It sure is a grim line. But still, Dangerfield knew how to have a little fun in those dark moments, and that’s why he was so funny.
A very expensive birthday
One of the most impressive things about Bob Hope was that he lived to 100, so he had quite a few jokes about getting old. One of these includes his line, ‘You know you’re getting old when the candles cost more than the cake.’
He said that joke long before he turned 100, and it continued to be a quoted line after he died in 2003. It’s not hard to see why. Too many candles and not enough cake is a problem at any age, really.
Trouble with the pajamas
Here’s a joke that’s nearly a century old, but still very much hilarious. Groucho Marx said during the 1930 movie Animal Crackers, ‘One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas, I don’t know.’
Marx was a comedian who really knew how to play on people’s expectations, and the American Film Institute later ranked the line No. 53 on its list of memorable American movie quotes. It’s just that hilarious.
Forty thousand tiny pieces
Demetri Martin’s joke was pretty simple. He wanted to insult people. He once said, ‘I wanna make a jigsaw puzzle that’s 40,000 pieces. And when you finish it, it says ‘go outside.’’ The joke became part of his 2004 Comedy Central Presents special.
That was back when his mix of drawings and music, as well as short jokes, was quickly becoming part of his trademark. With a joke like this, it’s not hard to see why that happened.
Right around the middle
Time for another Bob Hope joke. Yes, it’s another age-related one. He once said, ‘Middle age is when your age starts to show around your middle.’ It’s funny, yet also kind of annoying, how accurate that joke is.
The joke turned up in published collections of Hope’s jokes after his death. He spent decades performing on radio and television, in movies, and for American troops overseas. Anytime you want to hear a funny line about aging, look no further than Bob Hope.
Dinner by the thousands
Rice itself isn’t exactly a source of humor, but Mitch Hedberg managed to make it into one. He said, ‘Rice is great if you’re really hungry and want to eat two thousand of something.’ It’s such a funny line that the Los Angeles Times included the joke in its 2005 obituary for Hedberg.
His whole stand-up routine included tons of lines that pointed out the slightly ridiculous side of real life. It wouldn’t really work if he was talking about other food, really.
Picking your problem
Jackie Mason had a pretty bleak approach to staying alive. He said, ‘It’s no longer a question of staying healthy. It’s a question of finding a sickness you like.’ It’s a funny line, yes, but it’s also scarily accurate, and that’s why it was used as the opening quotation in a 2006 National Bureau of Economic Research paper.Â
But Mason’s version is funnier than the paper sounds. Mason spent a lot of his career making everyday complaints sound strangely reasonable, and he really got to the heart of our everyday problems.
Older than the sea
George Burns was another comedian who made it to 100 years old and had a lot to say about it. He was the kind of comedian who’d make fun of his own age before anyone else. For example, he once said, ‘When I was a boy, the Dead Sea was only sick.’
How funny. Burns kept working well into old age, so jokes about how long he’d been around were a standard part of his comedy package. It’s a ridiculous comparison, but that doesn’t stop it from being hilarious.
The remote-control problem
Jerry Seinfeld knows how guys are. Just look at his line, ‘Men don’t care what’s on TV. They only care what else is on TV.’ He said the line in the 1994 episode of Seinfeld, titled ‘The Fire.’ It’s during a scene when his routine gets interrupted by a loud audience member named Toby.
That joke came from an era when changing channels actually involved cycling through whatever happened to be on television. It doesn’t really apply now because we have streaming menus and endless recommendations. It’s still funny, though.
Easier than starting over
Rita Rudner had a few things to say about marriage, too. Her jokes focused on marital compromise, and she said, ‘It’s easier to write a new joke than get a new husband.’ It seems she couldn’t get enough of the joke because she repeated it during a PBS interview, too.
Rudner said that if her husband or daughter disliked something she’d written about them, she’d remove it from the act. She knew that rewriting one line probably was easier than trying to compromise with her spouse.
Not much of a comparison
Steve Martin’s joke starts off in an ordinary way, and that’s why it sounds so funny. He once said, ‘A day without sunshine is like, you know, night.’ You think it’s going to be a piece of heartfelt wisdom, but then the joke goes in the opposite direction.
Martin was one of the biggest stand-up names in America during the 1970s. It’s thanks to deliberately silly material like this that he became so popular, and these jokes were a major part of his act.
Preparing for snakes
There are quite a few versions of W. C. Fields’ joke about snakes and whiskey, but each one is hilarious. The most commonly heard one goes, ‘I always carry a flask of whisky in case of a snakebite. I also carry a small snake.’
This wasn’t Fields’ only joke about drinking, and no topic was off-limits for him. He was just that kind of comedian.
A questionable day on the course
It seems that Buddy Hackett wasn’t a fan of golf. In fact, he appears to have really hated it because he once said, ‘Golf is more fun than walking naked in a strange place, but not by much.’ Hackett spent decades working in comedy, and this line was part of his routine.
Most people know him from his movies, however. He was in The Music Man, The Love Bug, and It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. He also voiced Scuttle in Disney’s The Little Mermaid later on, although none of that really explains why he hated golf so much.
Two weeks gone
Totie Fields had one thing and one thing only to show after she’d been on a diet for two weeks. She said, ‘I’ve been on a diet for two weeks, and all I’ve lost is two weeks.’ Anyone who’s gone on a diet before knows exactly what she’s talking about.
Fields was already well known on American TV and in nightclubs during the 1960s and 1970s. She actually made food jokes a regular part of her act, so this kind of joke was normal for her.
Two different sections
Most movies and songs treat love and marriage like a package deal, but Alan King saw things differently. He once said, ‘If you want to read about love and marriage, you’ve got to buy two separate books.’ Ouch.
The line first appeared in print around 1990, and by then, King had already spent years turning marriage and family life into stand-up material. It’s a little harsh, but that’s how comedy is.
Sources: Please see here for a complete listing of all sources that were consulted in the preparation of this article.
