The members and prospective members of the Team who sent in entries for "Jokes for Julia" are:
Martin Solloway, Oliver Wigley, Richard van Binsbergen, Robin Damion, Phil Bachmann, Till Gebel, Jon Jonas, Neil Hobbs, Jim Duthoit, Andrew Waite, Jukka Kukkonen, Bernie Perry, Paul Scott, Magda Skzekely, Richard Lubbock, Raif Oymen
Thank you and well done.
K0000141
The word Kurd meaning the ethnic group and the word curd meaning the solid formed in the cheese making process have the same sound.
When I think about the word Kurd I get an image of the current tensions between the Kurds and Iraqi leadership.
When I think of curd I immediately imagine cottage cheese - the lumpy white liquid-full cheese that tastes so good in sandwiches and on baked potatoes.
The next step is simply to create a situation in which the image of the one can be replaced by the other such as the following :
Q: Why did the Iraqi dictator slap the cottage cheese sandwich ?
A: Because he wanted to crack down on curds (Kurds)
©The Author, ©Edward de Bono Creative Team 1997
L0000142
The word carrot looks like it can be broken into the two words car and rot.
Car rot makes me think of a mechanic trying to find out the problems of a broken down car.
That thought triggers the idea for a "What's the difference" type joke:
Q : What's the difference between a vegetable farmer and a car mechanic ?
A : The one produces carrots. The other deduces car rot!
©The Author, ©Edward de Bono Creative Team 1997
N0000144
A man goes into a bar and asks for a glass of orange.
The bar maid turns to pour the drink, then asks "still orange?".
The man says "oh, no. Maybe I'll have grapefruit".
©The Author, ©Edward de Bono Creative Team 1997
O0000145/1
Joke:
Jim says to his mother:
- "Mum, will you catch a cold for me, please?"
- "No, I don't think so, Jim. Why?"
- "I want to play outside, but it's freezing!"
Steps I took to form this joke: - I picked a random word: "handkerchief"
- I wrote down a few associations and a few unlogical behaviours in connection with "handkerchief"
- I took the phrase "catch a cold" as a starting point to find an unlogical behaviour I could connect
- I came up with the idea to _throw_ the handkerchiefs out of the window to 'catch the cold'
- I made a joke going like this:
It's freezing outside. Jim is looking outside the window. Suddenly he runs off to the dresser, takes out the handkerchiefs and throws them outside the window. "Why did you do that?" asked his astonished mother. "Maybe if they catch the cold it will get warmer."
- the joke became too long; I 'deleted' "handkerchief" and connected "catch a cold" with "the mother". I removed the repetitions and made an effort to make the joke as 'emotional' as possible.
©The Author, ©Edward de Bono Creative Team 1997
O0000145/2
Jim hits his thumb hard with a hammer. He looks up to his mother and smiles.
"Why are you smiling Jim? That must be very painful!"
- "Dad says that when I'm hurt I must show my teeth".
Steps I took to form this joke:
I took a random word: "smile" and wrote down a few associations and a few 'opposites'. I took the association "show teeth" because it promised a connection with an opposite; I wrote down something I labeled as a pre-joke because that is a bit how my previous attempt at forming a joke went; the pre-joke was good enough and I promoted it to "joke".
©The Author, ©Edward de Bono Creative Team 1997
O0000145/3
Jim is in the garden pulling out all flowers growing there.
His mother spots him and shouts:
"Jim! Stop! Why are you doing that?"
- "Dad says that if the plants keep growing around here, we'll have to move out!"
Steps I took to form this joke:
I took a random word: "plant" and wrote down a few associations and a few opposites and the other meaning of the word. I connected "grow" with "factory" and thought of the possible consequences. I wrote down a 'pre-joke' and again, I found it good enough to call it a joke. (I am surprised. I made three attempts in succession and they all resulted in a joke. I think it helped that the first attempt was successful; it sensitized me to 'things that make a joke work'.)
©The Author, ©Edward de Bono Creative Team 1997
P0000146
Why do clouds have silver linings?
It's not a question of why, but whether (weather).
©The Author, ©Edward de Bono Creative Team 1997
Q0000147
Q: Where do doors sleep?
A: In a doormitory.
©The Author, ©Edward de Bono Creative Team 1997
R0000148
Why do clouds have silver linings?
To stop the rain from evaporating.
©The Author, ©Edward de Bono Creative Team 1997
S0000149
Why is the sky blue?
So that if a piece of it falls into your dinner you'll be able to see it.
©The Author, ©Edward de Bono Creative Team 1997
T0000150/1
I have a friend who looks like a small, furry animal and whose nickname is Gopher. He got his nickname as a child, at which time he hated everything, especially vegetables. But when he saw ice-cream he would always gopher it.
I was sitting on the balcony and saw in possums in the nearby trees. Possums made me think of other furry animals, and gopher came to mind. I went to some trouble to hide the second meaning of gopher (putting the words "small, furry, animal" just before it is first mentioned).
©The Author, ©Edward de Bono Creative Team 1997
T0000150/2
Q. Why did the little old lady write on the train?
A. Because she thought it was stationery.
I had just finished a meal by the Yarra River in Melbourne and was looking at the Flinders Street railway station trying to think of a word that means two things: "station-ery" and "station-ary" came to mind.
©The Author, ©Edward de Bono Creative Team 1997
T0000150/3
Daddy asked his little girl - Why did you give the dog so much food today?
The little girl replied: I told my friend that I'd made a bowl of food for my dog and she said, "I did too." Well my dog is better so I did three bowls.
Walked past a house with numbered '222'. The word 'too' is sometimes mistaken for 'two' so it was necessary to think of a situation that confused the two words. The phrase "I did too (two)" seemed like a good place to start - and I thought of someone doing something three times because someone had done it too (times). It was necessary to find an activity that was
(i) Not sensible to do more than once,
(ii) Could be "done" as well as "made" so the reader would be lulled down the "I did too" without suspecting the possibility of "I made two".
©The Author, ©Edward de Bono Creative Team 1997
T0000150/4
Why did the lady throw her cat into her car and stomp on it like a maniac?
Because she thought that it would make a good car-pet.
I was walking along the street and thinking, "What's a word that means two things?" I saw some parked cars and thought of "carpet". There should be some confusion about a rug and a pet for the the car.
The first line of the joke is itself supposed to be funny - readers go from thinking, "How horrible! Is this suitable for children?" to "Oh the desperate measures some people will take in trying to be funny." Or alternatively, "This better be good."
©The Author, ©Edward de Bono Creative Team 1997
T0000150/5
What do you call an aircraft that has had all its fancy paintwork and fittings removed?
A plain plane.
Too much time playing Microsoft Flight Simulator caused me to think of this joke. Again I started with a word that means two things but tried to use it in a different way. Simply juxtaposing plain and plane produces a sound that I hope six year olds would like to listen to and to repeat. It was just a matter then of thinking of an alternative way of describing a "plain plane".
©The Author, ©Edward de Bono Creative Team 1997
V0000152
Q. What do you call an odorous fugitive blame-taking animal?
A. E-scape goat
©The Author, ©Edward de Bono Creative Team 1997
W0000153
Riddle: "What do you do when an old car goes bald?"
Answer: "Retire (or re-tire) it."
"Old car" reminds me of "old tires" which are "bald," or have no tread left and are worn smooth.
Older men tend to become bald.
Old things (horses, people, airplanes) are "retired," or taken out of use, put out to pasture, etc. Old cars are sometimes taken out of use or sent to junkyards.
Old bald tires on cars are replaced--you could say the car is "re-tired," or "tires installed again."
©The Author, ©Edward de Bono Creative Team 1997
X0000154
What do the following have in common?
Married people..
One of the Twelve Days of Christmas..
A gold telephone?
Answer: gold rings.
©The Author, ©Edward de Bono Creative Team 1997
Z0000156
Q: "What does a baseball team most need for an afternoon game in August?"
A: "Fans."
August is often the hottest month of the year.
Baseball teams want to stay cool during the game.
Fans move air, providing a cooling breeze.
Baseball teams also need paying customers to come to the games in August.
These customers pay the players' salaries.
These customers are also known as fans.
This occurred to me while driving to work this morning.
I saw a fan-shaped trellis beside a house.
I was thinking about baseball's spring training season, which is about to start.
I am a fan of the game of baseball.
I know how hot it can get sitting in the sun during an afternoon game in August.
This {baseball} fan would like to have a {cooling} fan while at a game.
The players would like to have both kinds of fans at the game, too.
©The Author, ©Edward de Bono Creative Team 1997
J0000166/1
First I chose some focus areas suitable for 'Julia'.
1.-riding a bike
2.-fairy tales
3.-animals
then, using lateral thinking, I arrived at an 'absurd' situation;
1.riding a bike to stand still
then I worked backwards to make sense of this:
Q.Why did the drunk ride his bike in a circle?
A. He wanted to stop the world going round and round.
©The Author, ©Edward de Bono Creative Team 1997
J0000166/2
2.turning a prince into 'not' a frog
then I used PO (file)
Q Did you hear about the prince who was turned into a dictionary?
A. He found happiness. It was between hamster and hat.
©The Author, ©Edward de Bono Creative Team 1997
J0000166/3
3.a duck trying to make it rain
this time I misread the word "back" and got;
Q. Why did the duck go to the bank?
A. He was saving up for a rainy day.
©The Author, ©Edward de Bono Creative Team 1997
K0000167
I chose the general focus area of 'ducks'
I reversed "ducks like water"
Then I used moment to moment visualisation, (I imagined watching a duck run away from an incoming wave) and got:
Q. What do you call a duck that doesn't like water?
A. A chicken.
©The Author, ©Edward de Bono Creative Team 1997
L0000168
I began with the general focus "bicycling"
I found it difficult to make a joke about an activity, so I included a 'person'
Using the 'greenfield' method (po extractor fan) I got "ghost"
This gave "a ghost on a bike", Working backwards, I got;
Q. What do you get when a ghost falls of his bike?
A. A bent spook.
©The Author, ©Edward de Bono Creative Team 1997
S0000175
Q. What kind of crab would you only pay good money for after you've parked your car on it?
A. Kings Crustacean
Whilst playing Monopoly I landed on Kings Cross Stn. When I said it quickly it sounded like crustacean. Not exactly a deliberate creative effort, perhaps slurred speech can become a lateral thinking tool?
©The Author, ©Edward de Bono Creative Team 1997
W0000179
How indians get lots of new ideas?
-They perform a serious brain dance ritual.
©The Author, ©Edward de Bono Creative Team 1997
X0000180
How elephants talk?
-They make trunk calls.
©The Author, ©Edward de Bono Creative Team 1997
D0000186
Soul/sole sound the same.
Cobblers mend the soles on our shoes, and clergymen are supposed to save our souls.
Q. "Why did the little girl think that the cobbler was a priest?"
A. "Because her mummy said that he was going to save her sole"
©The Author, ©Edward de Bono Creative Team 1997
F0000188
The pronunciation of the word 'knight' sounds like 'night'.
What does a knight do? He guards you.
When do you find yourself in the most unpredictable situations? At night, in your dreams.
Q. "Who is always there to guard you at night?"
A. "The knight of your dreams."
©The Author, ©Edward de Bono Creative Team 1997
K0000193
Joke:
Arnold Schwarzenegger says he might use his earnings from the Terminator movies to open an Italian restaurant. He recently said, "I haven't decided for sure yet, but I'm thinking about calling it 'Pasta la Vista' ... maybe."
I had been looking for words that might be candidates for building jokes, like the "escape" example. One day, for no apparent reason, I thought of Schwarzenegger's famous line from one of his movies: "Hasta la vista, baby!" It occurred to me that "hasta" rhymes with "pasta". That led to the idea of a name for an Italian restaurant. Two pleasant surprises for me were:
(1) Indicating that Schwarzenegger hasn't decided yet allowed me to make the word "maybe" separate from the name. To me, that makes the punch line better than the obvious one, "Pasta la Vista, Baby."
(2) In researching to make sure I was spelling his name correctly, I learned that Schwarzenegger actually has experienced financial success beyond his acting career by owning restaurants.
NOTE: I'm not sure, but I think the line comes from the original "Terminator" movie. If not, the joke could be made technically correct by simply substituting the right movie title.
©The Author, ©Edward de Bono Creative Team 1997
Y0000207
Can you write red using a black pen?
Get a few pens various colours but red (it would further help if they show their colours clearly).
Scribble on a white paper to stress the colour of the pen you are trying.
Then ask the question:
I wish I had a pen that can write red. Do you think there is one here?
More likely the answer will be no.
Then get any of them and write r-e-d.
This joke was made several years ago by one of my friends at the work place. He was asked by the secretary to fill in a form. He was about to start to use his black pen, the secretary jumped in a panic and asked to use a red pen. He, without waiting a second, said that the pen he was holding can also write red. While she was looking really worried, he picked up a scrap paper and wrote the word r-e-d.
When I asked this question to my 6-year old son, his answer was yes. I said why and he replied that he knew that I would do a trick therefore it must be possible. Anyway he will use this at school this week during his news time.
K0000245
Across sounds like 'a cross'.
Crosswords have clues for words that fit across.
Dracula is afraid of crosses.
"Why couldn't Dracula finish the crossword?"
"He was afraid to look at across."
L0000246
Chess is a universe with it's own rules, that don't make sense outside of that universe.
"Why was the King unable to move."
"The Queen placed him in cheque mate."
M0000247
This one just just 'turned up' after a short discussion about the problem of deafness.
"Why didn't the deaf old man wear a hearing-aid?"
"He hadn't heard about them."
N0000248
A carpet could be a pet that lives in a car.
An old lady might keep such a pet for company.
"Why was the old lady so unhappy with her new carpet?"
"It was always sick on long journeys."
O0000249
People say that a good book is hard to put down.
What might be difficult to pick up? A slippery toad.
"What is the difference between a slippery toad and a good book?"
"One is difficult to pick up, the other to put down."
P0000250 Flagging=waving flags/getting tired.
Who waves flags? - A sailor sending semaphore signals.
"What did the sailor say after sending semaphore messages for over three hours?"
"My strength is flagging."
Q0000251
Revolution can be the act of revolving (like on a merry-go -round)or a time of social change and upheaval.
Who might be responsible for ending a revolution? Perhaps an Emperor.
"How did the Emperor bring the revolution to an end?"
"He simply jumped off the merry-go-round and played on the swings instead."
R0000252
Tuna sounds like tuner - a piano tuner.
The tuna lives in the sea.
"What do you do when your piano has fallen into the sea?"
"Send for the piano tuna."
S0000253 "What did the man say when he got pepper up his nose?"
"I need ...a tissue!"
T0000254 An opera singer can sing high C's. - Sounds like high seas.
"What's the difference between an ocean liner and an opera singer?"
"One sails the high seas, the other sings them."
U0000255
Spectacles = glasses - splendid sights.
Who is concerned with these? - Opticians, stage producers.
"What do a West End producer and an optician have in common?"
"They both create spectacles."
W0000257
Dictionary - a book containing meanings, and spellings.
Book of spells owned by a wizard.
"Why is a dictionary no use to a wizard?"
"Because it's full of spellings not spells."
X0000258
Joke:
Why would anyone want a satellite for a birthday present?
They need something to set alight the candles on their birthday cake.
Method:
Look for some promising-sounding polysyllabic word and then see if a new meaning can be made out its sound.
Having found that "satellite" can be made to equal "set alight" then one gets to birthday candles by simple association.
Y0000259
Joke:
Why did the grandmother-elephant need to wear strong glasses?
So she could see properly to do her needlework.
Method:
Elephant-jokes are a well-known genre. In this case I looked for the opposite sense to elephantine, and arrived at such things as pole-vaulting and daintiness. Needlework seemed the right kind of activity for an elephant. Of course it would have to be an elderly female elephant. Strong glasses follow by association.
Z0000260
Joke:
What did the vegetarian say to the car salesman?
Do you avocado sell me?
Method:
Once again a pun on a likely word, "avocado." Once one arrives at the dual sound "have a car to," the car salesman pops into place and the questioner has to become a vegetarian to motivate using the word "avocado."
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