[Carlhole]

Ancient peoples really don't seem to have had a clue when it came to jokes. Every example I've ever seen of humor from the ancient world would not even be worthy of Reader's Digest today.

Be they Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, Assyrians or whatever - they sucked universally!

Ancient Jokes

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ancient jokes: Humour now and then', 'T')here is only one surviving example of an actual anthology of 265 ancient jokes, The Philogelos (manuscript dating to the 10th century but reflecting jokes from the first centuries of our era).
...
“An intellectual who had had an operation on his uvula was ordered by his doctor not to talk for a while. So he instructed his slave to greet all his callers on his behalf. Then he proceeded to say to each caller, ‘Please don’t be offended that my slave greeted you instead of me; I’m under doctor’s orders not to talk’”.

“After a dinner party two intellectuals kept taking it in turns to escort the other home in accordance with the rules of etiquette. The result: neither of them ever got to bed”.

“An intellectual was on a sea voyage when a big storm blew up, causing his slaves to weep in terror. ‘Don’t cry,’ he consoled them, ‘I have freed you all in my will’”.

[Kylon]

You have to understand, there was no television, the women came from small inbred populations, so they were pretty ugly, life was hard, miserable, and extremely short. Ontop of that, they had very little knowledge of the real universe, most of the knowledge they had, was speculation, like the belief in evil spirits and what not. Knowledge of basic geometry back then was what would pass for a Math professor today.

Why do you think they started wars so often? Was it for the loot? A little bit. Was it for dominance? Somewhat. But mainly it was a way to get payed for doing something exciting.

I mean, instead of doing as much(you still had to do alot, just not as much as you'd usually do) backbreaking labor, suffering a marriage with a hideous woman, who would only get more hideous as she got older(and who got older faster, and had hardly any make up!), and who probably wouldn't have sex with you that often, you could travel the world, kill other people for fun, experience the thrill of near death, enjoyment in the plunders of other people and one of the few means of social stratification, and you got to bang another woman every night!

And if you died, so what? What did you really have to look forward to when you got older? You got to do back breaking labor, deal with a wife nags you constantly, and won't give out consenually, because her life is even more miserable, and ontop of that, you got constantly mocked by the extreme wealth desparity between the super rich, and the super poor. Oh, and lets not forget the fact that when you got older, your body would break down, you'd start pissing in your pants, and you'd probably get something like influenza where you'd have a long, drawn out, miserable death.

[Carlhole]

It sounds alot like peak oil prophecy!

[MacG]

Uhhh.... I think this one WAS a funny...
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '�')��An intellectual was on a sea voyage when a big storm blew up, causing his slaves to weep in terror. ‘Don’t cry,’ he consoled them, ‘I have freed you all in my will’”.

[Anthrobus]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Carlhole', 'A')ncient peoples really don't seem to have had a clue when it came to jokes. Every example I've ever seen of humor from the ancient world would not even be worthy of Reader's Digest today.

[Doly]

Jokes are VERY culturally dependent. The Spanish don't get English jokes and the English don't get Spanish jokes. What's funny in a particular culture may not be funny to their neighbours, let alone their descendants 2000 years afterwards in a totally different environment.

For those that don't get the first joke, it's about the confusion it could create about who is the master and who is the slave.

[Novus]

These ancient jokes remind me of the "Far Side" comics. These comics are generally understood only by people of above average inteligence and have mutiple levels of irony. The ancients were certainly a lot smarter then the average person today who can't understand the butt of jokes that go beyond mere butts.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')I wonder how Ramses The Great, or Socrates, or some ordinary Roman soldier would have reacted to the old joke:

"Why does a dog lick himself?"

[PenultimateManStanding]

I saw Wedding Crashers and some other contemporary "comedies" and found them idiotic and unfunny. Ancient satires were funny. Speaking of funny, did SNL ever get around their writer talents deficit problems? That show was funny once, I remember a parody of TV commercials about tamper-proof medicine bottles for arthritis relief pills. The product was called "Triopenin" and the commercial showed some old crippled fingers trying to open the bottle.

[smiley]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'E')very example I've ever seen of humor from the ancient world would not even be worthy of Reader's Digest today.

[PenultimateManStanding]

I heard this today about Rudy Giuliani appearing on SNL just after the 911 attack. They asked him, "Mayor, can we still be funny?" The Mayor answered, "Why start now?"