Penguin Joke

I heard this on the Prairie Home Companion on NPR on Saturday, June 24th, 2006. When they were broadcasting in Salt Lake City, Utah. [With my apologies, but it was so great]

Once upon a time, (actually everything that happens, happens at some upon a time or another)… but I digress…

Once upon a time there was this standup comic named Frank, and he was pretty good. So he was doing a standup gig in San Francisco, and he was on a tour with a group of comics out of New York. He was especially good at telling penguin jokes.

One of his jokes was about two penguins that are sitting on an iceberg.
One penguin says, “It looks like you’re wearing a tuxedo.”
And the other penguin says, “How do you know I’m not?”

Anyway, it just happened that there was a cruise director in the audience and the cruise director thought Frank was pretty funny. So he offered him a job as the warm up act on the cruise line on a trip to America Samoa. $400 a day, and free room and board. Well, of course Frank said “Yes!”, and got a job on a cruise line as one of the warmup acts for the show. So they booked him onto a medium sized cruise ship that was taking a bunch of rich Californians off to the Samoa Islands.

So, off sails the ship and that night Frank got up on stage and he starts out his act with this joke.
“Why are we all going to America Samoa?”
And the audience goes, “I don’t know, why?”
And Frank says, “So you can all spend Samoa Money!”

Well, that joke didn’t go over so well, so then he told his favorite Penguin joke. Well, that one hit the spot and everyone starts laughing, especially one rather large man in the front row, and he started out laughing, and laughing, and then laughing so hard he started to cry and then he collapsed onto the floor and went into cardiac arrest. Well, the crew responded quickly, and stabilized him, but they had to request a helicopter ambulance from the Coast Guard, to take the man off the ship for further medical care, so they flew him over to a nearby island and to the nearest hospital.

Well, the ship’s Captain and the cruise director were both very upset and they explained to Frank that they liked him, but just couldn't afford all the helicopters and emergency medical expenses, so they had to let him go, and bought out his contract and dropped him off at their next port of call enroute to America Samoa.

So Frank was stuck on this little rinky-dinky island for 3 days till he could catch a tramp steamer on its way to San Francisco. So to wile away his time, he went for a walk around the small island, and was talking to himself and practicing his jokes.

Frank came upon a flock of sheep and stood by the fence looking at them and decided to work on his favorite penguin joke. Unbeknown to him, one of the locals was playing with her new video camera and was filming this weird guy talking to the sheep.

So he told his penguin joke to the sheep, and then the1y started going crazy…. Baaa BAA BAAA , BAA BAA BAA… and it was like they were laughing at the joke. Then the sheep ran over to the edge of their pen and started going Baa, Baa to the pig, and the pig went nuts with GRUNT, GRUNNT, GRRUUUNT like it was laughing, and then the pig went over to the Horse and started grunting and grunting and the Horse went WHINNIE, WHIIINNIE, WHIINIE like it was laughing.

Then the horse went across his pasture and over to the cows and started telling the joke to the cows, and the cows went MOO, MOOOO, MOOOOO, and they all laughed so hard that milk came out of their noses.

Well, all this ended up on the videotape, but Frank didn’t notice. He went back to the port to wait for the ship.

So about 2 days later the tramp steamer came into port and Frank got on to get back to San Francisco. Well, about a day later out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean a huge storm came up and tossed the ship every which way and finally the ship broke in half and Frank found himself as the only survivor swimming in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

Then it got worse. He got swallowed by a whale, and spent 3 weeks in the belly of the whale and finally got spat up on an unknown shore. Well, he had no idea where he was, but he saw some people off in the distance and started running towards them. They in turn started shooting at him. He raises his arms and they surround him. It turns out he was on the shore of Iraq and was captured by some local militia. But as they’re capturing him, one of them says, “Hey, you’re the guy in the video with the cow with the milk coming out of her nose!”

Well, Frank goes, “Huh?” and they tell him about this video that is all over the internet with this unknown guy telling a joke to some sheep, and the sheep tell it to the pigs and … (well, you know the story).
So they take Frank to the border with Kuwait, and he gets a ride down to Kuwait City and from there a flight to London, and from there to New York City.

As he arrives at customs in the USA, without a passport, the Customs Agents are looking at him, and there is something familiar about him and so they start checking their Terrorist Photo Book, because they know they’ve seen him before, and then it hits them…. He’s the guy in the Video with the Sheep and the Cow and the milk coming out of her nose. Well they welcome him back to the States and allow him to pass through. Then he catches a flight to SFO, because he just happened to have his money belt on him when he got paid by the cruise line. Being an actor/stand up comic, he didn’t have a bank account, of course.

So Frank gets home, and he has dozens of letters and messages on his phone answering machine to call these various book publishers and TV shows. They all want him to do a Penguin Book for them. You know, pictures of penguins with little balloons with stupid sayings above their heads.

So Frank makes a deal with Penguin Books to do TWO books. One for them, and another so he can tell the story of his adventure from the shipwreck, etc. But the catch is that he has to have the sayings for the penguins done by Tuesday so they can print 20 million copies and get them to the bookstores while it’s still fresh in everyone’s mind.

Oh, gosh, … only 2 days to come up with 100 stupid sayings… Well, Frank comes up with 50 rather fast, but he just can’t think of 50 more, so he goes off to take a break and decides to take a walk around town. As he’s going along, he comes to the Zoo and decides to spend a few hours in the Zoo getting ideas for the book.

While at the Zoo he comes upon the penguin display and asks the caretaker if he can just go inside, sit in the side where no one will see him, and just sit and watch the penguins and try to think up some stupid sayings for the book.

Well, the caretaker recognizes him and says, “Hey, you're the guy with the penguin joke and the cow with milk coming out of her nose. Well, sure, just knock on the door when you want out.”

So he lets Frank in, give his his parka, and Frank sits back on a rock out of sight of the visitors and watches the penguins. He's getting some great ideas, and is writing them down.

Well, pretty soon, a penguin waddles on over and starts going “ Honk, Honk, Hooonk !!!” and putting his flipper up by his nose.

“What?” , says Frank.

“Honk, Honk, Honk!” goes the penguin, and all the time tapping its flipper to his nose.

“Oh, my gosh,” says, Frank, “have you seen the video too?”

“Honk, Honk!” says the penguin, and he turns his head sideways and sort-of smiles.

The penguin starts honking like crazy and pokes his flipper in Frank’s hand like he’s trying to write something. Then he goes “Honk, Honk”, and Frank finely figures out that he’s trying to tell a Knock, Knock joke.

“Honk, Honk!” goes the penguin.

“Who’s There?”, says Frank.

And the penguin grunts this word, “Fornication”

Frank smiles and says… “Fornication who?”

And the penguin says,” Fornication like this, you should be wearing a tuxedo.”