I bought this book this spring, which meant it was piled high on my existing office bookshelves until I put it on the single unread shelf on my new office bookshelf. And when it comes to dodge reading the increasing pile of meh or long (and sometimes meh) books beside my reading chair, I have recently turned to this shelf for my next book since it’s right there and it’s not an overwhelming selection.
At any rate, you might recall, gentle reader, that I’m a sucker for National Lampoon-badged movies such as Dirty Movie, Adam and Eve, and Holiday Reunion, and Black Ball (some more than others). I might have had a subscription to the magazine in the late 1980s, but I was less impressed with it.
This, though, was a bit of a breath of fresh air.
It’s grouped by the, what, butt of the jokes? Women, Men, Cats, various nationalities, and so on. It’s got its share of dirty jokes, Dirty Johnny jokes, and things that play upon old stereotypes (but are funny if you replace Polack with Cletus–as a matter of fact, one of the longer chapters is Rednecks). And, to emphasize their versatility, a couple of jokes are actually repeated in different chapters with the nouns changed.
Basically, it’s Dirty Movie in its original form.
Not all of the jokes are dirty or offensive; several of my favorite talking dog jokes make an appearance (and I’ve seen them in Readers Digest as well). But for the most part, not something you’re going to drop into your speech in the 21st century, even if you’re speaking to a Fraternal Order Of of some sort.
So I was amused with it in places and had a couple of chuckles. Because I’m probably every ist in the book except resist, and I grew up on The Official Frank O. Pinion Dirty Joke Book, Blazing Saddles, and my own father’s crude at times sense of humor. So I was not offended. Your mileage may vary. But if you are offended, you’re probably not the type to be reading books anyway.
The back matter of the book lists a large number of National Lampoon Books titles, which I will pick up if I can. And the very last page is a promo for a movie coming out in 2007: National Lampoon’s Bagboy. Bloody heck, I might have to order that.
How timely is this book even today? After I wrote up this post, Baldilocks shared one of the jokes from the Asians chapter on Facebook:
