Kup's Chicago - Irv Kupcinet [120]
“I sure did make a mistake about my age. I am thirty-five all right. It’s me poor old mother who is forty-one!”
Ray Kroc, of McDonalds Drive Ins, reports that the Ripley cartoon in Moscow is called:
“Believe It-Or Else.”
An American and a Russian soldier were arguing about the merits of their countries’ respective forms of government.
“I’ll show you what democracy is,” said the Yank. “I can get a two-week pass from my sergeant and fly to Washington. There I can get into the White House, and with a little luck, I can get to see the President. I even can walk up to him and say, ‘President Kennedy, you’re a bum.’ That’s democracy for you!”
“Ho,” said the Red. “Under communism you can do the same thing. I can ask my sergeant for a two-week pass, and I can get to Moscow. With a little luck I can get into the Kremlin, and with a little more luck I can get to sec Premier Khrushchev. And I, too, can walk up to him and say, so all can hear, ‘Premier Khrushchev, President Kennedy is a bum!’ “
Chicago labor leader Sidney Lens, after a recent trip to Moscow, told this story of a university student who had been asked to draw a comparison between communism and capitalism.
“In capitalist America,” said the student, “there are bread lines and endless slums. People are oppressed by big-money interests, and the country is faced with depression. In Russia, communism has prospered and provided the outstanding scientific achievements of the era. There are no slums. There is no oppression. Production has reached new heights – and by 1970, we’ll catch up to America!”
Then there was the devoted Italian father whose son was a contestant on the big-money jackpot program. As the son answered each question correctly, the proud papa beamed and exclaimed from the audience, “That’s-a my Tony!” The final question, for the $64,000 jackpot, was a three-part query. The son answered the first two with ease. But on the last part his mind went blank. He couldn’t remember who had shot Abraham Lincoln. Finally he had to admit defeat. But not Papa. He stood up and shouted:
“That’s-a my Tony – he no squeal on anybody!”
Miscellany
In Fritzel’s one day the topic was fast-talking waiters and their humorous sallies at customers, which revived this one:
A waiter on his deathbed was promised by his wife that she would make contact with him in the hereafter. She visited a spiritualist after his death, explained her problem, and requested a seance. Agreeing, the medium said, “Just place your hands on this table, hold it firmly, and while holding it call out his name.”
Doing as she had been instructed, the woman called out, “Leo, Leo.”
Came a rasping voice from above, sounding just like her late husband:
“Sorry, that’s not my table.”
A small town, says Quin Ryan, is where you can carry on a long telephone conversation even if you get the wrong number.
Another bit of wisdom from Ryan:
“A fool and his money are invited everywhere.”
Definition of home cooking:
Where a man hopes his wife is.
Definition of a modern minute man:
One who can get to his refrigerator and back during a commercial.
Sam Pascal spotted this sign on the window of a gun shop: “Out to reload.”
And Fred Mazzei swears he knows a Communist who furnished his home in Early Un-American.
A businessman picked up his newspaper and turned to the obituary column. There he read his name – Joseph Johanson, age 58, survived by wife, Helen, and three children, Manny, Moe, and Jack. “Why, that’s me!” exclaimed the man. “My name, my age, my wife’s name, and my three children!”
Wringing his hands in despair, he immediately phoned his partner, and asked him to read the obituary notices. “My, oh my,” said the partner. “That’s you, all right.” Then, after a significant pause:
“Say, Joseph, tell me – where you calling from?”
At a Chicago police station one night, a slightly tipsy gent was hauled in and demanded to know from the desk sergeant why he had been pinched. “You’ve been brought in for drinking,” he was told.
“Fine,”