• The badger game is a crude form of extortion. In it, a man and a woman work together. The woman seduces a sucker, and the male accomplice — armed with a revolver — breaks into their hotel room at a predetermined time and catches the woman and the sucker in bed, then pretends to be the woman’s husband and threatens to kill the sucker. The sucker — often a VIP — is forced to cough up money to save his life. Once, Wilson Mizner and a female accomplice played the badger game, but Mr. Mizner got drunk and slept past the time he was supposed to break into the hotel room. When he finally woke up, he didn’t have a revolver handy, so he pulled a major bluff. He tore the label off a tomato can, rushed into the hotel room, said the can was filled with nitroglycerine, and threatened to drop it and blow up everyone, including himself. The sucker begged for his life and coughed up $10,000 in gold dust. When the female accomplice asked for her share, Mr. Mizner gave her the tomato can. “What the hell good will this do me? she asked. Mr. Mizner replied, “I don’t know, but it earned me$10,000.”
• A small-town Jew visited a friend who had moved to a big city. “Hello, Dovidl. How are you?” he asked. “Fine, but now my name is Dmitri,” his friend replied. “And how is your daughter Rachel?” the small-town Jew asked. “Fine, but her name is now Regina,” the big-city Jew replied. “And how is your life?” the small-town Jew asked. “Fine,” his friend replied. “Every morning I eat breakfast, then I lie for a while on my verandah. Next I read my mail, then I lie for a while on my verandah. Then I eat lunch, then I lie for a while on my verandah. Then I eat supper, and then I lie for a while on my verandah. So it goes throughout each day. Life is fine.” When the small-town Jew returned home, he was asked about his friend. “He is doing well,” he said, “but he is now called Dmitri, his daughter Rachel is now called Regina, and his wife Leah is now called Verandah.”
• The French can be very relaxed when it comes to sex. English author Douglas Sutherland was dining with two French friends when one said to the other, “By the way, mon brave, since we are such old friends I feel I owe it to you to tell you that I sleeping with your wife.” Mr. Sutherland froze, certain that a fight would break out. However, the other Frenchman replied to the first, “Indeed, mon cher ami. Tell me, is she any good at it nowadays?”
• In the 1930s, Henry Cadbury, a Quaker, was a New Testament scholar at Harvard. A woman professor shocked many people when she divorced her husband and married someone else. At a faculty party that Mr. Cadbury and his wife Lydia attended, the woman professor walked in and Lydia told her husband, quite loudly, “Henry, does thee know that that woman committed adultery?” Mr. Cadbury replied, “I only know, Lydia, that she has not committed it with me.”
• Comedians Paul Rodriguez and Elaine Boosler were getting ready to perform in a prison when guards came by with a prisoner in shackles. Mr. Rodriguez picked up Ms. Boosler and carried her over to the prisoner and asked, “Hey, man, how many cigarettes will you give me for her?” The prisoner replied, “No offense, but I don’t like women anymore; however, I’ll give you a carton if you’llspend the night with me.”
• One of the artworks owned by choreographer Léonide Massine was a drawing by Pablo Picasso which showed a satyr raping a nymph. Mr. Massine’s cleaning woman in London looked at the drawing, then told him, “Either that goes, or I do.” Because he needed a cleaning woman, Mr. Massine packed up the drawing and sent it to his home in Italy.
• Christine Jorgenson was famous because she acquired her sex through a sex-change operation. As a result, she lectured occasionally at universities. Once, comedian Jack Oakie asked what she lectured about. She replied, “Sex,” and Mr. Oakie said, “That makes sense — you had both of them.”
• When Muriel Lillie, sister of comedian Beatrice Lillie, decided to get divorced, her husband was very obliging. He let her claim that he was unfaithful and sent her a telegram listing the names of women he had committed adultery with — the names of the women were completely fictitious.
• A bus stopped and a mother with six sets of twins got on. The bus driver looked at the sets of twin, then told the woman, “You must have gotten twins each time.” The mother replied, “No, thousands of times we didn’t get any.”
• On You Bet Your Life, Groucho Marx asked a beautiful model what her most exciting experience had been, but she couldn’t remember any. Groucho commented, “A model with no exciting memories? What were you modeling — clay?”
• Sam Levenson’s sister Dora once wanted their mother to go to a PTA meeting, but she said she was too busy. Dora pleaded, “There’s going to be an important speaker. She’s going to talk about sex appeal. Mrs. Levenson — the mother of seven boys and one girl — replied, “I already gave.”
• Philosopher Richard Watson once told philosopher Richard Rudner that he had been studying the philosophy of sex for 15 years and that so far he had written only seven pages. Mr. Rudner replied, “Fifteen years is not long enough, and seven pages are too many.”
• According to Sir Rudolf Bing, Mary Garden came to his box at the Metropolitan Opera wearing a low-cut, strapless dress, although she was then an old lady. An even older man asked her, “What makes that dress stay up?” She replied, “Your age, sir.”
• Whenever an obnoxious guy tries to pick up comedian Judy Tenuta, she tells him, “I was looking for something a little higher on the food chain.”
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Copyright by Bruce D. Bruce; All Rights Reserved
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SOMETIMES FREE EBOOKS
John Ford’s The Broken Heart: A Retelling, by David Bruce
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/792090
William Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure: A Retelling in Prose, by David Bruce
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/530136
Ben Jonson’s The Alchemist: A Retelling, by David Bruce
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/731768
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David Bruce’s Smashwords Bookstore: Retellings of Classic Literature, Anecdote Collections, Discussion Guides for Teachers of Literature, Collections of Good Deed Accounts, etc. Some eBooks are free.
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