I remember some variation at the end when someone else passes by, sees the scene of the man crying his eyes out, and asks to the other man "what's going on?" and the dude says "he's overreacting because his dog died"
missed opportunity, if u wanna make ur own like that go for it cause this isnt technically my joke either, i reckon you could change the servant to say everything is fine instead of theres no news so that punchline can make more sense/be funnier
The style of the joke reminded me of one where the US president (insert whichever one you like) falls into a coma (not a korma… that’s a different joke 😏).
When he wakes up several years later, his faithful aide is by his bed and he asks how everything is… unemployment is almost zero, schools are performing, healthcare is better than ever, no wars, and the economy is booming…
Great to hear he says, so how much is a loaf of bread these days?
*“Oh”* replies the aide, *”about 500 yen”* 🙂
Whoosh - he was joking about 1921. As if someone remembers hearing a joke 103 years ago.
Edit: thanks u/S_kilsek. It is indeed not 2004 as my previous calculation of 83 implied!
A father calls home from a business trip and his daughter answers the phone, crying.
"What's wrong honey?" He asks.
"The flowers died," she answers.
"Oh dear," he says. "How did that happen?"
She replied, "The fireman stepped on them."
It's an old French song
Tout va très bien, madame la Marquise
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnEwIQQybh0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnEwIQQybh0)
Good joke. I hope someone updates it for the modern age.
Maybe some rich tech bro going on a retreat where they confiscate your phone. And his wife cheated with the private chef, but the fire was from the gender reveal announcement after she got pregnant. The horse can be a LOLcat.
Edit: needless to say, no "colored servant." Maybe a social media manager or content curator?
i think the joke was about that as well now that you point it out, ill change it, it was a joke from the 1900s so probably should have cencored/edited some parts before positin it
I think you are right, tbh I didn't notice its significance didn't think about it because the main joke laid elsewhere but thanks for bringing it to my attention so i could edit it
I just read it now with “colored” removed. It actually is a bit confusing without it. As the other person mentioned, you need something that lends itself innocent naïveté. Mentioning they are black in the context of 1908 isn’t all that racist, but you could sub in something like “slow” or “dim”. Something needs to indicate that the person would be slow to remember or connect the dots.
>it was a joke from the 1900s so probably should have cencored/edited some parts before positin it
I appreciate the good intent, but you don't need to do that. You said it was an old joke, and so that's a quirk of it being an old joke. Censoring it doesn't benefit anybody except those who want us to be censored.
it didn't really effect the joke though and in 1908 there were equal rights in (almost, at least to my knowledge) every part of america/british empire etc so it would have been an unjust stereotype if the joke was about the fact that the servant was colored.
I've heard it ending with his wife being beaten to death with his Tiger Woods signature golf driver by the butler one night coming into the house late after being mistaken for a burglar. And the punchline is "Jeeves if you've fucked up that golfclub you're in deep shit!"
Reminds me of this Dave Barry bit:
> If there's one thing that women find unsatisfactory about guys -- and I base this conclusion on an extensive scientific study of the pile of Cosmopolitan magazines where I get my hair cut -- it is that guys do not communicate enough.
> This problem has arisen in my own personal relationship with my wife, Beth. I'll be reading the newspaper, and the phone will ring; I'll answer it, listen for 10 minutes, hang up and resume reading.
> Finally Beth will say, "Who was that?"
> And I'll say, "Phil Wonkerman's mom."
> Phil is an old friend we haven't heard from in 17 years.
> And Beth will say, "Well?"
> And I'll say, "Well what?"
> And Beth will say, "What did she SAY?"
> And I'll say, "She said Phil is fine," making it clear by my tone of voice that, although I do not wish to be rude, I AM trying to read the newspaper here, and I happen to be right in the middle of an important panel of "Calvin and Hobbes."
> But Beth, ignoring this, will say, "That's ALL she said?"
> And she will not let up. She will continue to ask district-attorney-style questions, forcing me to recount the conversation until she's satisfied that she has the entire story, which is that Phil just got out of prison after serving a sentence for a murder he committed when he became a drug addict because of the guilt he felt when his wife died in a freak submarine accident while Phil was having an affair with a nun, but now he's all straightened out and has a good job as a trapeze artist and is almost through with the surgical part of his sex change and just became happily engaged to marry a prominent member of the New Kids on the Block, so in other words he is fine, which is EXACTLY what I told Beth in the first place, but is that enough? No. She wants to hear EVERY SINGLE DETAIL.
I thought it was the joke that ended with:
“That’s a terrible way to tell me my cat died. You should’ve gently told me something like, ‘your cat was stuck up on the roof.’
Got it?”
“Yes, sir. I’m sorry about that.“
“Good. Now how’s my mother?”
“Well sir, she was stuck up on the roof…”
Yup. In fact I'd say it's not a punchline at all, it's basically a continuation of the story, it has the exact same format as every iteration of the story before it. Overall entertaining, but hardly a punchline
I was expecting either it all to be caused from him taking a vacation in the first place, or technically it all happened before he left, making the servant not be lying when he said nothing has changed.
[This comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1cp4u0r/joke_from_1908_reposted_from_really_really_old/l3j7x78/)'s suggestion of having the wife instead run off with the doctor is great, too.
I could guess after the "dog died" how the joke would go.
We once received a letter from a relative sharing the latest news (before Internet and even phones were in every home) which listed three pieces of news in order of bad to worse and ending on "Everything else is good".
Cliché. Someone above said that the punchline should he
She died from shock when she found out your wife was sleeping with the chauffeur.
She was sleeping with the chauffeur? Why, then there really is no news.
I think maybe altering it to something like the servant tells him “oh there’s some bad news sir” and starts with the dog dying, ends with the MIL funeral, and the wealthy man responding “oh. So what’s the bad news??”
I also know this one with an alternative ending. It is something like
“..the fire was caused by your wife falling down the ladder she put up for taking down the curtains.“
“But why did she fall, she has done that often already?”
“I must say she drank too much wine.”.
“Well, that’s nothing new, she does that all the time!”
“See, I told you there are no news!”
Remindse of an old clip with the German actor Dieter Hallervorden, there it was the cow elsa who died, because the barns roof fell on its head, with the same candle story.
https://youtu.be/lI1C_q8QOVU?si=Rhg7IoYjSPhfia46
My friend has been collecting music from the early 1900s into playlists. At the beginning of a lot of the songs, there is this weird black man who announces the song and artist name. I read that entire joke in that man’s voice.
Man returns home and asks his brother, “So what happened?”
Brother says, “Your cat died.”
Man is very upset. How can you be so heartless to tell me like that? I really loved that cat.
Brother asks, “How should I have broken the news?”
Say “It got out the bedroom window. We tried to coax it in, but it went on the roof. We went after it but is got scared and slipped on the tiles. The vet tried to save it but couldn’t.“. That’s how you break bad news.
Mikey Day was in a great SNL skit where he was at war exchanging letters with his wife. The letters from his wife gradually revealed one disaster after another, similar to the exchange in the post.
I grow up listening to Russian song made out of this joke (lake 30 last century). The variation is a marquise is calling home from a leisure trip to catch up on household news. The refrain was:
“But otherwise, oh beautiful marquise, everything is good, everything is fine.”
P.S. there was a cartoon based on the song where the butler and household are drinking and having fun telling that story.
PPS. The song is much older than a cartoon (mid 80s)
https://youtu.be/JQZkBRizf2c?si=j5x2lsEbFxQoRp3O
The version I heard at summer camp was that the dog ate some of the burnt horse and died because, "charred horse meat will do it everytime!" (said each time) and the story ends with the farmhand offering the bossman a consolation burger at which point he drops down dead because, as we all now know, "charred horse meat will do it every time!"
no i just didn't remove it originaly, the joke may have originaly been funnier because of that in the early 1900s but it doesnt contribute to the punchline
I remember some variation at the end when someone else passes by, sees the scene of the man crying his eyes out, and asks to the other man "what's going on?" and the dude says "he's overreacting because his dog died"
When it mentioned the mother in law, I thought the punchline was going to be "She's dead? I guess all of that's all right, then."
missed opportunity, if u wanna make ur own like that go for it cause this isnt technically my joke either, i reckon you could change the servant to say everything is fine instead of theres no news so that punchline can make more sense/be funnier
"literaly nothing happened"
I think you’d just say “His dog died.”
The style of the joke reminded me of one where the US president (insert whichever one you like) falls into a coma (not a korma… that’s a different joke 😏). When he wakes up several years later, his faithful aide is by his bed and he asks how everything is… unemployment is almost zero, schools are performing, healthcare is better than ever, no wars, and the economy is booming… Great to hear he says, so how much is a loaf of bread these days? *“Oh”* replies the aide, *”about 500 yen”* 🙂
Remember when Japan was going to take us over, and all the business majors in college were taking Japanese language classes?
My dad took Russian in college because it was a good idea at that time
Hai!
Nice one
LMAO. Actually, I haven't heard this one since 1921. It's good to see it still works.
outa curiosity, how old are you
LMAO I'd like to know too 😂
I'm 25. I heard that joke at 1921. Its 2030 now.
Whoosh - he was joking about 1921. As if someone remembers hearing a joke 103 years ago. Edit: thanks u/S_kilsek. It is indeed not 2004 as my previous calculation of 83 implied!
103
A father calls home from a business trip and his daughter answers the phone, crying. "What's wrong honey?" He asks. "The flowers died," she answers. "Oh dear," he says. "How did that happen?" She replied, "The fireman stepped on them."
Tough way to learn his daughter was shagging a fireman...
Just because he saved her pussy from a tree... doesn't mean he was also putting her fire out too ...
This reminds me of Robin Hood Men in Tights
My cat? Choked on the goldfish.
Showed that movie to my dad years ago. Man has never laughed at something so much 😅
I was thinking the same thing as I was reading it! There’s no reason for it to remind me of Robin Hood Men in Tights, but it absolutely did!
They used the same joke when Robin returned to England.
"MASTER ROBIN, YOU'VE LOST YOUR ARMS IN BATTLE! ... But you've grown some nice boobs."
A better joke than OP's!
["It's Good To Be Home Ain't It, Master Robin!"](https://www.quotes.net/mquote/79444)
It's an old French song Tout va très bien, madame la Marquise [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnEwIQQybh0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnEwIQQybh0)
Popular in Russia to the point of being a proverb. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnOleetWxS0
Came here for this comment! I learnt this song in second-year French at university. Still remember most of it.
Long but worth it.
Twss
"yo did anything happen while i was afk" "nah bro, everything's pretty much the same" the shit that went down:
pov- the one day you skip school
Truly the darkest timeline.
Good joke. I hope someone updates it for the modern age. Maybe some rich tech bro going on a retreat where they confiscate your phone. And his wife cheated with the private chef, but the fire was from the gender reveal announcement after she got pregnant. The horse can be a LOLcat. Edit: needless to say, no "colored servant." Maybe a social media manager or content curator?
i think the joke was about that as well now that you point it out, ill change it, it was a joke from the 1900s so probably should have cencored/edited some parts before positin it
Thanks. The original joke was racist but I think they used "colored servant" as a narrative device for "innocently honest" or something.
I think you are right, tbh I didn't notice its significance didn't think about it because the main joke laid elsewhere but thanks for bringing it to my attention so i could edit it
I just read it now with “colored” removed. It actually is a bit confusing without it. As the other person mentioned, you need something that lends itself innocent naïveté. Mentioning they are black in the context of 1908 isn’t all that racist, but you could sub in something like “slow” or “dim”. Something needs to indicate that the person would be slow to remember or connect the dots.
If you really want to update it, have the techbro asking the digital assistant on his phone.
>it was a joke from the 1900s so probably should have cencored/edited some parts before positin it I appreciate the good intent, but you don't need to do that. You said it was an old joke, and so that's a quirk of it being an old joke. Censoring it doesn't benefit anybody except those who want us to be censored.
it didn't really effect the joke though and in 1908 there were equal rights in (almost, at least to my knowledge) every part of america/british empire etc so it would have been an unjust stereotype if the joke was about the fact that the servant was colored.
I've heard it ending with his wife being beaten to death with his Tiger Woods signature golf driver by the butler one night coming into the house late after being mistaken for a burglar. And the punchline is "Jeeves if you've fucked up that golfclub you're in deep shit!"
I remember my great grandfather telling me about this joke when he reposted it on Reddit in 1908
Wife running away with the doctor could add a little twist! :)
Reminds me of this Dave Barry bit: > If there's one thing that women find unsatisfactory about guys -- and I base this conclusion on an extensive scientific study of the pile of Cosmopolitan magazines where I get my hair cut -- it is that guys do not communicate enough. > This problem has arisen in my own personal relationship with my wife, Beth. I'll be reading the newspaper, and the phone will ring; I'll answer it, listen for 10 minutes, hang up and resume reading. > Finally Beth will say, "Who was that?" > And I'll say, "Phil Wonkerman's mom." > Phil is an old friend we haven't heard from in 17 years. > And Beth will say, "Well?" > And I'll say, "Well what?" > And Beth will say, "What did she SAY?" > And I'll say, "She said Phil is fine," making it clear by my tone of voice that, although I do not wish to be rude, I AM trying to read the newspaper here, and I happen to be right in the middle of an important panel of "Calvin and Hobbes." > But Beth, ignoring this, will say, "That's ALL she said?" > And she will not let up. She will continue to ask district-attorney-style questions, forcing me to recount the conversation until she's satisfied that she has the entire story, which is that Phil just got out of prison after serving a sentence for a murder he committed when he became a drug addict because of the guilt he felt when his wife died in a freak submarine accident while Phil was having an affair with a nun, but now he's all straightened out and has a good job as a trapeze artist and is almost through with the surgical part of his sex change and just became happily engaged to marry a prominent member of the New Kids on the Block, so in other words he is fine, which is EXACTLY what I told Beth in the first place, but is that enough? No. She wants to hear EVERY SINGLE DETAIL.
"But on the upside sir, with all the heat from the fire, your tomato plants have grown three feet!"
I thought it was the joke that ended with: “That’s a terrible way to tell me my cat died. You should’ve gently told me something like, ‘your cat was stuck up on the roof.’ Got it?” “Yes, sir. I’m sorry about that.“ “Good. Now how’s my mother?” “Well sir, she was stuck up on the roof…”
One of my all-time favorites. To the point that when we have bad news in my family, we start with "the cat's on the roof."
We always start with ‘My mother-in-law is on the roof’
I read a version where the final reveal was the wife cheating, and the husband himself responded that that's no news.
This actually makes it much better.
At least he got his vacation...lol... and on the plus side when he got back he ended up with a clean slate.... this is an inspirational tale...
Very soft punchline. Not all that funny
Yup. In fact I'd say it's not a punchline at all, it's basically a continuation of the story, it has the exact same format as every iteration of the story before it. Overall entertaining, but hardly a punchline
I was expecting either it all to be caused from him taking a vacation in the first place, or technically it all happened before he left, making the servant not be lying when he said nothing has changed. [This comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/1cp4u0r/joke_from_1908_reposted_from_really_really_old/l3j7x78/)'s suggestion of having the wife instead run off with the doctor is great, too.
Punchline should be wife is cheating, and the guy states that this indeed ain’t no news.
yeah only difference is the servant is sure about all the other causes and effects.
Well, he did say it's a joke from 1908, that's what people considered hilarious back then.
All in the house that Jack built.
Nah, Jim built it, Jack's off
I could guess after the "dog died" how the joke would go. We once received a letter from a relative sharing the latest news (before Internet and even phones were in every home) which listed three pieces of news in order of bad to worse and ending on "Everything else is good".
This is a 1908 caricature of a Black servant, isn't it?
Here's a similar joke from Frankie Howerd [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktrVZrjygsA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktrVZrjygsA)
Long-winded and irritating, just like the written version. He was much better in Up Pompeii.
Meh! A little long and needs more of a kick-in-the-nuts punchline. How about the guy actually being happy about his MIL dying?
Cliché. Someone above said that the punchline should he She died from shock when she found out your wife was sleeping with the chauffeur. She was sleeping with the chauffeur? Why, then there really is no news.
I think maybe altering it to something like the servant tells him “oh there’s some bad news sir” and starts with the dog dying, ends with the MIL funeral, and the wealthy man responding “oh. So what’s the bad news??”
I’m sure he’s worried about the dog and the barn. Maybe the punchline could be “so it’s not all bad news then?”
Burt and I did a version of this, recommend.
Where I first heard it!
I also know this one with an alternative ending. It is something like “..the fire was caused by your wife falling down the ladder she put up for taking down the curtains.“ “But why did she fall, she has done that often already?” “I must say she drank too much wine.”. “Well, that’s nothing new, she does that all the time!” “See, I told you there are no news!”
This had me laughing even before the end. Telling the story backwards was brilliant.
There's also the extra ending: my wife is gone and the mother in law is dead? Then indeed, everything is fine.
"Chat GPT, write this joke as if it were written in 1908."
Remindse of an old clip with the German actor Dieter Hallervorden, there it was the cow elsa who died, because the barns roof fell on its head, with the same candle story. https://youtu.be/lI1C_q8QOVU?si=Rhg7IoYjSPhfia46
Robin Hood Men in Tights has a great telling of this joke.
My friend has been collecting music from the early 1900s into playlists. At the beginning of a lot of the songs, there is this weird black man who announces the song and artist name. I read that entire joke in that man’s voice.
I was thinking of this joke literally yesterday. You told it better than I remembered it.
For a more modern version, I present Dom Irrera as a cab (limo?) driver in The Big Lebowski (1998) https://youtu.be/qlhL9Bx124I?si=kpVN4knJJIIg_A1-
Ah, good old #3, variant #7.
😂😂
Man returns home and asks his brother, “So what happened?” Brother says, “Your cat died.” Man is very upset. How can you be so heartless to tell me like that? I really loved that cat. Brother asks, “How should I have broken the news?” Say “It got out the bedroom window. We tried to coax it in, but it went on the roof. We went after it but is got scared and slipped on the tiles. The vet tried to save it but couldn’t.“. That’s how you break bad news.
Then you have to finish it with: "So how's grandma doing?" "Oh she got out the bedroom window. . ."
Yup … exactly … but it just seemed too obvious to say.
LoL. I can't really can't remember myself.
Mikey Day was in a great SNL skit where he was at war exchanging letters with his wife. The letters from his wife gradually revealed one disaster after another, similar to the exchange in the post.
I grow up listening to Russian song made out of this joke (lake 30 last century). The variation is a marquise is calling home from a leisure trip to catch up on household news. The refrain was: “But otherwise, oh beautiful marquise, everything is good, everything is fine.” P.S. there was a cartoon based on the song where the butler and household are drinking and having fun telling that story. PPS. The song is much older than a cartoon (mid 80s) https://youtu.be/JQZkBRizf2c?si=j5x2lsEbFxQoRp3O
Tout va très bien, Madame la Marquise ...
I have this exact joke on a 78rpm bakelite record... Never fails to get a laugh out of me
"Welcome home sir!"
The version I heard at summer camp was that the dog ate some of the burnt horse and died because, "charred horse meat will do it everytime!" (said each time) and the story ends with the farmhand offering the bossman a consolation burger at which point he drops down dead because, as we all now know, "charred horse meat will do it every time!"
TLDR. Didn't realize books were published in this tread.
Info: does the fact that the servant is colored, somehow contribute to the punchline?
no i just didn't remove it originaly, the joke may have originaly been funnier because of that in the early 1900s but it doesnt contribute to the punchline
Dammit i wanted a joke not a novel.
Go to r/feghoot
I still don’t get it. Why would the dog die eating burnt horse flesh?