Word: joking
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...week flew in three planeloads of food. Hokkaido's farmers face both hunger and bankruptcy. "We've sold even the gold from our teeth," one farmer told TIME Correspondent Curtis Prendergast. "The only thing we've left to sell is our daughter." It was not a joke. Many a farm family, in desperate need, has returned to the old but recently outlawed custom of selling off a daughter to some enterprising brothel keeper in exchange for ready cash. So far this year, the Hokkaido prefectural police headquarters reported, 1,454 girls have been sold to restaurants, brothels...
Mama from the Train (Patti Page; Mercury). Tin Pan Alley takes a flyer at Pennsylvania Dutch with a humorous twist, e.g., "Throw mama from the train [pause] a kiss, a kiss." The joke is good enough-for a while...
This was the first joke ever told by Fred Allen, in a grammar-school revue. Over the next 50 years, a lot of his humor did not rise much above this level, but his nasally astringent tones and the cold poached eyes with which he regarded life were to be widely hailed as the attributes of a pungent social satirist. He was both more and less than that; in his best years, he was one of the funniest comedians in the U.S.; in lesser, later years he was an embittered heckler of most post-Allen entertainment...
...FOOTNOTE*Only one fewer than the U.S. has had in its history, and so bewildering an array as to prompt the old company joke: when an NBC executive goes to lunch, he tells his secretary: "If my boss calls, please get his name...
Nevertheless, the picture does have some not inconsiderable merits. Several scenes are models of what might be called pica-risque comedy. And Director Kazan, even though he cannot seem to decide whether he is reciting a dark poem or just telling a dirty joke, has won skillful performances from his veterans. Maiden and Wallach, and from Newcomer Carroll Baker, of whom the public is certain to hear a great deal more in the next year or two. As Baby Doll, she is the Coke sister of Southern folklore, all the way down to the bottom of the bottle...