Word: joking
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...rest of Suder sidesplitting. Renoir certainly provokes his share of double takes. The man robbed by Suder tracks him to a cabin in Oregon, where he notices the large pet: "What's that?" Suder's reply: "That's an elephant." And then there is the joke about Suder's manager, an amateur taxidermist, who shows up unexpectedly and tries to kill Renoir with a chain saw: "I can't wait to stuff this sucker." By now, Suder has acquired other eccentricities. His cabin mate is a nine-year-old girl named Jincy, a runaway from...
Ronald Reagan trotted into a sticky situation and made it worse last week when he ad-libbed his quasi-joke about cavemen during a speech to the International Federation of Business and Professional Women. It was an unusual kind of slip-up for Reagan, who uses jokes more often and more successfully than any other President since John Kennedy. He is so adept, in fact, that his Democratic challengers are busy sharpening their own jokes on the hustings. Political humor is no longer a laughing matter...
...that if you are running for the most powerful job in the world, you must first prove that you can tell a joke? "All candidates look like good guys if they kid around a bit," says Columnist Art Buchwald. Robert Orben, a political gagwriter in Washington, says a sense of humor "is one of the attributes a candidate must have. The good will engendered by humor goes a long way in covering his gaffes." And so Senator John Glenn pokes fun at his lack of pizazz: "Let me say that I am not dull." One, two, three. ''Boring...
...probably started after Adlai Stevenson and then John Kennedy used quips to charm the press and public. "In America," said Stevenson, who lost the presidency twice, "any boy may become President, and I suppose that's just the risk he takes." During the 1960 campaign, Kennedy used a joke to defuse criticism that he was a spoiled rich man's son. His father, Kennedy said, had sent him a telegram: "Don't buy one vote more than necessary. I'll be damned if I'll pay for a landslide...
Most politicians' humor, however, tends to be safe rather than biting. Dole's thrust-and-cut jokes in 1976, when he was the G.O.P. vice-presidential nominee, were said to have alienated voters. Several realms are off-limits: ethnic and racial jokes, anything remotely smutty. While Reagan can repeat punch lines about his age, it would be unseemly for a Democrat to joke about the President's advanced years. Topicality is crucial. For instance, Rollings' allusion to Carter's seven-year-old, lust-in-my-heart Playboy interview (Hollings: "I'm lusting...