LUNCH BUNCH -- A boy and a girl have been suspended from Lancaster (CA) High School for fighting in the cafeteria line. Both required medical treatment, the boy multiple sutures for a laceration over one eye from contact with a Parker House roll and the girl a tetanus shot for a gash resulting from a sharp slice of mystery meat.
WHEEL OF FORTUNE COOKIE -- Staten Island, New York is completing plans to build the world's tallest Ferris Wheel at 625 feet to wrest the record from Nanchang, China's 525 foot "Star of Nanchang." Hold up here. Since our interest payments financed the Chinese wheel, shouldn't we, in all fairness, get the credit for how tall the thing is?
BELOW THE FOLD -- Apple fans are about ready to storm the Bastille over their new map app that is falling far below expectations. Apparently, Mac's engineers went overboard trying to make it so close to a real map, after customers use it they can't figure out how to fold their I-Pads back up.
MEN HAVE NAMED YOU -- Swiss art experts claim they have definitive proof that the "Islesworth Mona Lisa" they recently unveiled was painted by Leonardo Da Vinci when the subject was ten years younger. The evidence suggests that the paintings were "before" and "after" versions Leonardo produced for "Dr. Giovanni's Stretch 'n' Suture Clinic" outside Salerno.
DEARLY BELOVED -- Longtime critics of the inordinately high cost of dying in the U.S., from preparation of the loved one to the memorial service, are singing high praises for Costco's prices on good quality caskets. One slight drawback though. What are the chances of ten family members all dying at the same time?
Copyright (c) 2012 by Robert L. Mills All Rights Reserved
RECIPE ROW -- A United Airlines flight out of Raleigh-Durham to Chicago was forced to turn back after a fight broke out on board. Turned out to be a couple of stewardesses who had to be separated by passengers. Seems the argument arose when they couldn't agree on whether the pilot's mid-flight Bloody Mary was made with Russian or domestic vodka and if he preferred a celery stalk.
DESIGNATED DOCTOR -- A study out of Canada published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that accidents decreased when doctors for the elderly decided when they should stop driving. The doctors installed a GPS device on their patients' steering wheel that alerted them whenever the turn signal was left on for over ten minutes.
WRANGLING WATCHES -- Two of Switzerland's most famous timepiece manufacturers, Rolex and Omega, are in a bitter bidding battle for exclusive sponsorship of the upcoming World Championship Ryder Cup Tournament. Both boast exceptional workmanship but Omega claims superior accuracy while Rolex says that Tiger's Roley proved it can take a licking and keep on ticking.
FRIES NAZI -- McDonald's has launched the "M Channel," beamed into 700 restaurants that promises news, entertainment, sports and weather delivered exclusively to Micky-do customers. Some of it, though, is obviously in the "rip-off" category. For instance, there's a sitcom starring Ronald McDonald that features three friends and a wacky next-door neighbor living in new York called "McSeinfeld."
RUBBED OUT -- According to an exclusive story in the New York Post, producers of a movie on the life of mobster John Gotti currently filming have replaced Lindsay Lohan who had been signed to play Mrs. Gotti. Too bad. Seems to me she was perfect for the role. The safest place for Lindsay in a car is the trunk.
Copyright (c) 2012 by Robert L. Mills All Rights Reserved
ROBO-HEAP -- California Governor Jerry Brown has signed a bill that will allow the driverless car to travel on the state's roads. Drivers will not, however, be allowed to sit in the backseat while computers do all the work. The driver must sit behind the wheel in case of an emergency -- well, except for the Lindsay Lohan model -- with that one, you're not allowed IN the car.
RUNS LIKE A DEERE -- In Hershey, Pennsylvania, Willie Nelson, no stranger to reaping, sowing and harvesting himself, hosted the Farm Aid Concert for a crowd of enthusiastic fans. Let's just say Willie was lucky. Thanks to a labor dispute, only substitute undercover DEA agents were on duty that night.
DIGITAL MESSAGING -- Toyota has deviated somewhat from their auto-giant image to develop a robot that can help the elderly and disabled pick up hard-to-reach items, open curtains, and perform household chores using a folding arm and a pair of bendable fingers. A one-fingered model is being designed for elderly New York cabbies.
NIP AND TUCK -- The beauty contest organizers in Beijing responsible for the Miss World Contest have issued a new rule requiring contestants' nipples to be at least 7.8 inches apart. And although it's not stated specifically, most judges prefer that both of them be facing generally in the same direction.
THE DOWNTRODDEN -- As Obama picked up double-digit poll leads in Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania, Mitt Romney's wife Ann told reporters that electing Mitt would "strike a blow against prejudice." Against, no doubt, multi-millionaires with off shore bank accounts, home car elevators, and wives who breed horses for the Olympics.
Copyright (c) 2012 by Robert L. Mills All Rights Reserved
FREE OXYGEN -- Discussing his wife Ann's recent brush with an aircraft
fire that necessitated a forced landing, Mitt Romney told reporters that
it's hard to get rid of smoke on an aircraft "because the windows don't
open. I don't know why they don't do that." Probably because 47% of
the passengers would vote to keep them closed.
SURF'S DOWN! -- Reluctantly and with a heavy heart, the organizers
of the current Beach Boys national tour concluded that this will be
their final appearance together on any stage. Hey, it's just not like
the old days. Thanks to diabetes, arthritis and osteoporosis, the most
they can hang these days is about four.
COFFEE, TEA, TOURNIQUET? -- TSA officers at the Philadelphia International Airport discovered a loaded 9 mm Glock pistol hidden in the luggage of a flight attendant for US Airways Express. Under intense questioning, she admitted that the next customer who complained about the stale peanuts would get a couple of lead ones where it counts.
WARMING PRESENT -- A couple in Modesto, CA, in the process of moving their furniture into an apartment they had just signed a year's lease on, discovered the dead body of the former tenant wrapped in a rug. These have to be the unluckiest renters in the world. You ever tried to wrestle a 12-foot couch into your new living room without breaking the police tape?
PUMP ME UP -- A guest appearance on "60-Minutes" is included in
Arnold Schwarzenegger's current nationwide tour promoting his new memoir
"Total Recall." He's apparently still traumatized by the revelation
that he fathered a child with the maid under Maria's nose. The book is
in Spanish.
Copyright (c) 2012 by Robert L. Mills All Rights Reserved
SAY FROWN -- The New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission has instituted a new rule that bans smiling while having your drivers license photo taken. A brilliant cost-saving measure, actually. It finally dawned on them that with 97.2% of New Jersey residents arrested at one time or another, the photo can double as a mug shot.
MRS. CHRIST -- Archaeologists recently unearthed a small scrap of parchment which cryptographers determined had Sanskrit characters that referred to "Jesus's wife." Which falls right in line with the discovery by workers restoring Michelangelo's "The last Supper" that it was originally titled "The Last Bachelor Party."
SAND
'N' SURF -- Spurred by Barack Obama's pledge to "give everyone a fair
shot." the Malibu City Council has passed a measure requiring affordable
housing be made available to lower-income buyers. City Housing
Inspectors are being hastily trained to enforce the new law by watching
an old print of "Down and Out in Beverly Hills."
CALL WAITING -- A wild donnybrook broke out at an Apple 5 assembly plant near Shanghai
when factory workers attacked by company guards they claimed harassed
them. Over 75 were treated for injuries when ambulances finally
arrived. The workers tried dialing 911 on their complimentary I-5s, but no one could figure out how you're supposed to dial a number on them.
MRS.
MEATHEAD -- "All in the Family's" Sally Struthers was arrested on a DUI
in Maine after failing a sobriety test. She threw herself on the
mercy of the cops by telling them she was on her way to UNICEF
headquarters to tape an appeal for donations to starving and
undernourished super models.
Copyright (c) 2012 by Robert L. Mills All Rights Reserved
NOW ESCAPING ON RUNWAY THREE -- California Governor Jerry Brown's budget cutbacks will soon cost up to 400 prison guards their $65,000 per year jobs. If you ask me, Jerry's going too far with his prison system cost-cutting. For instance, San Quintin already has to share their guard towers with flight controllers.
GRRRREAT! -- A twenty-five year old tourist leaped from a tram at the Bronx Zoo into an enclosure where he wrestled with a 400-pound Siberian Tiger, sustaining puncture wounds, scratches, and a broken arm and leg. Police charged him with breaking and entering with intent to be entered and broken.
CLUB BLED -- Tiger Woods took himself out of the running at the back nine of the Tour Championship in Atlanta, posting his worse score there in 14 years. Which is totally understandable. When it gets this close to Thanksgiving, he imagines his putter jumping out of his bag and attacking him.
CRUISE CONTROL -- The Church of Scientology is reportedly scouring the planet for a new bride for Tom Cruise now that Katie Holmes has joined Nicole Kidman in the reject bin. Good luck, girls. To even be considered for the job, you have to be pre-approved by John Travolta.
BLASTED -- GOP-sponsored bill to create a national park honoring the Atom Bomb was defeated in the House 237-180. It was probably some of the planned attractions that put them off -- like the "Mushroom Cloud Pizza Pavilion," the "Geiger Candy Counter" and "Main Street Nagasaki."
Copyright (c) 2012 by Robert L. Mills All Rights Reserved
PROUD PANDAS -- Under the watchful eyes of keepers who know the difficulty of breeding Pandas in captivity, a pair of them at the National Zoo in Washington on loan from Beijing have given birth to a cub. You can tell the little guy knows he's Chinese. He immediately offered to perform for the tourists cheaper than the California Brown Bear in the adjoining enclosure.
TAB A INTO SLOT B -- The CEO of IKEA is scheduled to retire next year after thirty-four years with the company. He'll receive the traditional IKEA sendoff -- a Swedish meatball retirement dinner with lingenberries from the head office's rooftop garden and a golden screwdriver with his name engraved on it.
MAIDENFORM -- Singaporeans lined the streets to greet Prince William and Kate Middleton arriving from London for a short holiday. The trip was planned by the
Palace to get Kate's mind off of her current problems with long lens photographers, but it's apparently not working. She overheard another British tourist ordering a "Singapore Sling" and thought he was making fun of her.
SPLINTERED -- Lindsay Lohan was charged by New York City police with leaving the scene of an accident after hitting a pedestrian with her rented car shortly after leaving a nightclub at 2:30 am. In Lindsay's defense, it was partially the pedestrian's fault -- he was dressed like a tree.
ROUND-AND-ROUND SHE GOES -- The TV commercial advertising meter at this year's Super Bowl will be spinning at a record-breaking $7,000,000 per minute. Which actually is very patriotic -- it's just about the same increase-per-second as the national debt.
Copyright (c) 2012 by Robert L. Mills All Rights Reserved
JOINT CUSTODY -- A school district in Rhode Island has banned father-daughter dances and mother-son ball games on the grounds of sexual discrimination. They modeled the law after the one Beverly Hills passed some years back. For a different reason, of course. So many dads showed up at the dances, they kept running out of food.
PIGSKIN FOLLIES -- Those strike-induced NFL replacement referees are making lots more obviously bad calls than the team owners anticipated. Of course, some teams have been more gracious about the mistakes than others. In fact, one sub was presented with the game ball. Took a team of surgeons an hour and a half to remove it.
RIBOFLAVIN MAVENS -- A recent study commissioned by the National Nutrition Council found that folks who read the ingredient labels on grocery products are about ten pounds lighter than those who don't. It gets even better for the label readers. If they can accurately spell and pronounce all the chemical names, they're immediately hired by Dow.
STUPID MUSICAL TRICKS -- Barack Obama guested on the Letterman show and Dave may be thinking twice about it. Amid recent charges of lax security, the Secret Service performed background checks on Dave's entire staff. Paul Shaffer will have to get by with three missing musicians unless Dave springs for the bail.
COFFEE, TEA, METAMUCIL? -- A United Airlines flight attendant who was hired in 1949 recently retired amid much hoopla. Now before you applaud him for spending 63 years waiting hand-and-foot on disgruntled and abusive passengers, you should be aware that he spent nineteen of those years searching for his luggage.
Copyright (c) 2012 by Robert L. Mills All Rights Reserved
EXPRESS CHECK-IN -- Lindsay Lohan has been asked not to return to the Hotel Marmont in Hollywood after running up a bill for $46,000. Well, it wasn't a room charge exactly. She recently drove her car into the reception area and took out the fountain, a bank of telephones, and three bellhop stations.
LIES, LIES, LIES -- A recent study on lying has found that men typically tell twice as many prevarications, white lies and fibs at the workplace as their female counterparts do. Actually, I'm lying. The figure is really one-and-a-half times. See? I can't help myself. I've done it again. There was no study.
HUT HUT -- Philadelphia, Pennsylvania has opened world's first pizza museum devoted to the history and phenomenal growth of the multi-billion dollar industry. After taking a poll of the first visitors, plans for a special section devoted to the history of the anchovy have been scrapped.
TWO-BY-TWO -- Despite solid profits and a steady stream of repeat customers, Hooters Restaurants will update its menu and service staff uniforms "in order to appeal to both male and female guests." To which twenty-three million men replied: "They serve FOOD at Hooters?"
WHAT IS 48 MONTHS? -- Given a clean bill of health after his recent heart attack, Alex Trebek has signed to host four more seasons of "Jeopardy." A longtime friend confirms rumors circulating around Hollywood that twice a day, Alex burns candles in front of a statue of Merv Griffin.
Copyright (c) 2012 by Robert L. Mills All Rights Reserved
"Having spent twenty years writing for the indefatigable Bob Hope, and traveling all over the world, Bob Mills is well qualified to salute the famous corps of gag men who kept the comedian knee-deep in jokes. These first-hand recollections summon up the final phase of Hope’s career—and the end of the trail for an entire brand of show business."http://www.leonardmaltin.com/2009YearEndBookSurvey.htm
THE LAUGH MAKERS is now on KINDLE! (And Kindle equipped devices)
Download THE LAUGH MAKERS to your Kindle within one minute (for $2.99) by clicking on this link:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0041D9EPO
And if you're not yet a Kindle owner, when you purchase your new lower-priced Kindle with a capacity of 3500 books, be sure to sign up for our daily blog so you won't miss one issue of the web's most entertaining and insightful comments on the day's events... or a single serialized installment of THE LAUGH MAKERS. Order your Kindle today!
WakiLeaks: History Declassified 2000 (Vol. One) is now available on Kindle for $2.99
Compiled from Bob's newsletter "Funnyside Up" published in 2000. This is a yuck and chuckle-filled stroll down memory lane to a time before the Bush administration had inflicted its damage -- a time before the search for WMDs and Osama bin Laden. See what we were laughing at back then, who was in the news and who had yet to enter rehab -- which NFL stars had yet to do time in the Gray Bar Hotel.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004IZLXIQ
ROBO-HEAP -- California Governor Jerry Brown has signed a bill that will allow the driverless car to travel on the state's roads. Drivers will not, however, be allowed to sit in the backseat while computers do all the work. The driver must sit behind the wheel in case of an emergency -- well, except for the Lindsay Lohan model -- with that one, you're not allowed IN the car. 
