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No Joke More Horrible

While waiting for my fingers to get on the ball and start typing a real post, here is the most horrifying joke ever broadcast on a mainstream network television show. According to the Internet, this is from 1987 on ABC.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsjL6KRiYPA

Again, this is why the ’80s were a strange, strange time. Even the audience (if that is is a real audience there) sounds uncomfortable in the long, “cute” pause after that line.

If you want to tie this into today, this is the sort of thing that the Gilly sketches on Saturday Night Live (there was another one in this last episode) are trying to parody — the idea that destructive, illegal and psychotic behaviour is actually mischievous and adorable. It’s not a bad idea; it’s just that 1) It consists of the same jokes repeated over and over in every sketch, and 2) Gilly’s behaviour is actually kind of bland what you could get away with at 8 p.m. on ABC in the ’80s.

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