Now That's Funny!: Jokes and Stories from the Man Who Keeps America Laughing

The Most Important Thing About This Book

I wrote my first book when I was six years old. The title was Me, and it was a no-holds-barred look at its young subject (turns out he was a perfect angel!). It was one page, the perfect length—long enough for the reader to enjoy the then state-of-the-art crayon typeface, short enough for them not to get bored.

I mention this because when the book editors at Reader’s Digest asked me to write a book covering my years as the magazine’s humor editor here, I was already a seasoned author and confident that I could produce a quality one-page tome. After all, my first book sold out its entire print run of one copy, and I was more than confident that my father would once again rise to the occasion and buy another.

This needs to be a little longer than one page, they said.

Are you sure? I asked. One page is a perfect length—long enough for the reader to…

We’ll need a few more pages because we want you to walk us through what it’s like to be the humor editor of America’s largest magazine. Tell the world how you choose the jokes and reader-submitted anecdotes that are among the most popular destinations in the magazine. Include essays you’ve written, as well as the interviews you’ve conducted with famous comedians. Who were the authors you most enjoyed working with? Who do…?

Yeah, great. But let’s first talk about my author photo?

Excuse me?

The photo on the book jacket. We are going to have one, aren’t we?

We haven’t really thought that far…

Well, I think we should discuss it.

But we haven’t even discussed what articles you might include in the book. Maybe…

I think if we have the author’s photo the rest will fall into place. Now, what should I wear?

We see this as a multifaceted work, part memoir and part collection of articles you’ve written and edited…

Know what would be nice? A black and white photo. Very dramatic. Besides, I have a lot of black and white clothes. I don’t look good in pastels.

You’ve been here nine years, right? We want to hear all about your favorite jokes…

Although one year for Halloween I went dressed as an L.L. Bean catalog and won first prize.

We also want you to discuss how the humor departments came to be, you know, ‘Life in These United States,’ ‘All in a Day’s Work,’ ‘Humor in Uniform,’ and…

Should I wear a hat? Hats are in.

…what you look for when a reader contributes a gag about his or her life…

Would you be able to see my socks? I have a collection of very cool socks. They’re hand-me-downs from my father. They all have holes in them, but don’t worry, they’re in the heels, so they’ll be covered by the shoes.

You wear hand-me-down socks?

My father has excellent taste in socks.

We also want to hear about the many celebrities you edited or interviewed…

Where’s the photo going to be? The back cover or inside the dust jacket? Will we have a dust jacket? Do books really get dusty? And if so, can’t you just wipe the dust off on your pants?

…like Woody Allen, Fran Lebowitz, Jerry Lewis…

How much are we going to charge for this book?

What does that have to…

If we charge a lot then we can afford a really good photographer. And makeup artist. Shouldn’t I be over zits at my age?

…

Should I smile or should I be serious?

…

How about when I pose I set my chin on the backs of my hands, you know, pompous-ass style.

…

…

…

Basically, I’m looking for a photo that will leave people thinking, Now that guy can write! Because, truth be told, I’m not sure the words in the book will do the trick.

How about this, why don’t you pull together your favorite humor articles from the past nine years, including interviews, essays you’ve written, and jokes you’ve run, as well as some explanation…

What about if I wore…

Let us finish! As well as some explanation about why you chose these pieces. And we’ll handle the author photo.*

*See back cover.*

My Life as an Award-Winning Jokes Editor

In 2011, Reader’s Digest humor editor Andy Simmons was honored with a Nobel Prize for his role in the advancement of the Jokes and Anecdotes Arts and Sciences. Here is the speech he delivered at the banquet.

I want to thank the Swedish Academy for finding my labor worthy of this highest honor. I feel that this award was not made to me as a man, but to my life’s work of retelling old jokes and cribbing gags from the Internet. I am especially gratified to be here, as I love smorgasbords. Las Vegas has some nice buffets, but nothing like the spreads you have in your lovely dining establishments.

Although I am being honored for my labor, it is my forbearers who deserve the credit. The first humor pages appeared in Reader’s Digest in 1943. Readers were sending in their amusing true stories in droves, and the editors here had a revelation: Great! Cheap labor! And thus was born Life in These United States, the first of our humor departments, which was soon followed by Laughter, the Best Medicine, All in a Day’s Work, Humor in Uniform, Graveyard Hoots, and Salmonella Sillies. (Sadly, the latter two did not prove as popular as their sister departments and were discontinued after only seventeen and twenty-four years, respectively.)

One of the early stories: A wealthy New Yorker, dressed in the Abercrombie & Fitch version of What a Man Should Wear in the Wilderness, walks up to a laconic Maine lobsterman. I see you are using fish bait for lobsters. You think it’s good, do you? he asks. The lobsterman shakes his head. No, I don’t. But the lobsters do.

Those who were able to recover from the hilarity responded, Hey, I can do better than that! Since then, we have been inundated. Twenty million true stories and jokes were sent to us over the years, one hundred thousand of which we’ve published.

When people find out that I am the king of ha-has, I always hear, I don’t care who you are, you can’t park here. Which is then normally followed by, "How can I get published in the Reader’s Digest? Why, this very exchange occurred just the other day at my wrestling class. I had Maya Angelou in a stepover armlock camel clutch when she managed to grunt, Mr. Simmons, I have a joke for your magazine, but I’m afraid you won’t like it."

Try me, Maya, I replied, loosening my grip just enough so that she could breathe. Here was her offering:

Rabbi Goldman is preparing to address an academic group on the Talmud when there’s a knock on the door. He opens it to find a gorgeous blonde in a flimsy dress.

Surprise! she shouts. The program head sent me here as a thank-you.

Rabbi Schultz did this? he roars. A man of God does this to a fellow rabbi? He grabs the phone and calls Rabbi Schultz. You sent me this woman? Have you no respect for me, my family, for my reputation? I can not believe you would do such a monstrous thing!

Just then, he notices the blonde leaving. Where are you going?

I didn’t think you wanted me here.

Why? I’m mad at him, not you!

Now we know why the caged bird sings—she can’t tell jokes. The fact that Maya Angelou trades in bawdy jokes notwithstanding, some might detect a slightly—how should I put this—moldy scent. Our answer? Precisely! You see, like any Fortune 1,000,000 business, we at Reader’s Digest rely heavily on product testing. Just as General Motors tests its cars for years prior to letting a customer get behind the wheel and crash it, we test our jokes before publishing them. But we have a far more rigorous screening process: Our tests last for eighty years, and they must survive joke books, Catskills comedians, and e-mails from your Aunt Birgitta who just had to share it with you. Jon Stewart, Louis CK, Chelsea Handler—who knows how funny they really are, because their gags lack the test of time. Not ours!

Our anecdotes are a different beast. They are sent in by readers who are only too happy to share their most embarrassing moments with thirty million other readers. In fact, we demand that these anecdotes not only be funny but juicy, too. This is because we’re gossips. That’s right, we enjoy reading all about other people’s oafish spouses, dim-witted kids, and lazy coworkers. We then run around the office saying, "You think you’re nuts? Look at what this guy’s crazy wife did!"

Before you start typing up stories about the time your husband tripped over the cat, know this: It’s not easy to relate funny stories. Many fall under the you-had-to-be-there umbrella. That is, it’s hysterical to everyone except those who have to read it. The anecdotes that do work, like these that I’ve run in the magazine, fall under three headings:

Misunderstanding

Our first day at a resort, my wife and I decided to hit the beach. When I went back to our room to get something to drink, the hotel maid was making our bed. I grabbed my cooler and was on my way out when I paused and asked, Can we drink beer on the beach?

Sure, she said, but I have to finish the rest of the rooms first.

Wit

What is that sound? asked a woman visiting our nature center.

It’s the frogs trilling for a mate, Patti, the naturalist, explained. We have a pair in the science room. But they’ve been together for so long, they no longer sing to each other.

The woman nodded sympathetically. The trill is gone.

Relationship

For some reason, the bookstore clerk couldn’t get the computer to recognize my preferred-customer card. Peering over her shoulder at the screen, I said, There’s part of the problem. It shows my birth date as 12/31/1899.

That’s right, my husband chimed in. She was born in June, not December.

They’re all short (so as not to bore anyone), they’re relatable (I can see my husband doing something stupid like that), and they tend to end on a punch line (okay, time to move on).

But it’s not enough to have a funny story; it must also be well told. Many people ask me how they can punch up their jokes or anecdotes. Why, this happened just the other day. I ran into the esteemed novelist John Irving. He was looking a little down so I shepherded him into a nearby bar and allowed him to buy me a drink—a Napoleon Brandy so top shelf the bartender required a small helicopter to reach it.

Andy, he said.

Mr. Simmons, I corrected him.

Mr. Simmons…I’ve often heard you state that you’re the greatest living humorist in the world.

In the world? I believe I said ‘ever.’

Ah, yes…ever. What tips can you share with me?

So I shared with him my secrets—not all of them, but just enough to get another drink out of him.

First, I told him, read the best material out there—the funniest stuff ever written in the English language. Twain, Wodehouse, Mencken, Seinfeld, Cosby devour it, dissect, absorb it…then steal it.

Steal it?

"That’s right, why go to all the bother of making stuff up when others have already done the heavy lifting?

Second, I said, after ordering a second round, when you write humor, make sure that the humor structure is sound. I suggest you begin with the punctuation. Before committing words to paper, figure out where the commas, colons, and periods go so that they look funny. Once you have funny punctuation, the rest falls into place. For example:     ,    ?    ,  —  :     ;    !!!!!"

"Frankly, this is pretty good on its own. I wouldn’t muck it up by adding words. Remember, at Reader’s Digest, brevity is a hallmark."

I then stumbled out of the bar, into the street, and got hit by a car.

For all you potty-mouths out there, here’s one more thing to keep in mind: Our jokes and stories have to be clean. You can’t use words like or , and you definitely must never mention something like .

Here’s the sort of joke we like telling at Reader’s Digest: Why does the Easter Bunny hide all his eggs? Because he doesn’t want anyone to know he’s screwing a chicken.

Yes, that’s the sort of joke we like telling in our offices but can’t run in the magazine. If I did, I’d get a little note back from my editor in chief that says, Oh, please!!!!!!! The first time I saw that I took it to mean she wanted more. So I threw in jokes about the little old lady who lived in a stiletto heel and the one about the traveling salesman who was trying to make it with the farmer’s cow. (When the farmer’s daughter walked in and said, I’ll do anything for you, the salesman said, Great! Hold the cow still.)

Turns out, I’d misunderstood what she meant. She didn’t want those jokes. You see, we’re a family-friendly magazine. And the family she had in mind was not the Mansons.

I said my five-year-old daughter told me all these jokes. My boss didn’t care. She didn’t want Simmons-family-friendly, either.

So part of our job in the humor department is to walk that fine line between what is funny and what we can print without overburdening our company servers with angry e-mails.

Now, it is time to put down our speeches, pick up our plates, and head over to the smorgasbord. Since learning of my prize, I have spent hours in my kitchen perfecting the art of pyramiding food atop a small plate, then balancing it until I reach my dining room table. The secret, I have discovered, lies in the placement of the Swedish meatballs. They must always top off the plate and should never be placed at the bottom beneath the filmjölk, Varmrökt lax, filbunke, or jordgubbar. My floor learned the hard way that once those meatballs start rolling, everything starts to teeter, and soon it’s every filmjölk for itself.

America’s Ten Funniest Jokes

It’s mayhem. Amid the clamor of pickle trays and pastrami-bearing waiters, eight