Talk:Shaggy dog story

message: This guy offers a plausible eteology of the expression, "shaggy dog story" --  see what you think:
The meaning and origin of the expression: Shaggy dog story
Hazratio (talk) 15:37, 25 December 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Plausible Eteology of the Expression 

message: Somebody nominate this for outstanding article or whatever. It's just awesome.
:Uh...  why don't you? :-) --Ihope127 15:57, 29 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Nominate

message: Anyone think that Tristram Shandy belongs in this article somewhere? I'm not sure if it's the original literary shaggy dog story, but it's and oldy and a goody. It's quite punny. Actually, come to think of it, it's the original cock and bull story. ;) --Dante Alighieri 03:37, 23 Aug 2003 (UTC)
thread_title: Tristram Shandy

message: I'm canadian and some of the jokes were hard to understand without the explanations there - I'm happy that they are there - the fact that they end in a pun is pretty hilarious - I love this page - one of the best - keep up the awesome work!--Chao 23:49, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm Dutch, English isn't my mothertongue, however I did "get" all of the jokes here (entertaining read I might add). This page seems fine as it is with the hints, even though the jokes might be hard to comprehend for some. The baseball description ("Bottom of the 9th, all bases loaded") seems pretty well-known outside of the U.S. JeroenHoek 21:39, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: International

message: The Symphony Orchestra joke depends not only on the similarity of the concluding sentence to "It was the bottom of the ninth, the score was tied and the bases were loaded with two outs", but also on the fact that the story actually leads up to the concluding sentence.  Although the word "basses" does have more similarity to "bases" than "bassists" does, 1) "bassists" is close enough for the joke to work, and 2) according to the story, the bassists (the players of the basses) were loaded (drunk), not their instruments (the basses). KickAir8P~ 17:50, 2005 May 12 (UTC)
:"basses" is used to refer to a group of people in this case, all though not very elegant English shaggy dog stories needn't be. Anyone else care to comment? JeroenHoek 18:05, 12 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: "bassists" vs "basses"

message: I removed the following story because of its strong language and content. This is an encyclopedia, meant to be accesable to anyone, including children. If you don't agree with this removal, please discuss it here. JeroenHoek 07:58, 9 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Eh? Wikipedia is not censored for the protection of minors Jeoh 09:19, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed Aristocrats 

message: I think the story of the Purple Wombat should be turned into some sort of saturday-morning cartoon or a movie.
Or a webtoon. Or webcomic.
And it should have a different ending.
RocketMaster 00:45, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cartoon Purple Wombat. 

message: Would it be unencyclopedic to include variants?  In the American Midwest, the story goes by the name "Purple Muffins".  The eight-year-old protagonist is told that "Purple Muffins" is the worse swear word in existence.  He asks the teacher what it means and is sent to the principal's office; the principal expells him, his parents disown him, he is arrested by a police officer, and sentenced to thirty years in prison-- all for the sake of this word, and he doesn't even know what it means.  Each trauma is preceeded by the hero recounting the previous traumas and then hesitantly revealing the word.  In prison, even murderers and hardened criminals avoid him-- because he's in prison for saying "purple muffins".  He gets out of prison, gets a drink at a bar, and recounts his troubles to the bartender.  The bartender tells him that his brother knows what the word means-- he lives right across the street.  Our hero heads across the street-- and is promptly hit by a truck.
Another variant I've run across gives the hero a tragic flaw: he just wanted to be cool.  Some fifth graders had told him the word-- because if he was cool, he would use the word.  The phrase "I wanted to be cool" becomes part of the repitition as he recites each event.
Usually the person telling the joke walks away brisquely after having said "and he was hit by a truck and died".
:Here in the UK, for years I've known a very similar joke about a boy who is something of a "teacher's pet" and when he sees the other kids writing "naughty words" on the blackboard, he rubs all the words off and replaces them with a "good word", "Peanut Butter".  The joke then details how the teacher comes in and is shocked and sends him to his head of year.  Then the joke goes on for quite a while, detailing how the boy is sent to the head, expelled and sent home, chucked out of his house, chucked out of various relatives houses, arrested by a policeman, sent to court, sentenced to 60 years of imprisonment, and put in solitary as all the other criminals are scared of him.  At the end of the joke, he is finally free, and runs out into the road, yelling "I'm free!  I'm free!  I'm going to start my life afresh!  I'll never write 'peanut butter' on the blackboard again!  I'm not going to waste my life any more..." at which point he is knocked down by a speeding lorry and killed.  The story teller then asks the audience, "And do you know what the moral of the story was?" and pauses (the audience will probably say something like "Don't write 'Peanut butter' on the blackboard?") "No, always look both ways before you cross the street!"  I think this version is especially funny because there are three jokes - it is ridiculous, the anticlimax, and the ending, which is a parody of road safety lessons at school RobbieG 11:09, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Speaking of the Purple Wombat 

message: Changed the explanation of 'Mickey Mouse outfit' to the correct one in the notes. Of course the company referenced in the punch line varies with the intent of the teller (and you Mac and *nix people know who you are <g>). Be gentle, it's my first time...MrFurry 12:43, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Sultan of Brunei

message: The article has gotten too long and has too many examples.  Shouldn't this stuff be moved to Wikisource ? Kundor 04:52, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Too long 

message: Kurt Vonnegut's story "Thomas Edison's Shaggy Dog" is a story about a shaggy dog, not a "shaggy-dog story" joke. The story is humorous, but not because it has an absurd punchline or pun. Just posting this before someone adds it in foolishly again; be sure to understand the article before you cite an improper example.
Mikeguy 16:51, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Do yer research! 

message: Isn't this joke an example of an anti-joke? Since there's a lot of build up to the punchline, which is an anticlimax.
:According to my mother, shaggy dog stories are so named because they are like a shaggy dog: the dog looks large, but once you get past the fur, there's nothing left. So too with the joke. I don't know where my mother heard this, however. Sevendust62 (talk) 19:35, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: That would be a nice explanation if there's a verifiable source for it. Jonathunder (talk) 00:13, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Anti-joke

message: Where the hell are all the examples you're discussing in the comments?  I came to this page explicitly to demonstrate the concept to a friend of mine, but all the exegesis in the world won't do 1/1000th the good as a decent example.  Has someone been vandalizing this page?  I don't actually know much about how Wikipedia works, but if someone tells me how, I'll revert the vandalism.  71.193.152.63 12:28, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Examples??

message: The punk band Dead Milkmen often engage in musically-accompanied shaggy-dog stories in concert, some of which have been recorded for albums, such as "Stuart" and "Cousin Earl".  If you've ever heard of a lesbian left-handed albino midget Eskimo, you have heard a classic shaggy-dog story.  Asat (talk) 08:12, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Musical shaggy dogs that chill me to this day 

message: Hi, as I was reading through the article and editing it for clarity, readability and coherence (my, my, what long words), I said to myself upon reaching the pun section, "Ed Foster who he?" being surprised that it was not a wikilink. Well, who knows? That's why I put a  tag as I can find no reference to this famous joke (or person) on the Internet apart from sites that just collate information from Wikipedia, so one just goes round in circles as the only exisitng source for this information is Wikipedia itself!
So is this guy from Chicago? Does anybody know who we are talking about? Otherwise, despite the fine pun, it will have to go, or be altered to a more generic version.
And I would also like opinions on whether the Spanish shaggy dog stories section should go? It needs some serious copyediting, which I don't mind doing, but does it belong here? Maybe retitle the section to "In other cultures"?
It is obviously written by a native speaker who is enthusiastic about the subject, but I saw the debate above about removing (or not) examples of jokes and I understand that a lot of material has been excised from the article, then again these are oral traditions as argued above so difficultly sourced,  so keep or delete? CaptainScreebo Parley! 16:12, 15 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ed Foster who he? 

message: ... is not a shaggy dog story even in the widest of senses, because it is poignant, it has a climax and is a true story. Maikel (talk) 13:45, 10 October 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Alice's Restaurant Massacree 

message: While the example jokes do kinda relate to a shaggy dog story, I think they're not shaggy dog stories. I think the explanation is wrong. I can't find any sources, but in my opinion, a story is a shaggy dog story because it contains a lot of fluff and has an anti-climactic ending (so far so good). Just like a shaggy dog. The shaggiest dog can have a lot of fur, but underneath it's basically nothing. and THAT'S what the correct explanation should be. A story that contains so much extra's to distract from the fact that underneath it's just a scrawny little dog (story).
And, I think therefore the jokes don't really conform to this archetype.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 185.108.224.4 (talk) 08:58, 2 May 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: Wrong interpretation?

message: Wouldn't Nate the Snake qualify as a shaggy dog story? As a rather well-known example, should it be added to the "Other examples" section? Avoyt (talk) 03:26, 23 December 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nate the Snake? 

message: With all due respect to those trying to define the archetype of the joke, the examples in literature, or in music... Why not give an actual funny example from a real life comic? We can start with The King of Shaggy Dog Stories... (An even better example.)
And before you say anything, yes. I read the previous topics about adding the examples back. It's just that they don't belong to the comedy portal. אבריך (talk) 03:31, 24 December 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why not give a modern example? 

message: It refers to any long story or tall tale, not just exclusively "shaggy dog stories". The Wiktionary entry says as much. 195.187.108.130 (talk) 14:57, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  ''spin a yarn''