Colloquy number 4 - The Joe Miller Joke Book

From Hollywood, the CBS Radio Workshop. Funny thing happened to me on the way to the studio. I met a woman who sleeps with cats. A woman who sleeps with cats? Yeah, Mrs. Cats. CBS Radio presents the CBS Radio Workshop, dedicated to man's imagination, the theater of the mind.

This afternoon, the workshop examines another little understood aspect of man's behavior, humor. in Coliqui Ford, the Joe Miller joke book, produced in Hollywood by William N. Robeson, and conducted by Dr. Frank C. Baxter, professor of English literature at the University of Southern California, Dr. Baxter.

If you fear that your radio is receiving two programs simultaneously here, one of very old jokes and the other a talk on literature, then don't touch the dial, believe me, this is all one program.

Now, my own interest in the ancient weaves is a scholarly one, stemming from the fact that jokes have always had a very real part in literature, at least as long as we have a spoken word.

Moreover, there's always been a heartening feeling of immediacy about jokes, not only because so many are topical, but because in one way or another we all use jokes with gratifying regularity. Some of us tell a joke to fortify a point we wish to make, to entertain, to enhance ourselves, us and the opinion of others, or perhaps we tell them for the laudatory purpose of relieving

the tedium of some delication. Now I can best show you what I mean by bringing you a few examples, perhaps, of a classic joke, a classic teller, and a typical occasion. Let's start with a man who's almost a semi-pro in the field, the after-dinner speaker.