All the news that's fit to abuse, desecrate, adulterate, skew, twist, embellish, warp, humorize, fictionalize, satirize ... and print.

Humor us with this foolish questionnaire

In order to better serve YOU, the reader, I have compiled this questionnaire as part of my work in the cutting-edge field of humor column research.

My bosses are pressuring me to provide 8-10 percent more laughs in each edition of the Humor Gazette. I'm hoping the data you provide here will help me tap into the very marrow of the human funny bone.

The first 100 respondents will be eligible to win a gold-embossed collector's edition copy of my new best-seller - "Blah Blah Blah, Etc." (Offer void in parts of South Berwick.) To ensure optimum results, I must request that you please hold your laughter until the end of this column.

Warning: The following questions are "multiple choice," so respondents will need a working knowledge of the "alphabet."

Questions
1. When is your favorite time to read humor columns?

A. During an intimate moment with a loved one.
B. While speeding down the freeway and chattering on the cell phone in heavy traffic.
C. After the weekly liposuction treatment.
D. In those peaceful, solitary moments just before flushing.

2. Do you prefer humor columns that are:
A. side-splitting
B. knee-slapping
C. rib-tickling
D. windpipe-constricting

3. What is your favorite snack to nibble on while reading humor columns? (select up to 6)

  • kippered herring
  • tofu jerky
  • lima bean pizza
  • Meat Whiz
  • refried chitlins
  • Oysters Rockefeller
  • Venezuelan caviar
  • animal by-products
  • Spam-flavored lollipops
  • Tender Vittles
  • Pepto-Bismol smoothies
  • that nasty brown stuff that Grandma used to make

4. What is your current employment status?
A. pencil pusher
B. suit
C. dot-com geek
D. brown-collar slop jockey

5. What is your current family status?
A. single
B. double
C. disowned
D. married, divorced, remarried and living in squalor with 3.5 kids, 6.5 cats and an incontinent gerbil named Petey.

6. What is your current financial status?
A. mo' money
B. no money
C. self-made pauper
D. assets not sufficient to maintain the lifestyle to which you have become accustomed.

7. How much would you pay for this column if it was not provided free as part of this fine newspaper Web site?
A. 1 yen
B. a plug nickel
C. a red cent
D. $1.2 million

8. What are some of your favorite humor column topics? (select up to six)
o society's seamy underbelly
o squirrel terrorists
o philandering politicians
o humpbacked sperm whales
o humpbacked politicians
o porcelain fixtures
o the role of monkeys in U.S. foreign policy
o algebraic equations
o machine gun-wielding gnomes
o blonds
o Polish sausages
o the mating rituals of the indigenous North American loser.

9. What is your greatest fear?
A. fear itself
B. snakes
C. George W. Bush
D. missing an important final exam because you have no clothing
and can only run in slow-motion.

10. What is your favorite name to call those idiots who cut you off in traffic?
A. idiot
B. @$*#% jackass
C. nincompoop
D. road rage victim

Congratulations. Now that you have completed the questionnaire, you are eligible to enrich your life by reading the Humor Gazette as often as you like. However, I know your time is at a premium so before you just jump onto the bandwagon, I'm sure you'll want all the facts.

Consider:
? Humor Gazette columns offer 24 percent more insipid punch lines
than the other leading brand.

? Each week, we will print a generous supply of comical words like "beancurd," "whimwham" and "government."

? Special bonus columns will be peppered with rib-splitting words like "putty," "angstrom unit" and "Jello-brand gelatin."

? We also offer exclusive special reports like "True Confessions of a Praying Mantis,"
"The Trouble With Genetically Engineered Raisins" and "Youth Violence: Friend Or Foe?"

? And finally, this column has been endorsed by groups as diverse as Physicians For
Social Repugnancy, Daughters of the Albanian Revolution and the National Water Pistol Association.

Humor Gazette editor John Breneman is:
A. almost as funny as gangrene
B. a pathetic little man
C. a veritable comic juggernaut
D. no longer allowed to play with weapons of mass destruction.

John Breneman
6-24-01



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