The Shaggy Dog Stories were interesting. I never had a
reading assigned in college that I found as fun as this. The humor was right up
my alley!
1. After reading all of the Shaggy Dog Stories, I realized
that each contained a pun that didn’t occur until the end of the piece. For
example, in the third tale about the “hard working string” who just wants a
beer but is faced with the discrimination of multiple bartenders who “don’t
serve strings,” the final line is, “I’m a frayed knot.” After the first story,
the reader is left anticipating the punchline of each story and, in my case,
even trying to guess it before it was revealed! That leads me to a second
feature of the stories, the sense of anticipation that is created. It was not
as apparent in the first passage, about the friars, but once the second piece,
about the panda, followed the same suit, there was a thrill in waiting for the
humor in each story to be uncovered.
2. In order to “get the joke” of the Shaggy Dog Stories, the
reader would have to read the passages carefully or he or she might miss the
joke altogether! For example, in the first story, the last line being, “Only Hugh
can prevent florist friars,” the joke, if read too fast or taken too literally,
wouldn’t be a joke at all. It would just be an ordinary, yet strange, sentence.
In addition, he or she would need an understanding of the American cultural phrases
used within them. For instance, if someone from another country who can read
English well, but doesn’t know the popular phrases used in it would not
understand the humor of the fourth story’s “Thank Friday, it’s God!” Without
the knowledge of the commonly used “Thank God it’s Friday,” the joke would not
have the same resonance.
3. To be honest, the Shaggy Dog Stories most accurately
coincide with the telling of any joke, setting up a situation to end in a
punchline that evokes a comical response from the audience. Also, each passage
had a punchline of its own that stood out for different reasons. The first tale
ended in “Only Hugh can prevent florist friars,” which is, what I have heard it
phrased, a mad gab, where one has to say a phrase over and over again until its
true meaning is revealed. It also features a cultural reference to our ol’ pal
Smokey the Bear reminding us that, “Only you can prevent forest fires!” The
second passage ended in, "Giant panda, lives in China, eats shoots and
leaves,” which is mistaking words for their homographs and taking a set of words
literally as the panda did in his merciless homicide at the restaurant! The
third piece ended in the phrase, “Nope, I'm a frayed knot,” which was a pun and
homophonic phrase to the term “I’m afraid not.” The fourth story ends in, “Thank
Friday! It’s God,” which is a play on the term, “Thank God it’s Friday.”
Lastly, the final tale ended in, "Would you believe a lawyer who told you
the Czech was in the male,” which is a combination of homophonic phrase and a
cultural reference of lawyers being particularly miserly with money. Each story
uniquely used different literary devices to get its point, or joke, across.
4. Each piece presented a story that had a problem that ended
in a resolution. For example, in the fifth tale, the lawyer’s Czechoslovakian
friend gets swallowed by a male bear and once he gets the sheriff to shoot and
kill the bear, the officer kills the other female bear because he can’t “believe
a lawyer who told [him] the Czech was in the male.” It may not have resolved
the lawyer’s problem in an orthodox way, but it worked for the story! Also, as
previously mentioned, each story had the element of anticipation for what the
punchline would be at the end that kept the reader on his or her toes.
