Encyclopedia of Humor

LOS ANGELES TIMES, October 8:

One of the passengers in a Soviet spacecraft is fooling around with the equipment, and his monkeyshines may end the flight prematurely. The passenger is in fact a monkey named Yarosha — Russian slang for village troublemaker. Evidently bored on the fifth day of a scheduled 12-day flight, Yarosha slipped out of his harness and took a tour of the spacecraft. Tass, the Soviet news agency, reported that Yarosha was having a delightful time tampering with all of the equipment within reach. Watch out, Yarosha; if you break something, they’ll probably dock your flight pay.

The German controllers at Frankfurt Airport were a short-tempered lot. They not only expected you to know your parking location but how to get there without any assistance from them. So it was with some amusement that we (PanAm 747) listened to the following exchange between Frankfurt ground and a British Airways 747 (radio call Speedbird 206) after landing.

Speedbird 206: “Good morning Frankfurt, Speedbird 206 clear of the active.”

Ground: “Good Morning, taxi to your gate.” The British Airways 747 pulls onto the main taxiway and stops.

Ground: “Speedbird, do you not know where you are going?”

Speedbird 206: “Stand by, ground, I’m looking up the gate location now.”

Ground (impatiently): “Speedbird 206, have you never flown to Frankfurt before?”

Speedbird 206 (coolly): “Yes, in 1944. But I didn’t stop”.

On a recent flight, an elderly passenger kept peering out the window.

Since it was totally dark, all she could see was the blinking wing-tip light.

Finally, she rang for the flight attendant.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” she said, “but I think you should inform the pilot that his left-turn indicator is on and has been for some time.”

The city of Whittier, California was founded many years ago, mainly by Quakers. There is a prominent sign composed of large, brass letters on one of the financial institutions in that community identifying it as the Quaker City Bank. The last letter of the first word fell off during an earthquake yesterday, making the sign read “Quake City Bank.”

Brezhnev, a former ruler of Russia, was thought not to be too bright. He comes to address a big Communist party meeting, and starts:

“Dear Comrade Imperialists,”

The whole hall perked up – “what did he say??” Brezhnev tried again…

“Dear Comrade Imperialists,”

Well, by now the hall was in pandemonium – was he trying to call them Imperialists? Then, an advisor walked over to the podium and pointed to the speech for Brezhnev. “Oh…” he muttered, and started again:

“Dear Comrades, Imperialists are everywhere.”
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There was a famous anecdote that the reason Brezhnev’s (a former ruler of Russia) speeches ran six hours is because he read not only the original, but the carbon copy. In fact, there was a report near the end of Brezhnev’s life that he went down to south Russia to deliver a speech on science, and accidently gave the wrong speech – on culture – and didn’t even know it until it was over.