Customer Reviews

Milton Berle's Private Joke File: Over 10,000 of His Best Gags, Anecdotes, and One-Liners

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This has to be the most impressive joke book ever asssembled. I've seen others that have lots of very funny stuff. Others that are better organized. And others that better reflect a comedian or editor's particular humor page per page. This one is truly a joke file. It's a big, thick, fat book with highly readable type -- and jokes that "rock." These jokes range from old-style vaudeville, burlesque jokes to jokes more "modern," from puns to insults, to long anecdotes. I'm an entertainer and when I do a show and am looking for a joke I look to this; sometimes I use one of them to fill a gap but often it gives me an idea upon which I can expand. If you like to laugh or need laughs for your speaking programs, shows, etc. you MUST have this on your library shelf. I often enter jokes that I like in my database but there are just so many I have cirlced here that I love that I go to the original. Also, it is big and fat and hilarious but the subjects may not include every single subject you want. Some other "big" joke books have more subjects, but this covers most of the basics and the selection is so wonderful that it's worth it. Actually, if you get this you should have the second volume he did, too -- which I also have and enjoy. Joke per joke I think this is the best, most diverse joke book ever published. Well worth the price in the enjoyment you'll get and the laughs you'll generate!

This book contains every joke you have ever heard, although the setting may be presented differently. The index is not too helpful because the joke you heard may have been about two guys in Arizona, but Berle tells it about two women in India. Some of the jokes assume a Jewish or a New York background, and are a little hard to use in other settings. Still, it is a rich resource for toastmasters, etc. I suggest you just read the whole book and mark jokes you like. Make notes inside the cover to find them again.

This book is filled with many ideally sized jokes arranged by numerous topic. Although I do not appreciate off-color jokes, most of those are avoidable by avoiding the off-color topics.

I have used many of these jokes in writing and speaking and highly recommend this as perhaps the funniest large-volume jokebook.

...every morning someone comes in to dust off the sales clerks! Wokka Wokka

Ha wasn't that a hoot? It's just one of the 10,000 jokes I now own because I picked up a copy of Milton Berle's Private Joke File.Berle, or Uncle Miltie, was a vaudeville performer before he jumped to TV in the 50's and many of his jokes go back that far. He also gives advice on how to stage a roast for charity, how to incorporate funny foreign accents into your act, and he actually has a small "chapter" on "K' words.(Words with the K sound are automatically funnier than words without it. Most of his ideas are 50+ years old, so they may seem a little, "anachronistic" On the other hand quite a few do work and Berle gives some interesting historical tidbits on working as a comic all those years ago. And it's always interesting to see what people laughed at back in the day.But here, see for yourself:


A recession is when you have to tighten your belt. A depression i swhen you have no belt.

From behind, she looks like 2 puppies fighting.

He's so fat that every time he goes thru a turnstile, he has to make 3 trips!

He's so fat he got on a rowing machine last night and it sank!

My wife and I have a waterbed. She calls it the Dead Sea.

A neurotic builds castles in the air. A psychotic lives in the castle. A psychiatrist collects rent from them both.

How can you tell if a turkey is a Republican? If it has two right wings!

She's so ritzy, the bags under her eyes are Gucci!

What acts like a male rock star,looks like a male rock star and talks like a male rock star?....A female rock star!

He's so rich if you asked for a salad at his house they served you shredded money!

They now have a teenager doll. You wind it up and it resents you for it!

Wrinkles are hereditary. Parents get them from their children!

He had so many wrinkles an accordian once fell in love with his face!

King Soloman had a thousand wives. That way, the odds were pretty good that one of them wouldn't have a headache!

My wife complained about not being wanted, so I went to the post office and put up her picture.

My wife is so frigid, when she opens her mouth a light comes on!

A friend of mine knows what worry is. He's got a secretary and a note from a bank and they're both overdue!

Why don't they have icecubes in Poland? The lady who knew the recipe died!

It took the Mormons six months to come out west. That's what happens when you let women read the road maps!

An Israeli sea captain is called a Yom Skipper!

They have a new device for keeping the inside of your car quiet. It fits right over her mouth!

She has a million dollar figure, but the top half is counterfeit!

I once had a meal in a German-Chinese restaurant. The food was delicious but an hour later I was hungry for power!

Actually some of these jokes aren't bad at all. And there's something to be said for knowing a few zingers that don't fit in with today's P.C. atomosphere. And if you're like me, you're the kind of guy who likes to sometimes torture people with the sheer corniness of a joke. This book provides corn by the bushel! Alright, I'm gonna recommend it.

Uncle Milty, now gone. Ten- thousand jokes from his file in one volume. Uncle Milty reportedly would ask his audience to name a subject and he would immediately reply with a joke. Here some of them are, in five- hundred categories and over six- hundred pages. A lot of jokes.
And a lot of them not very funny.
And some of them sort of funny.
And some very funny.
Jokes, anecdotes, puns, little stories. The whole bag.
But of course without the intonation, and the look, and all the million and one tricks that Milty made us laugh with.
The king of the comedians.
One little story tells here about Milty and his famous show- business mother who pushed him everywhere. He was what he had to be. If they needed an Italian kid he did an Italian accent. If they needed an Irish kid he did that . One time an agent came and said to the mother that they needed a dog in a certain show. She immediately turned to her son and said ' Bark'.
And of course he did , the star of the Texaco Theatre who in television's first years on Tuesday nights made America look at the little box and laugh.
This book should be in the library not only of those who love and practice humor, but in the library of those nostalgic for the America of another time.
Uncle Milty lived to about ninety or so before he said good- bye. Of them all the only one who was still able to thank him for the memories was Bob Hope who made it I believe to one- hundred.
What an America it was. And it's gone.

Milton Berle is at his best in this book. He has so many topics to choose from to have a few laughs about. One-liners to 3-5 paragraph jokes are included. I suggest you put this one on your list.

Milton Berle's Private Joke File: Over 10,000 of His Best Gags, Anecdotes, and One-Liners

I remembered Milton Berle from my youth. His jokes were funny to my parents. I purchased this to book to remind me of what was funny so long ago.

I have not finished reading all of the jokes, but I found some of them to be funny. However, many of them are more to the 1950 - 1970 years 'funny'.

I must say that many of the things found in this book did bring back memories of a time when days moved at a much less hectic pace.

I tried to like this book because it is so thick and chunky and rammed with jokes, the problem was every time i read one i want to cry for the money i spent will never be redeemed and i will never get one laugh from it.

I cannot pinpoint why it is, and Milton Berle, bless him he looks like a sweet older gent, but i am sorry these jokes are NOT FUNNY.
Maybe it is again the American humour thing, i also found 'the pretty good joke book' really bad as well, but it had 35 five star reviews on amazon. I bought Milton's mammoth book on the positive reviews but i am guessing AGAIN that most of the reviews are coming from Americans who find this sort of humor funny.

I am not being racist, i just dont get American humour.

I will now open to ANY page in this gigantic book and find a joke on that page to illustrate my point.

I opened on page 123 and it is on the subject 'california'.
joke: You can always tell a Californian car. It doesnt have a muffler under it. It has a Pedestrian!

There are thousands of cringe worthy jokes in here, i read about 50 of them and each one of them made me want to throw the book on a fire so no one else would have to read it.

I am sorry Milton, i dont think this book should be available for people outside of America.
I dont get it.

doctor: You should live to be 80
patient: I;m eighty-five
doctor: see, what did i tell you.

If that is funny, then yes buy the book.

I had seen Milton Berle on TV and he seemed funny them, so I bought this book and was ever so disappointed. Over 600 pages and under 100 laughs, and that includes groaners. H. Allen Smith jokebooks, if you can still find them, are better written and so much funnier. The editor of this book also bears some responsibility for this book as it is obivous he cut nothing. The book carries far too many vaudeville and burlesque bits that might have been funny before the depression. Sadder still are the inclusion of racist and ethnic stereotype jokes with a poor rationale of why these jokes are OK to tell. Again, the editor of the book deserves some blame here. For the price of this book, one could purchase any single George Carlin, Richard Pryor, etc. CD and it would provide more laughs and be a better value.

I ordered the used book: Milton Berle's Proivate Joke File and received the book in good condition. I am very happy with the transaction and will order books from Amazon in the future for sure.