THE MOTHER-IN-LAW JOKE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20800, 20 August 1929, Page 12

THE MOTHER-IN-LAW JOKE.

Most jokes, might be-labelled perishable, since lliey-so soon go out of date. But certain' other. ‘ jokes, such na the mother-in-law joke, are immortal! Jokes old as the hills, jokes familiar to us since childhood! ■ That, joke, for instance, of a fat man, sitting down" suddenly upon a top-hat—might it not be thought to have worn out! But no! It keeps its appeal! Its companion joke . “ goes ” as well in our enlightened day as ever it did in the 'sixties... , Its companion joke, the groat mother-in-law = joke, continues to “bring down the-house.” ■ In the sense of staying, how that joke does go! Anv reference, any back-chat, any song, any appearance (featuring a red-nosed comedian) of ’ma-in-law ” is certain ,of : rounds .of appreciative applause. ‘ ICot by any means only in “low” music .‘halls, or travelling circuses! The best scats in superior theatres still hail it with delight! One would imagine that the nightmare mother-in-law (querulous, scolding, or pugnacious, always liable to turn up uninvited on visits of indefinite length at the house of a miserable sonindaw who is reduced to. every kind, of subterfuge in order to avoid "her and whosq one secret passionate wish is murder) ,were the, national and/ familiar .figure of bur modern life,! ' ■ ¥ !(. If Yet how many youiig married couples have ever .seen this “hag” type of mother-in-law! Most of them will agree that site is a bogey who must be as dead as the dodo! But ■ that joke about her is an old soldier who never dies and does not even fade away! it goes on—on! Daily you read it in some paper, nightly you see seine variant of it at some show. Xot.only that! Among, the people who laugh.' at .it- arc .the l ' kind, of sons-in-law