Don’t let the Audition Go to Your Head!

I went to my dinner theater audition yesterday. I think it went reasonably well. I prepared a monologue I stole from Mad TV, I sang a few bars from Sukiyaki, and I told them a joke. It’s a joke I actually got from Ema Nymton, who’s a great source for such humor. What I like so much about this joke is that it’s flexible and you can make it your own. Sure, it’s not as legendary as The Aristocrats, but it’s also not as crass. It’s a clean joke that I think has tremendous potential. Anyway, here’s my version of it:

A man walks into a bar with a giant, spherical, orange head.

“Excuse me sir, you can’t wear that in here,” says the bartender.

“You don’t understand sir, this is my head,” the man replies.

Seeing the mouth move and the expressive eyes and everything, the bartender looks in awe.

“How on earth did that happen?”

“Well, it’s sort of a long story. Get me a rum and coke and I’ll tell it to you.”

So the bartender fixes his drink and the orange-headed man begins telling his story.

“Okay, well, a year ago I was part of this excavation – I’m an archaeologist you see. Well, I found this oil lamp, and I started cleaning it, and wouldn’t you know it, a genie popped out of it, you know, like that movie Ali Baba.”

“You mean Aladdin?”

“Whatever. The point is, this big gay genie popped out and granted me three wishes. Now, I should preface this by telling you I’m a very impulsive person, so I needed some time to collect my thoughts. I mean, it’s not ever day that you get three wishes, and, oh, I was just so excited you know?

“Okay, so I thought for awhile and finally I was ready for my first wish. I wanted to have a lot of money, but not be too famous you know? So the genie made me this sweet wallet which always has whatever money I need, wherever I go. It has every currency for every country and this way I can spend what I need and live in relative wealth, without the notoriety attached.

“So I thought long and hard about it and I decided that my second wish would be to be able to go wherever I wanted, and really fast. I needed like a spaceship or something. So the genie made me this really sleek spacecraft that can travel at speeds of mach 8 through the Earth’s atmosphere. I can get from Ottawa to Beijing in under an hour. I’ve got it parked just outside, it’s awesome.

“And then for my third wish, and I think this is where I really went wrong, I asked for a giant, spherical, orange head.”

“Why on earth did you do that?”

“I don’t know. I told you I was impulsive. I was on a roll, and it seemed like a good idea at the time.”