My favorite thing about the old Bette Midler shows was when she would stop the concert and tell all those old Sophie Tucker jokes.
I will never forget it you know. I was in the woods last night with
my boyfriend Ernie. He said to me "Soph, these woods sure are dark, I sure wish I had a flashlight." I said to him, "So do I Ernie. You have been munching grass for the last ten minutes!"
I will never forget it you know. It was on the occasion of Ernie's eightieth birthday. He rang me up and said, "Soph! Soph! I just married myself a twenty-year old girl. What do you think of that?" I said to him, "Ernie, when I am eighty I shall marry me a twenty-year old boy. And let me tell you something Ernie:
twenty goes into eighty a helluva lot more than eighty goes into twenty!"
I will never forget it you know. I was in bed last night with my boyfriend Ernie and he said to me, "Soph, you got no tits and a tight box." I said to him, "Ernie. Get off my back!"
A little about Sophie Tucker from Wiko....
This gutsy, irrepressible "Jazz Age Hot Mamma" was born Sophie Kalish in Russia in 1884 just as her family was about to emigrate to the United States. They left when she was a mere three months old, settling in Hartford, Connecticut. She started performing as a youngster in her parent's small restaurant, occasionally singing and playing the piano for tips. Marrying in her teens to a ne'er-do-well, she was forced to continue at the restaurant to support a family of three (including baby boy Bert). Within a short time, however, she divorced, left her child with her parents, and headed to nearby New York with visions of stardom. Changing her name to the more suitable marquee moniker of "Sophie Tucker" (her ex-husband's name was Louis Tuck), she proceeded to take the town by storm.
Sophie started out in amateur shows. Not a beauty by any stretch, she was grossly overweight and quickly found that self parody and racy comedy, punctuated by her jazzy musical style, would become the backbone of her popularity. Playing at various dives, she earned a minor break in 1906 after earning a singing/piano-playing gig on the vaudeville circuit. Disguised in blackface, she played ragtime music. Her humor, of course, came at the expense of her weight but, with such ditties as "Nobody Loves a Fat Girl, But Oh How a Fat Girl Can Love," she had audiences eating out of the palm of her hand. They were laughing with her, not at her. One night her makeup kit was stolen and she was forced to stand in front of the curtain and entertain without it. The audience went crazy for her and the rest is history. She never wore blackface again.
I will never forget it you know. I was in bed one night with my boyfriend Ernie and he said to me, "Soph, how come you never tell me when you're having an orgasm?" I said to him, "Ernie, you're never around!"
I will never forget it you know. My girlfriend Clemintine is a filthy, vulgar ol' broad. She loves to keep me abreast of all the latest in filthy rotten jokes and filthy rotten songs. She rang me up the other day and said to me, "Soph, listen to this one. You've never heard anything like it. What do you get when you cross a donkey with an onion?" I said to her, "I have no idea what the hell do you get?" She said, "Usually you get an onion with really
long ears. But occasionally when the stars are just right, you get a piece of ass that's so good it makes you want to cry!"
I will never forget it you know. I was hangin' out my laundry the other day, minding my own damn business, when my girlfriend Clemintine leaned over the picket fence. She said to me, "Soph, how come you always know when to hang out your laundry, and don't get stuck in the rain like the rest of us do?" I said to her, "Clemintine, it's a perfectly simple proposition. When I wake up in the morning the first thing I do is roll over and look at my boyfriend Ernie. If it's laying on the right, I know it's
going to be a sunny day. If it's laying on the left, I know it's gonna rain." Clemintine said to me, "Soph, suppose it's standing straight up in the middle?" I said to her, "Clemintine, who the hell wants to do laundry on a day like that anyway?"
I will never forget it you know. You know that Clemintine she's a rascal you know. She loves to fix me up with these exotic-type fellows. The other day she called me up and said "Soph I gotta
live one for ya' this time." I said, "Send him over Clemintine." Twenty minutes later the doorbell rang and I opened the door and there was a man there with no arms and no legs. I said to him
"What the hell do you think you're going to do?" He said "I rang the doorbell didn't I?"
I will never forget it you know, my girlfriend Clemintine in the height of her profession was a great great stripper, but she hated it so violently that she would have to run to confession in between
shows. One day she completely forgot to put her shirt back on and she went into the church,nipples to the wind. A young priest stopped her and said, "Madam you cannot come into the House of the Lord in that fashion." "But I have a divine right," Clemintine said. "Okay, your breasts ain't bad but you better cover your head," the priest said. Well, after confessoin Clementine
was walking back and she slipped on a banana peel, her dress got caught on a nail then completely unraveleed as she fell down a flight of stairs. There she lay, quite, quite naked and quite comotose. A passing motorcyclist took pity upon her plight and put his crash helmet over her exposed groin. Then the doctor came and took a long look at her and said "We'll put her in the ambulance, but first we gotta get that cop outta there!"
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