By this time, it appears that we’ve heard everything dirty that you can imagine. Although people are still offended by jokes in certain contexts, there aren’t too many things that are surprisingly too dirty. But that doesn’t mean that dirty jokes aren’t still funny, which Philly stand-up Doogie Horner (profile) shows in the book that he has edited Dirty Jokes Every Man Should Know. Published by Philadelphia’s Quirk Books, where Horner is a graphic designer, the book is a portable compendium of mostly sex jokes taken from various sources (FULL DISCLOSURE: I let Doogie borrow of few of my old joke books), but also features a set of Willie Nelson jokes from comic Chip Chantry (profile). Philly comics Roger Weaver and Conrad Roth (who has since moved to San Francisco) are also thanked, although it’s unclear which jokes they contributed. I tossed a few questions to Doogie by e-mail recently to find out more about the process and allure of dirty jokes. Suffice to say this post is NSFW.

1. Are dirty jokes as relevant as they used to be?

I wouldn’t say they’re less relevant than they used to be, but they’re certainly less uncommon. Fifty years ago there was a distinction between dirty jokes and regular jokes, but these days a lot of jokes that used to be considered dirty are almost quaint.

When I first started the book, I submitted modern dirty jokes, jokes about cancer, pedophilia, rape, murder. And the editors said “Uh, not that dirty.” They wanted jokes that were just kind of ribald.

So, the jokes in the book are definitely throwback jokes, because their smut is old-timey. Also, they needed to be jokes that anyone can tell, that depend on the language, not the delivery. And by nature those kind of jokes are the old Catskill kind. Anyone can tell them.

2. Deep down inside, what do you think it is about dirty jokes that appeals to people?

They’re shocking, they’re naughty. You’re getting away with something when you tell one. You’re not supposed to say “poopy,” but you’re saying it anyways! It gives you a little thrill.

3. Where did you find these jokes? Do you know how old they are?

I found most of them in old joke books. A lot of them I found in multiple books, told slightly differently each time. Sometimes a guy would be fucking a donkey, but in a different telling of the joke he’d be fucking a duck, or whatever. Some jokes people told me at bars. Some of the jokes I’ve known for a long time, just heard them from word of mouth, such as the moose joke, I’ve known that one for years.

I don’t specifically know how old any of the jokes are. Most of them I know are at least from the 50s or 60s, since that was the heyday of that type of humor, and that’s when a lot of the books were from. I’m sure a lot are older than that.

4. And some Philly comics gave you jokes as well?

Originally I asked some comics if they had any dirty jokes, but the problem was that their jokes didn’t fit with the style of the rest of the book. They were too obviously modern. Or, they were too short, one-liners. There aren’t many one-liners in the book. Roger Weaver wrote a great one: “What’s the difference between Paris Hilton and a snow leopard? It’s very difficult to find video of a snow leopard mating.” But we couldn’t put it in, because we didn’t use any one-liners.

The one exception is that we used Chip Chantry’s dirty Willie Nelson joke. However, I was able to make a Dirty Willie Nelson jokes sidebar, and that Willie Nelson one-liner was one of four or five Willie Nelson jokes (which Chip also wrote), and we put them all together, so that was different. Yeah, Chip wrote a bunch of dirty Willie Nelson jokes, and we pretended like that was a legitimate genre, as though it’s as common a theme as divorce jokes or pope jokes.

5. What is your favorite dirty joke?

I think it has to be the Moose Joke, because it’s the first dirty joke I ever learned. It’s too long to reprint here, but it’s on page 59 of the book. I also like the one about the two fleas on the beach (page 48), even though it’s not really funny, but it’s so strange, it begins with two fleas suntanning on a beach, I like that. And there was one I really like that they wouldn’t let me put in the book, which is “What’s the difference between a Cadillac and a pile of dead babies? I don’t have a Cadillac in my garage.” But they said no dead baby jokes.

6. What makes a good dirty joke?

It’s subjective, but my favorite dirty jokes are those that take place in an alternate reality, a world where crazy shit happens and everyone behaves like it’s normal. Like, there’s a cocktail party and in one corner there’s an elephant with an erect cock, but nobody thinks that’s unusual, that’s not even the punchline, that’s just the setup. A lot of old-timey jokes are like that, they live in an alternate reality. They’re the exact opposite of modern humor, where comedians try to be observational and realistic.

7. Did you write any for the book?

I wrote all the sidebars, all the commentary and the introduction and stuff like “When Is it Appropriate to Tell These Jokes?”. There are a couple different sections about particular genres, such as Pope Jokes, Lonely Lumberjack Jokes, and I wrote that commentary. I also rewrote all the jokes in the book, I didn’t copy any of them verbatim from the source material. I tried to tighten them up, hopefully I improved them.

There’s only one old joke whose punchline I completely changed, and it’s this one:

A woman told her lawyer she was divorcing her husband on the grounds of hobosexuality.

Her lawyer said “I think you mean ‘homosexuality.’”

– – –

Now, the original punchline is “No,” the woman said, “he’s a bum fuck.” But I changed it to “No,” the woman said, “he likes to fuck hobos.”

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