The last few Fridays, I’ve been sharing jokes from the Archer treasury of bad puns. I want to add a few that may or may not have been told when I was young. They’re included because they are equally pun-ishing:

The wildebeest and the animal trainer

Donny was an animal trainer who worked at the circus. That is, he worked at the circus until the circus went out of business. Then he had to find a new job.

Fortunately, the local zoo had an opening, and Donny got the job. It wasn’t quite the same, but at least Donny was around the animals he loved.

When things would get slow at the zoo, Donny would spend time with some of the animals, teaching them new tricks. As the animals became more proficient at their pirouettes, more and more people flocked to the zoo. Soon Donny was allowed to spend all his time training the animals to perform.

There was a wildebeest in the zoo that had been there since the zoo opened. Nobody was really sure how old it was, but it was well past its prime. Donny decided that his next task would be to teach that wildebeest some basic tricks. He started with some of the simple ones: Sit. Stay. Play dead. But the elderly animal just grunted at him and continued chewing its cud. Donny gave up out of frustration.

Davey, one of the other workers had observed the whole thing. He asked Donny for permission to try and train the animal. Donny laughed and said, “Sure, kid, knock yourself out.” Davey went to work, and after a few days, Donny was amazed to see the old wildebeest balanced on a ball, spinning a plate on his nose.

Donny rushed up to Davey and said, “You must be the greatest trainer in the world! Tell me your secret.”

Davey smiled at Donny and explained, “You forgot one of the basic rules in training zoo animals:”

Photo by Profeberger at en.wikipedia

“You can’t teach an old gnu dog tricks.”