Tom is the Tom turkey. He bought inflatable decoys to fool the farmer, but it didn’t work. And unfortunately, after you’ve been killed and eaten, you can’t take advantage of that appealing money back guarantee.
The framer bought inflatable turkey decoys (why? I don’t know) but they didn’t work because the real turkey hid among them (you can identify the real turkey by his skinny neck sticking out). To find the real turkey the farmer went trough all the decoys one by one chopping off their heads with the axe which is why he was unable to return them.
Bow having said that I realize that Usual John was right. I need to learn reading comprehension
Or it did work until the axe was put through the decoy’s neck, the guarantee being voided by the farmer putting his axe through all the decoys before reaching the real turkey.
Bgah! Too slow!
In case anybody missed it, there’s one real turkey among all the decoys. (The real turkey is near the middle of the back row.)
The joke makes even less sense if you don’t realize there’s a real turkey in the mix.
At first I thought Kevin might have had the intended answer but it doesn’t work. The real turkey is identifiable and the decoys did their job and you don’t need a decoy for penned in turkeys.
I thought I’d write a smart-ass answer “Ha! but what if Tom were the turkey!” and I’d bask in what a clever twist I had made. Then I realized “Tom” *is* a traditional name for a turkey and when I read Usual John’s answer and realized this might very well be the intended answer. The draw backs are, it needs to be spelled out a lot more clearly that Tom is the turkey, and “not getting a full refund” is, even for the purpose of humorous understatement, misdirected when the subject is beheaded, killed and eaten.
I don’t know if Kevin or Usual John has the intended answer but Usual John’s is funnier and works better once you get it but it’d be better if it had specifically stated Tom was the turkey or worded it so it was more implicit.
Oh, he was “unable” in that he literally was not capable of trying (humorous understatement– he was unable to because he was dead and eaten); not that the company wouldn’t take them back. Usual John has the intended answer.
But it says something that I got it but assumed I was being a total smart-ass …
Maybe if the decoy turkeys looked much more cartoonish and the real turkey looked worried and the farmer had a leer that showed he could see the real one. Or the caption could have have bite the bullet and specifically spelled out “Tom, the turkey” or “to avoid the fate of those before him” or something like that.
woozy – The generic name for a male turkey is “Tom” and for a female Turkey it’s “hen”. Like “cock” and “hen” for male and female chickens.
WOOZY: I think EXplicit is what you meant, and aren’t we gettin’ pedantic today!!
@Andréa, Today? We’re getting pedantic TODAY? Have you not met us?
And BTW, according to the Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe, it’s spelled ‘pedantic’ but it’s pronounced ‘pendantic’. ;-)
Just thought I’d throw in here that there is a company that specializes in “inflatable crowds” for movie production. Apparently their work was used in “The King’s Speech” among others.
beckoningchasm, isn’t it easier and cheaper to do it digitally?
Can’t ever forget this:
Unfortunately, Carvel’s accent is kind of muted in this commercial — but in my mind this will always be, “Tom the Toikey.”
oh no, not the pendants again!
I wonder how many of these they actually sold?
You mean how many Tom the Toikeys, Andréa?
Yeah, those turkey cakes . . .
Probably not as many as those Twerkey cakes that Nadia bakery in Minnesota sold.
?? ‘-)
“But it says something that I got it but assumed I was being a total smart-ass …””
I generally assume that I’m a total smart ass 24/7. It’s not so bad.
For me, anyway. Others HAVE been known to raise objections from time to time.
BIG seller, Andréa. And they use the same mold for Halloween- and Christmas-themed ice cream cakes. And a few others, but it’s hard for me to check on my phone.
I didn’t realize Carvel still existed.
I didn’t think so either– but the last time I visited my brother, he asked me to pick up an ice cream cake from the Carvel down the road from him.
Carvel also sells ice cream products to supermarkets (at least here in the northeast)
Carvel popped up in the latest season of the Adult Swim animated TV series “Venture Brothers”. They even did a tie in with character-themed Carvel cakes lucky viewers could win if they called a phone number and did their best character impression.
We have a Carvel about 5 blocks south of us and one maybe 10 blocks north of us. (Although technically they are on different streets as our street splits off the street to the north.)
Carvel has gotten rather expensive. We had a buy one, get one free for a cone and it ended up costing more than we figured it should cost for the two at full price. They do, however, have a free cone day once a year, as does Dairy Queen and Ben and Jerry.
When I was a kid going to Carvel was a treat – I would get the Brown Bonnet (vanilla ice cream cone with hardened chocolate syrup over it). My sister would get the cherry version of it, not sure if it was called a Cherry Bonnet or something else. It was only open in the summer when I was young.
A bit late, but here goes… The key to the joke is the word “inflatable”. Think inflatable dolls. The farmer can’t return all the inflatable decoys because the real turkey hiding among them just “used” them all, as illustrated by all of their shocked facial expressions. And the look of satisfied smugness on the real turkey. Does this count as an Arlo?
Comics I Don't Understand 
Tom is the Tom turkey. He bought inflatable decoys to fool the farmer, but it didn’t work. And unfortunately, after you’ve been killed and eaten, you can’t take advantage of that appealing money back guarantee.
The framer bought inflatable turkey decoys (why? I don’t know) but they didn’t work because the real turkey hid among them (you can identify the real turkey by his skinny neck sticking out). To find the real turkey the farmer went trough all the decoys one by one chopping off their heads with the axe which is why he was unable to return them.
Bow having said that I realize that Usual John was right. I need to learn reading comprehension
Or it did work until the axe was put through the decoy’s neck, the guarantee being voided by the farmer putting his axe through all the decoys before reaching the real turkey.
Bgah! Too slow!
In case anybody missed it, there’s one real turkey among all the decoys. (The real turkey is near the middle of the back row.)
The joke makes even less sense if you don’t realize there’s a real turkey in the mix.
At first I thought Kevin might have had the intended answer but it doesn’t work. The real turkey is identifiable and the decoys did their job and you don’t need a decoy for penned in turkeys.
I thought I’d write a smart-ass answer “Ha! but what if Tom were the turkey!” and I’d bask in what a clever twist I had made. Then I realized “Tom” *is* a traditional name for a turkey and when I read Usual John’s answer and realized this might very well be the intended answer. The draw backs are, it needs to be spelled out a lot more clearly that Tom is the turkey, and “not getting a full refund” is, even for the purpose of humorous understatement, misdirected when the subject is beheaded, killed and eaten.
I don’t know if Kevin or Usual John has the intended answer but Usual John’s is funnier and works better once you get it but it’d be better if it had specifically stated Tom was the turkey or worded it so it was more implicit.
Oh, he was “unable” in that he literally was not capable of trying (humorous understatement– he was unable to because he was dead and eaten); not that the company wouldn’t take them back. Usual John has the intended answer.
But it says something that I got it but assumed I was being a total smart-ass …
Maybe if the decoy turkeys looked much more cartoonish and the real turkey looked worried and the farmer had a leer that showed he could see the real one. Or the caption could have have bite the bullet and specifically spelled out “Tom, the turkey” or “to avoid the fate of those before him” or something like that.
woozy – The generic name for a male turkey is “Tom” and for a female Turkey it’s “hen”. Like “cock” and “hen” for male and female chickens.
WOOZY: I think EXplicit is what you meant, and aren’t we gettin’ pedantic today!!
@Andréa, Today? We’re getting pedantic TODAY? Have you not met us?
And BTW, according to the Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe, it’s spelled ‘pedantic’ but it’s pronounced ‘pendantic’. ;-)
Just thought I’d throw in here that there is a company that specializes in “inflatable crowds” for movie production. Apparently their work was used in “The King’s Speech” among others.
beckoningchasm, isn’t it easier and cheaper to do it digitally?
Can’t ever forget this:
Unfortunately, Carvel’s accent is kind of muted in this commercial — but in my mind this will always be, “Tom the Toikey.”
oh no, not the pendants again!
I wonder how many of these they actually sold?
You mean how many Tom the Toikeys, Andréa?
Yeah, those turkey cakes . . .
Probably not as many as those Twerkey cakes that Nadia bakery in Minnesota sold.
?? ‘-)
“But it says something that I got it but assumed I was being a total smart-ass …””
I generally assume that I’m a total smart ass 24/7. It’s not so bad.
For me, anyway. Others HAVE been known to raise objections from time to time.
BIG seller, Andréa. And they use the same mold for Halloween- and Christmas-themed ice cream cakes. And a few others, but it’s hard for me to check on my phone.
I didn’t realize Carvel still existed.
I didn’t think so either– but the last time I visited my brother, he asked me to pick up an ice cream cake from the Carvel down the road from him.
Carvel also sells ice cream products to supermarkets (at least here in the northeast)
Carvel popped up in the latest season of the Adult Swim animated TV series “Venture Brothers”. They even did a tie in with character-themed Carvel cakes lucky viewers could win if they called a phone number and did their best character impression.
We have a Carvel about 5 blocks south of us and one maybe 10 blocks north of us. (Although technically they are on different streets as our street splits off the street to the north.)
Carvel has gotten rather expensive. We had a buy one, get one free for a cone and it ended up costing more than we figured it should cost for the two at full price. They do, however, have a free cone day once a year, as does Dairy Queen and Ben and Jerry.
When I was a kid going to Carvel was a treat – I would get the Brown Bonnet (vanilla ice cream cone with hardened chocolate syrup over it). My sister would get the cherry version of it, not sure if it was called a Cherry Bonnet or something else. It was only open in the summer when I was young.
A bit late, but here goes… The key to the joke is the word “inflatable”. Think inflatable dolls. The farmer can’t return all the inflatable decoys because the real turkey hiding among them just “used” them all, as illustrated by all of their shocked facial expressions. And the look of satisfied smugness on the real turkey. Does this count as an Arlo?