from jmcandrew, who asks, “Does this qualify as a geezer comic now for people who remember when long distance communication was prohibitively expensive?”

See, kids, back in the day…ok, yeah, definitely geezer alert time.

I collect what I call “obsolete jokes”: jokes that are no longer funny because technology—not the Zeitgeist—has passed them by. (The latter are common–consider most political humor, whose half-life is often quite short.)

One of these jokes involves a family eating dinner; the phone rings and the maid answers. She listens, says “Sure is!” and hangs up. A minute later it rings again, same story. After the third time, the master of the house asks her, “What’s with the phone calls?” and she explains, “Some joker keeps calling, saying ‘Long distance from New York’!”

One thing I particularly enjoy about these is the often multiple layers of obsolescence. For example with this one we have: family eating together; landline; maid (!); and of course the actual punchline.