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Official News Release from YUDU
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Release Date: - Thursday 13th November 2008

"DEAD PARROT" SKETCH ANCESTOR FOUND IN WORLD'S OLDEST JOKE BOOK
- Monty Python Gag Dates From 4th Century Greece

World's Oldest Joke Book (+ Jim Bowen) Makes Comedy History
- Becomes First Multi-Media Joke Book

4th Century Jokes Are "Strikingly Similar" To Modern Ones
- Jokes On Sex And Farts And Ugly Wives All Ring A Bell

Jim Bowen Brings Ancient Gags Back To Life: It's "Jurassic Park For Jokes"

To Download Jim Bowen Video or Pics: www.yudu.com/oldestjokebookmediakit

LONDON, 13 NOVEMBER, 2008: A direct ancestor of Monty Python's famous "Dead Parrot" sketch has been unearthed in a joke book dating from Greece in the 4th Century AD.

A new English translation of "Philogelos: The Laugh Addict" ( www.yudu.com/oldestjokebook ), the world's oldest joke book, turns out to contain a joke in which a man complains that a slave that he has just bought has died.

"By the gods", answers the slave's seller, "when he was with me, he never did any such thing".

In Python's famous Dead Parrot sketch, written 16 centuries later, the owner of a pet shop replies in similar vein when a customer complains that the parrot he's just bought from the shop is dead. The seller adds that the parrot "is pining for the fjords".

By the law of the time when the Greek joke book was written, the seller of a slave was liable for damages if a slave he sold proved to be defective.

The world's oldest joke book, complete with 265 very old jokes, today makes comedy history by becoming the world's first multi-media joke book -- complete with video footage of comedian Jim Bowen bringing the ancient jokes back to life by performing them at a London comedy club.

"Philogelos: The Laugh Addict" is published today as a multi-media e-Book on YUDU ( www.yudu.com ), which lets anyone publish, buy, share and sell their own digital documents.

The new book boasts both a new translation from the Greek by William Berg, an American professor of Classics, and video of Jim Bowen, the veteran British comic, restoring the "extinct" jokes to life in front of a 21st century audience.

It is also the first known joke book to contain not just text, photographs and turning pages but also embedded sound and video.

"This book is a small step for old jokes but a giant leap for joke books as a genre", says Richard Stephenson, CEO of YUDU. "It might contain some of the oldest -- and worst -- jokes of all time; ones that would fall flat in a traditional joke-book where all you could do was read them. But with the help of video, and his own talent, Jim Bowen brings them back from the dead. It's like Jurassic Park for jokes."

Some of the jokes in Philogelos are "strikingly similar" to modern ones, says Jimmy Carr, the comedian and co-author of "The Naked Jape", a recent book on the history of comedy. Their subjects include farts, sex, ugly wives and assorted dimwits.

Bowen agrees: "One or two of them are jokes I've seen in people's' acts nowadays, slightly updated; they put in a motor car instead of a chariot... Some of them are Tommy Cooper-esque."

Bowen, 71, began his own stand-up career on the Northern club circuit before gaining TV fame on the 1970s show, "The Comedians". But he remains best-known today as host of "Bullseye", the ITV game-show of the 1980s and 1990s. "Bowen is a British comedy great", says Stephenson.

Berg, who translates and introduces the book, is a former Classics professor at both Stanford and UCLA universities, and a fan of Greek humour.

A Student Dunce Walks Into A Bar...

As in modern comedy, many of the jokes in Philogelos hinge on the stupidity of the main character. But while such dimwits are sometimes portrayed as members of a particular "ethnic" group ("a Kymean", "an Abderite", etc), the most frequent butt of such jokes is what the translation calls "a student dunce".

One of a pair of twin brothers dies. When a student dunce runs into the surviving twin, he asks, 'Did you die, or was it your brother?'

"Stereotyping has always been an integral part of comedy", says Bowen. The Greeks got around the Political Correctness risk, he says, by telling most of their gags about "student dunces". "How's that for a cop-out?"

Sex And Farts And Ugly Wives

Jokes about sex and ugly wives also have a modern ring to them. "This one in particular rang a bell", says Jimmy Carr:

Someone needled a well-known wit: "I had your wife, without paying a penny. He replied, 'It's my duty as a husband to couple with such a monstrosity. What

Sex is not the only age-old theme in the book, which also boasts several fart jokes:

A fool sits down next to a deaf guy and farts. The latter, noticing the smell, cries out in disgust. The fool remarks, 'Hey, you can hear all right! You're kidding me about being deaf!'

Reflects Bowen: "Farting is, I suppose, intrinsically funny, isn't it? You know, because it's embarrassing, especially if it's not intended."

The above fart joke, notes the American writer Jim Holt in his own new book on the history of jokes, "Stop Me If You've Heard This", closely resembles one popular with schoolchildren today: "Why do farts smell? So deaf people can enjoy them too". Says one pundit in Holt's book: "People on the internet today have no idea that the jokes they're trading are hundreds of years old."

The Laurel And Hardy of Their Day?

The 265 jokes in Philogelos are attributed to a pair of jokers called Hierocles and Philagrius. While it is tempting to think of them as, say, the Laurel and Hardy of their day, the truth is that we don't know who they were - whether they were a double-act or lived generations apart. They were, anyway, more likely to have been the compilers of the jokes than the original gag-writers.

Jokes That Stand The Test Of Time

So, why does some humour stand the test of time while other humour dates?

Replies Bowen: "[Bob] Monkhouse once said to me, 'There are two kinds of comedian: The man who tells funny stories and the funny man who tells stories. The funny man who tells stories will long outlive the man who tells funny stories." He cites the late Tommy Cooper as an example of the funny man, who will always be funny.

Adds Bowen: "Comics like George Burns and Jackie Mason, guys who are wicked with words, they will always survive."

The Joy Of Lettuce

But other jokes in Philogelos are likely to baffle a modern audience. "For example", says Jimmy Carr, "there are a couple of jokes about a lettuce, which only make sense if you share the ancient superstition that lettuce is an aphrodisiac."

ENDS

CONTACT FOR FURTHER INFO:
UK: s.pinzon@yudu.com: Siddhartha Pinzon. Tel: + 44 20 7484 2782.
Or, press@yudu.com. Or peter@think-inc.co.uk

NOTES FOR EDITORS:

TO VIEW THE WHOLE BOOK AS A FREE PRESS/REVIEW COPY: www.yudu.com/oldestjokebookpress

ELECTRONIC MEDIA KIT:
TO DOWNLOAD VIDEO OR PHOTOGRAPHS FOR PR USE:
www.yudu.com/oldestjokebookmediakit

TO BUY THE BOOK: www.yudu.com/oldestjokebook
(Note: The books costs £5.95 ($9.50 US dollars approx) - but the best bits, including the Jim Bowen videos, can be viewed in a free "highlights edition".)

TO VIEW THE FREE "HIGHLIGHTS EDITION"
www.yudu.com/oldestjokebookfreehighlights

A SAMPLE OF JOKES FROM PHILOGELOS: THE LAUGH ADDICT

- A student dunce goes to the doctor and says, 'Doctor, when I wake up, I'm all dizzy, then after half-an-hour I'm O.K.' 'Well, wait a half hour before waking up,' advises the doctor.

- A student dunce is going to the city. His friend says, 'Do me a favour and buy me a couple of fifteen-year-old slaves.' 'No problem,' responds the dunce. 'If I don't find two fifteen-year-olds, I'll get you one thirty-year-old.'

- One of a pair of twin brothers dies. When a student dunce runs into the surviving twin, he asks, 'Did you die, or was it your brother?'

- A student dunce is shipwrecked in a storm. When he sees each of his fellow passengers holding onto items on board in order to save themselves, he himself holds onto one of the anchors.

- A student dunce is asked by someone, 'Lend me a cloak to go down to the country.' 'I have a cloak to go down to your ankle,' responds the dunce. 'But I don't have one that reaches as far as the country.'

- When the over-talkative barber asks him, 'How shall I cut your hair?,' a quick wit answers, 'Silently.'

- An Abderite sees a eunuch talking with a woman and asks him if she's his wife. The guy responds that a eunuch is unable to have a wife. 'Ah, so she's your daughter?'

- A Kymaean is out swimming when it starts to rain. Not wanting to get wet, he dives down as deep as he can.

- Shopping for windows, a Kymaean asks if there are any that look south.

- A misogynist is attending to the burial of his wife, who has just died. When someone asks, 'Who is it who rests in peace here?', he answers, 'Me, now that I'm rid of her!'

ABOUT JIM BOWEN: Bowen, 71 began his comedy career on the Northern club circuit. He came to fame as a regular on the 1970s TV show, "The Comedians", but remains best-known as the host of "Bullseye", the ITV game-show which ran for 14 years in the 1980s and 1990s, attracting over 12 million viewers. He remains a cult figure for many fans and an elder statesman of British comedy. So, how does Bowen think he would have gone down in a comedy club in 4th Century Greece? "I would have gone down a lot better than I would have done at Sunderland Boiler Makers Club on a Sunday night, when it's pissing down."

ABOUT WILLIAM BERG: Bill Berg is a former Classics professor at UCLA, Stanford and Atensi University in the Kingdom of Tonga; and a former Classics tutor at Princeton and St John's College. His previous works include Early Virgil, on one of the foremost poets of ancient Rome. Now retired, he lives on the Oregon sea-coast.

ABOUT THE COMEDY CLUB: Jim Bowen performed the jokes featured on video in the book at Downstairs at the King's Head, a leading comedy club in north London.

MORE ON THE ORIGINS/HISTORY OF THE BOOK:

Professor Berg: The text of Philogelos comes to us from several manuscripts ranging from the eleventh to the fifteenth centuries. All of them trace back to an earlier original, probably - judging from content and language - from the fourth century C.E.

The various versions all agree on at least one thing - the title "Philogelos", which literally means "lover of laughter," and is obviously meant as a parody of those other, more serious, philo-compounds like philosophos ("lover of wisdom").

The collection included some jokes from an earlier era, and undoubtedly acquired a few extra jokes as the centuries rolled by, but most belong to the age of Constantine, when ancient Greek civilization was still in full swing, though somewhat
battered from barbarian invasions and internal conflicts.

Though Philogelos is the only joke book to survive from ancient (not medieval) times,
we know that plenty of others had existed, at least from the classical period onward. So, Hierocles and Philagrius, if they were ever real, undoubtedly had competitors.

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CONTACT FOR FURTHER INFO:
UK: s.pinzon@yudu.com: Siddhartha Pinzon. Tel: + 44 20 7484 2782.
Or, press@yudu.com. Or peter@think-inc.co.uk

This news release is issued electronically and will not be duplicated with a posted copy.
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