The Banquet Circuit (September 2003)

Jokes, stories and anecdotes you can use to entertain your audience during that all-important presentation.

Anyone want to go to heaven?

Father Murphy walks into a pub in Donegal, and says to the first man he meets, "Do you want to go to Heaven?"

The man said, "I do Father."

The priest said, "Then stand over there against the wall."

Then the priest asked the second man, "Do you want to got to Heaven?"

"Certainly, Father," was the man's reply.

"Then stand over there against the wall," said the priest.

Then Father Murphy walked up to O'Toole and said, "Do you want to go to Heaven?"

O'Toole said, "No, I don't Father."

The priest said, "I don't believe this. You mean to tell me that when you die you don't want to go to Heaven?"

O'Toole said, "Oh, when I die, yes. I thought you were getting a group together to go right now."

Blonde In First Class

There is a blonde on a plane to New York. She is sitting in the first class section, but her ticket says that she should be in the coach section. A flight attendant realizes the blonde's mistake and asks her politely to move. The blonde won't move. All she says is, "I'm blonde, I'm beautiful, and I'm going to New York."

The flight attendant goes and tells all of the other flight attendants. They all try to persuade the blonde to move, but she won't move. All she says is, "I'm blonde, I'm beautiful, and I'm going to New York."

The flight attendants go and tell the pilot about the obnoxious blonde. They tell him the only thing that she says. He puts the plane on auto-pilot and whispers something in the blonde's ear.

Immediately, she gets up and moves to her normal seat. Then the pilot goes back to fly the plane. The flight attendants are all very curious about how the pilot made the blonde move so quickly.

They ask him and he says, "Oh, it was easy. All i had to do was tell her that the first class section wasn't going to New York!"

Parents These Days...

At one point during a game, the coach said to one of his young players, "Do you understand what cooperation is? What a team is?"

The little boy nodded in the affirmative.

"Do you understand that what matters is whether we win together as a team?"

The little boy nodded yes.

"So," the coach continued, "when a strike is called, or you're out at first, you don't argue or curse or attack the umpire. Do you understand all that?"

Again the little boy nodded.

"Good," said the coach. "Now go over there and explain that to your mother."

A Good Confession

Tommy O'Connor went to confession and said, "Forgive me Father, for I have sinned."

"What have you done Tommy O'Connor?"

"I had sex with a girl."

"Who was it, Tommy?"

"I cannot tell you Father, please forgive me for my sin."

"Was it Mary Margaret Sullivan?" he asked.

"No Father, please forgive me for my sin but I cannot tell you who it was."

"Was it Catherine Mary McKenzie?"

"No Father, please forgive me for my sin," he replied.

"Well then it has to be Sarah Martha O'Keefe."

"No Father, please forgive me, I cannot tell you who it was."

"Okay, Tommy, go say five Hail Mary's and four Our Fathers and you will be abolished of your sin."

So Tommy walked out to the pews where his friend Joseph was waiting.

"What did ya get?" asked Joseph.

"Well I got five hail Marys, four Our Fathers, and three good leads."

The Three Envelopes

A fellow had just been hired as the new CEO of a large high tech corporation. The CEO who was stepping down met with him privately and presented him with three numbered envelopes. "Open these if you run up against a problem you don't think you can solve," he said.

Well, things went along pretty smoothly, but six months later, sales took a downturn and he was really catching a lot of heat. About at his wits's end, he remembered the envelopes. He went to his drawer and took out the first envelope. The message read, "Blame your predecessor."

The new CEO called a press conference and tactfully laid the blame at the feet of the previous CEO. Satisfied with his comments, the press -- and Wall Street -- responded positively, sales began to pick up and the problem was soon behind him.

About a year later, the company was again experiencing a slight dip in sales, combined with serious product problems. Having learned from his previous experience, the CEO quickly opened the second envelope. The message read, "Reorganize." This he did, and the company quickly rebounded.

After several consecutive profitable quarters, the company once again fell on difficult times. The CEO went to his office, closed the door and opened the third envelope.

The message said, "Prepare three envelopes."

The Pope and the Queen

The Pope and Queen Elizabeth were standing on a balcony beaming at thousands of people in the forecourt below. The Queen says to the Pope out of the corner of her mouth, "I bet you a tenner that I can make every English person in the crowd go wild with just a wave of my hand."

The Pope says, "No way. You can't do that."

The Queen says, "Watch this."

So the Queen waves her hand and every English person in the crowd goes crazy, waving their little plastic Union Jacks on sticks and cheering, basically going ballistic.

So the Pope is standing there thinking, "Uh oh, what am I going to do? I never thought she'd be able to do it." So he thinks to himself for a minute and then he turns to her and says, "I bet you I can make every Irish person in the crowd go wild, not just now, but for the rest of the week, with just one nod of my head."

The Queen goes, "No way, it can't be done."

So the Pope headbutts her.

Father's Day Idea

The man passed out in a dead faint as he came out of his front door onto the porch.

Someone dialed 911.

When the paramedics arrived, they helped him regain consciousness and asked if he knew what caused him to faint.

"It was enough to make anybody faint," he said. "My son asked me for the keys to the garage, and instead of driving the car out, he came out with the lawn mower."

The Reverend

Francis Norton woke up Sunday morning and realizing it was an exceptionally beautiful and sunny early spring day, decided he just had to play golf. So... he told the Associate Pastor that he was feeling sick and convinced him to say Mass for him that day. As soon as the Associate Pastor left the room, Father Norton headed out of town to a golf course about forty miles away. This way he knew he wouldn't accidentally meet anyone he knew from his parish. Setting up on the first tee, he was alone. After all, it was Sunday morning and everyone else was in church! At about this time, Saint Peter leaned over to the Lord while looking down from the heavens and exclaimed, "You're not going to let him get away with this, are you?" The Lord sighed, and said, "No, I guess not." Just then Father Norton hit the ball and it shot straight towards the pin, dropping just short of it, rolled up and fell into the hole. It WAS A 420 YARD HOLE IN ONE! St. Peter was astonished. He looked at the Lord and asked, "Why did you let him do that?" The Lord smiled and replied, "Who's he going to tell?"

Winter Break

The Winter Break was over and the teacher was asking the class about their vacations. She turned to little Johnny and asked what he did over the break.

"We visited my grandmother in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania," he replied.

"That sounds like an excellent vocabulary word," the teacher said. "Can you tell the class how you spell 'Punxsutawney'?"

Little Johnny thought about it and said, "You know, come to think of it, we went to Ohio."

Addicted To Fishing

One man's hobby was fishing, he spent all his weekends near the river or lake, paying no attention to weather.

One Sunday, very early in the morning, he went to the river, as usual but, it was cold and raining, so he decided to return back to his house.

He came in, went to his bedroom, undressed and laid near his wife. "What terrible weather today honey," he said to her.

"Yes, and my idiot husband went fishing!"