{"id":2566,"date":"2018-12-18T18:05:13","date_gmt":"2018-12-18T18:05:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.redmasque.co.uk\/news\/?p=2566"},"modified":"2018-12-09T18:06:34","modified_gmt":"2018-12-09T18:06:34","slug":"blue-jokes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.redmasque.co.uk\/news\/blue-jokes\/","title":{"rendered":"Blue Jokes"},"content":{"rendered":"

As anybody who likes comedy will tell you, you\u2019re in for an interesting night when the comedian starts doing their \u2018blue\u2019 material. A blue joke is referred to when the comedian<\/a> says something a little risqu\u00e9 or dirty, but where does the term come from? <\/p>\n

So far as we can tell, the term originated in the 20th century, so it hasn\u2019t been on people\u2019s lips for too long. As with so much of entertainment, we can be justly proud that the phrase originated in the UK, primarily under the performances of Max Miller, a comedian that was widely known as \u2018The Cheeky Chappie\u2019 and revered by many to be the greatest stand-up comedian of his generation.<\/p>\n

Brighton born and bred, Miller made films, toured music halls and sang and recorded his own original comic songs. Known for his charm and flamboyance, he was often in trouble with the censors of the time for his controversial risqu\u00e9 material, which is where the blue joke comes from!
\nThe laws on censorship were strict during the years that Miller was performing; he was hugely famous in the 30s and 40s and died in 1963, so his material could only be approved by the Lord Chamberlain in London and local watch committees in other parts of the UK. However, if he left out the last work in a naughty rhyme or used innuendo, he could get away with much more saucy material than he otherwise would have been allowed. <\/p>\n

Impressively, he proudly announced during his career that he had never once told a dirty joke onstage, presumably believing that if you leave out the last word, it\u2019s all in your head (in fact he\u2019d often say “I know exactly what you are saying to yourself, you\u2019re wrong, I know what you\u2019re saying. You wicked lot. You\u2019re the sort of people that get me a bad name!”<\/p>\n

So where does the \u2018blue\u2019 joke phrase come from? In one of Miller\u2019s acts, he\u2019d take out a white book and a blue book, asking the audience to pick which one he should use for jokes that evening. The white was full of pure jokes with an innocence to them. Conversely, the blue jokes were full of risqu\u00e9 material. As one might expect, they most often voted for the blue material.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As anybody who likes comedy will tell you, you\u2019re in for an interesting night when the comedian starts doing their \u2018blue\u2019 material. A blue joke is referred to when the comedian says something a little risqu\u00e9 or dirty, but where … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[370,286,544],"tags":[15,32,16,57],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.redmasque.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2566"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.redmasque.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.redmasque.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.redmasque.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.redmasque.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2566"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.redmasque.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2566\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2568,"href":"https:\/\/www.redmasque.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2566\/revisions\/2568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.redmasque.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.redmasque.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.redmasque.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}