Bill Mann

Doctor Bill’s laff clinic starts with these definitions: 

Terminal illness: Getting sick at the airport.

Node: I knew it.

Impotent: Distinguished, well-known.

Cauterize: Made eye contact with her.

Benign: What you be, after you be eight. 

Bacteria: Back door to cafeteria. 

But no med humor compares to the hilarious side effects of “Prescott Pharmaceutical”  products, from Dr. Stephen Colbert, a regular feature he did on his old Comedy Central show. Examples from his Prescott ads: 

Bearded Thalamus

Nostril Inversion

Re-Emergence of the Umbilical Cord 

Steven Tyler Lip

Testicular Myopia

Spontaneous Pregnancy

Pituitary Ferns

Multibrow

Lou Ferrignose

Knee Transference

Hungry Hungry Hipbones

Genital Migration

Dissolving Intestine Syndrome

Yellowstone National Bladder

Ventricular Funk

Thoracic Geysers

Tennis Scrotum

Spontaneous and Uncontrollable Gum Growth

Arby’s Mouth

Bone Sporking

Honey Nut Areolas

Jimmy Crack Corns

Honus Wagner Disease

Eyearrhea

Capillary Yogurt

Inability to Breathe on Weekends

Minor Heart Explosions

Late Onset Albinism 

Better ask your doc — stat — if you have any of these! 

— Non medically speaking, a few puns: 

Never buy flowers from a monk. Only you can prevent florist friars.

I once worked at a pizza shop. I kneaded the dough. (Rim shot!)

When I told my contractor I didn’t want carpeted steps, he gave me a blank stair. 

What do you say to a friend who’s struggling with grammar? “There, their, they’re.” 

I went to a toy store and asked where the Schwarzenegger dolls were. He said, “Aisle B, back.” 

And finally (whew), back to more medical humor. 

What did the surgeon say to the patient who insisted on closing up her own incision? A. “Suture Self.” 

— OK, OK, one more, a surgical joke from a list called Things Guys Never Want to Hear From A Surgeon: 

“Sir, you weren’t planning on having any children, were you?”  

— And since we’re hitting below the belt, here’s a classic:

Q. The definition of macho? A. A guy who jogs home after a vasectomy.

— Now, an evergreen you may have heard in PT: Two people discussing medical issues here, a common enough occurrence, is called — what else? — an “organ recital.” (OK, get off my Bach.)

— You want topical late-night humor? Opt for Seth Meyers on NBC over Colbert on CBS. Why? Meyers has better writers. Colbert’s old Comedy Central show was peerless, but his current CBS “Late Night,” alas, is mediocre many nights and laden with actors plugging movies. 

In fact, much of the best material on Colbert’s show of late has come from his audience, recently solicited to find new nicknames for 45. These include: Vanity Manatee; The Big Lie-bowski; Dolt 45; Quarter Flounder; Scooby Coup; Schmuck à L’Orange; and The Slobfather. 

Colbert’s writers, however, did come up with a good nickname for Congressmen Jim Jordan, Louie Gohmert etc., who voted to overturn the election results: Steal Team Dicks. 

— Are we the entrée?: 2022, you may recall, is the year “Soylent Green” takes place. That book gives an entirely new meaning to the juvenile epithet “Eat me!” 

— I’ll miss seeing the top NHL players facing off in the Winter Olympics. We’ll have to settle instead for watching the biathlon, in which athletes cross-country ski, shoot, hunt, and cook their own meals. Norway is favored. 

Norway, a country of just 5.4 million people, topped the Winter Olympic total medal tables in 1994 with 26 and 2018 with 39 and will probably do so again in Beijing. Gracenote, a U.S.-based company that generates podium predictions, has Norway winning 45 medals. Uff da! Lutefisk, anyone? (Um, no thanks.) 

— Shaggy dog tales? I’ve been chuckling at those local TV commercials for a Tukwilla senior assisted-living center called Shag for years, and its “Shag lifestyle.” Brits know the word shag is a vulgarism. 

— Happy Lunar New Year: David Letterman’s classic line about what irks him about Chinese New Year: “For the next two weeks, I’ll be writing Year of The Pig on all my checks.” 

(These days, PT humorist Bill “Münchausen” Mann is spending almost as much time in local doctors’ offices as pharma salesmen. But he doesn’t leave free pens. Newsmann9@gmail.com)