no soap, radio

[Laurence Horn]

I tried to track down the version I remember from childhood, but the closest I could find were some of the variants at this site:  http://xenon.stanford.edu/~hays/nosoap-variations.html
The one I recall:

Two penguins at the North Pole are sitting on an iceberg, which splits apart.  Each penguin circles the earth in different directions, they cross the equator, and they meet up again at the South Pole.  As they pass each other one calls out "Where's the soap?" The other says "No soap.  Radio."  (Makes no more and no less sense than the other variants.)

LH

On Jul 9, 2012, at 4:19 PM, Garson O'Toole wrote:

> In 2011 the tagline/punchline "No soap, radio" was mentioned on the
> list. Fred asked about it years earlier in 2003. Wikipedia has an
> entry about the phrase which is employed as the pseudo-punchline of an
> anti-joke. Barry Popik has an entry for the phrase with a citation in
> the New York Times on June 18, 1971.
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_soap_radio
> http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/no_soap_radio/
> 
> The phrase "no soap, radio" was used as the title of a subsection of
> an absurdist play in Evergreen Review in 1964. The text in the
> subsection burlesqued an old-fashioned radio serial adventure program
> I think.
> 
> This is not an modern instance of the non-joke punchline, but it may
> be an important precursor.
> 
> Cite: 1964 August-September, Evergreen Review, Volume 8, Number 33,
> The Automation of Caprice by Michael O'Donoghue, Subsection title: "no
> soap, radio", Start Page 38, Quote Page 41, Column 1, Evergreen
> Review, Inc., New York. (Verified on paper)
> 
> 
> [Begin excerpt]
> 
>                 the camera i
>    episode one - a play within a play
> ----------------------------------------------------
>               no soap, radio
> 
> announcer: when we last left ramona, you will re-
> member that she had succeeded in eluding the
> myopic leader of the icelandic underground; but
> in doing so, had missed one of the pyrenees
> mountains' many treacherous turns, and now lies,
> head and arms pinned, beneath the massive,
> mauve daimler-benz. two hours pass. five hours.
> with life slowly dripping from her bruised and
> torn body, still she lies unnoticed. then, in the
> distance, she hears barking. ...
> 
> [End excerpt]
> 
> Garson
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org