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So common that they commonly escape one's notice, joke or gag items are still big business, as they fill a niche in most gift shops, define an order of specialty store, and constitute a genre of retail merchandise. While difficult to define with scholarly precision, gag gifts are well known to all but the truly cloistered by taste or social class. The range of gag gift utterance is wide; t-shirts with pictures and slogans ranging from the innocuous to the rude, books on how to identify rednecks or seduce women, highball glasses that miraculously unclothe the pinup pictured on the glass as it is emptied, edible underwear, sunglasses that make the wearer's eyes look like those of a Hollywood film alien are among the more decorous of these goods. Much of the stuff in Prairie Home Companion's Wireless Catalog is of this kind, as is almost all of the stuff in the Funny Bone Catalog. If one lacks the inclination or the aesthetic courage for a trip to Frank's Fun Shop, punching "Gag gifts" into a Google search will surface a list with links to 37 sites-ranging from Art's Fart Mart ("Browse through their selection of dog doo, whoopie cushions, fart spray, and foul smelling lollipops") to Bachelorette Headquarters ("Sells bachelorette party goods including adult gag gifts and bridal supplies"), to Boink Mail ("Embarrassing gag gifts for birthdays, retirement, graduation, and bachelor parties"), to Fun Ideas ("Features a large selection of gag gifts and novelty items"), to Get Your Licks ("Humorous lick sticks with your favorite medication name on the front-Viagra, Prozac, Xanax, Valium, Praxil, and Zoloft"), to Wacky Weenies ("Choose from such characters as Spank the Monkey and Choke the Chicken. Each comes with a comical name tag and special care instructions"). The bestsellers at APracticalJoke.com are a Remote Control Fart Machine ($13.25), Shock Pen ($20.00), Shock Lighter ($20.00), Stink Bombs ($1.00/3 pack; order 10, get 2 free), Exploding Pen ($1.50), Squirt Lighter ($4.00), Rubber Chicken ($6.00), Pop a Putt ("When your mark putts the ball into the hole, it pops right back out," $12.00), and a selection of five different "winning" lottery tickets ($1.25 each). Among the more sophisticated are the medical gag gifts on offer at Med-Psych.net and such high-end items as...