"Why don’t cannibals eat clowns? Because they taste funny!” This popular cannibal-eats-clown joke (wordplay on “tastes funny” meaning “strange” or “not right” and “tastes funny” meaning “ha-ha") dates to at least 1991.
“Two clowns are eating a cannibal” is a jocular backwards variation of this joke.
Google Books
Self-Regulation of Stereotypic Responses:
Implications for prejudice reduction efforts
By Margo Jeanne Monteith
Thesis/dissertation
1991
Pg. 156:
Why don’t cannibals eat clowns? They taste funny.
27 February 1991, St. Louis (MO) Post-Disaptch, “Peoria: How Is The War Playing There? Often With Worry-And Tension-Relieving Humor” by Bill Smith, pg. 11A:
‘’Why don’t cannibals eat clowns? Because they taste funny.”
Google Books
The Secret Survival Manual:
A guidebook for teens
By J Brent Bill and Rob Suggs
Grand Rapids, MI: Fleming H. Revell
1993
Pg. 47:
Oh, by the way, the reason cannibals don’t eat clowns is — they taste funny.
1 January 1993, Fresno (CA) Bee, ‘Bartending”:
“How come cannibals don’t eat clowns?” a waitress said, picking up her order. “Because they taste funny,” she said, giggling, and went away.
Google Books
Kids’ Funniest Jokes
Edited by Sheila Anne Barry
New York, NY: Sterling Publishing Co., Inc.
1994
Pg. 70:
Why don’t cannibals eat clowns?
Because they taste funny.
29 October 1884, Boston (MA) Herald, “Rosie O’Donnell at the Comedy Connection” by Dean Johnson, features, pg. 23:
“Two cannibals are eating a clown. One says to the other, `Say, does this taste funny to you?’”
Google Books
The Reader’s Digest
v. 149, nos. 891-896
1996
Pg. 50:
ONE CANNIBAL TO ANOTHER while eating a clown: “Does this taste funny to you?”
Above, a 1934 plaque from the Big Apple Night Club at West 135th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem. Discarded as trash in 2006. Now a Popeyes fast food restaurant on Google Maps.
Recent entries:
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“I am presently experiencing life at a rate of several WTFs per hour” (6/4)
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“I am currently experiencing life at a rate of several WTFs per hour” (6/4)
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More new entries...
Above, Big Apple Corner at 54th Street and Broadway in Manhattan. Google Maps.
Above, John J. Fitz Gerald, from the Aug. 15, 1931, Binghamton (NY) Press, pg. 14.
Listen to Robert Emmerich introduce "The Big Apple," a hit song from 1937. Music written by Bob and performed by Tommy Dorsey's Clambake Seven with Bob on piano. Lyrics written by Buddy Bernier and sung by Edythe Wright. Audio provided by Dorothy Emmerich.
Also listen to a 1937 "The Big Apple" song by Ozzie Nelson and his Orchestra. See a 1929 photo of John J. Fitz Gerald and a 1931 photo of John J. Fitz Gerald.
This site is edited by Barry Popik.