It’s common knowledge that onions make one cry and that beans give one gas, leading to the joke:
Q: What do you get when you mix beans and onions?
A: Tear gas.
The joke has been cited in print since at least 1992 and is of unknown authorship.
Google Groups: rec.sport.basketball.college
Shaq and Brown
Jeffrey N. Burch
4/27/92
(...)
What do you get when you eat onions and baked beans???
Tear gas.
Google Groups: comp.unix.questions
ile (Input Line Editor)
Joshua A. Laff
2/18/93
(...)
What do you get when you eat onions and beans?
Tear gas.
Google Books
Everything I Know About Writing
By John Marsden
Sydney: Pan Macmillian Australia
1998
Pg. ?:
Q: What do you get from baked beans and onions? A: Tear gas.
Google Groups: at.gesellschaft.recht
Meldeamt
Clemens Haupt
1/11/00
(...)
. If I eat beans and onions, will I make tear gas?
Google Books
The Everything Kids’ Gross Cookbook:
Get Your Hands Dirty in the Kitchen with These Yucky Meals!
By Colleen Sell and Melinda Frank
Avon MA: Adams Media
2007
Pg. 43:
What can you make from baked beans and onions? Tear gas!
Google Books
Ultimate Book of Jokes:
The Essential Collection of More Than 1,500 Jokes
By Scott McNeely
San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books
2011
Pg. ?:
Q: What sort of farts do you get by mixing beans and onions? A: Tear gas.
Twitter
Candida Tsasie
@Candida_Tsasie
Q: What can you make from baked beans and onions? A: Tear gas.
7:11 PM - 31 Aug 2014
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.
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Above, Big Apple Corner at 54th Street and Broadway in Manhattan. Google Maps. Stolen and missing, 2021-2024.
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.
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