British Comedy Guide

Butchers Shop

A man goes into butchers shop and sees the butcher
and his two assistants playing poker.

BUTCHER: You want in?

Man looks around shop and sees all the meat on shelves.

MAN: No thanks, the stakes are too high.

It's a funny joke, but I think if you're going to base a skit on a pun then you really need to think about giving both meanings some sense within the context of the joke.
For example the (meat) steaks being too high is not a reason for him to refrain from playing poker. Maybe a quick get-out for this would be to have 'the stakes are too high' as an aside, so that he says 'no thanks' to the game and then says the rest without intending to refer to the poker? Just a suggestion.

Ok, so what about if they were using steaks as chips,
and when asked if he wanted in, the man looked behind the
counter and saw that the steaks,(the ones for sale)were
displayed on a shelf that was quite high and
could not be reached as he was quite small ?!

Exactly! Something like that, yes.
There must be a joke in there about steak and chips as well :D

It's a good joke, but it's not structured as a skit.

I think this joke has already been done as a skit, but I can't remember by whom and when.

done by tim vine and used as a joke many times

Ok,Ok,I get the message, I must try harder!

By the way is their a gag that Time Vine hasn't done?

It works if the punch line is:

MAN: (Holding nose) The Steaks are too high.

NB: in my opinion, when its a sound pun, write the pun word i.e Steaks instead of Stakes and let the actor control the inflexion etc.

Share this page