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Thursday, September 18, 2008

2 rhinos and an elephant walk into a bar …

A few weeks ago, my husband and I went to a local carnival where we tried fried Twinkies and Oreos (disgusting, but you have to try it once, right?) and played fun carnival games, like racing horses with water guns, popping balloons with darts, and shooting baskets. We won lots of toys.

We like to play carnival games, but we don’t really need the toys (even though they are fun to win). Sometimes there are kids that look like they might want a toy (we always ask the parents first), and sometimes we can’t give them away, so we take them home.

We were walking back to the car with our bounty of stuffed animals, when DH says, “two rhinos and an elephant walk into a bar …”



and then he has no punch line! We’ve tried since then to come up with a really good punch line, but so far, no luck. We’ve come up with some really bad punch lines, just no good ones.

In honor of the rhinos and elephant, I thought it would be fun to have some writing and illustrating exercises (there are several, so hopefully everyone can play).

Writing Exercise #1: Write a poem ( in any form) about 2 rhinos and an elephant.

My haiku example:
2 rhinos standing
An elephant twirls on by
Dancing with the storks

Illustration Exercise #1: Draw an image with 2 rhinos and an elephant at a carnival.

Writing Exercise #2: Write a paragraph or scene or story that starts with: Once upon a time, there were two rhinos and an elephant at the watering hole. Suddenly …

Illustration Exercise #2: Draw a cartoon where the characters are talking about (or eating) fried Twinkies, or any other fried food you’d get at a carnival.


Writing Exercise #3:
Write a punch line for: 2 rhinos and an elephant walk into a bar (or a library, or a classroom, or the courtroom, or …)

Here’s my best one, which is so bad that you’ll probably want to write your own:
2 rhinos and an elephant walk into a bar. “Duck!” says the first rhino, and a duck flies by.
“Duck!” says the second rhino, and another duck flies by.
“Goose!” yells the elephant.
“Where?” ask the rhinos.
The elephant pinches them.

See, totally lame. You can do better!

Book Pick: Hippo! No, Rhino by Jeff Newman
In this picture book, the poor rhino is mistaken for a hippo at the zoo, when the zookeeper puts the wrong sign up. Rhino makes several unsuccessful and frustrating attempts to fix things, but is finally identified correctly at the end. Funny story and fun, bright illustrations.

3 comments:

  1. Great exercises! I'm NO good at jokes, riddles, etc. so I won't be doing that exercise, but the others sound fun...Thanks!

    In my area we have lots of "big" fairs, but hubby and I always go to this little carnival/fair (I always tell my hubby the drive back reminds me of the movie Deliverance...grin...) We play the games, eat the food and have lots of fun...everyone picks on us for not going to the big fairs, but small fairs are more our speed...grin...

    Lilfix (blueboards)

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  2. HAH! I love this.

    Here's my go:

    There once was a Dumbo from France
    Who loved to wear gaudy plaid pants
    All the rhinos would gasp
    At his plaid covered asp
    And the hugeness of its plaid expanse.

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  3. Brenda - Your little fairs sound like a lot of fun, except the "Deliverance" drive home.

    Thanks for the funny limerick Carrie!

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