Did you hear the one about the reporter who turned joke writer?

By Allison Marlow
Posted 7/12/17

Michael Strecker likes to tell jokes. So he sent 150 of his best zingers to a publishing house.

Their response? Great stuff. We’ll publish it. In a two-book series. And, they would need 600 …

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Did you hear the one about the reporter who turned joke writer?

Posted

Michael Strecker likes to tell jokes. So he sent 150 of his best zingers to a publishing house.

Their response? Great stuff. We’ll publish it. In a two-book series. And, they would need 600 more jokes. Per book.

No joke.

“It was a little challenging but it was pure joy coming up with these things,” he said.

Strecker, a former report for Gulf Coast Media, spends his days as the executive director of public relations for Tulane University. By night, he likes to make people laugh.

“I enjoy writing them. It’s fun to think somebody is going to get a giggle out of that,” Strecker said.

Strecker, who covered the typical news beats and daily stories that were anything but funny, took a stand-up comedy course in the mid-90s and began doing comedy routines. After he and his wife, a school teacher, married in 2007, she urged him to begin writing down his puns and one-liners. She knew her students would love them.

It never quite occurred to Strecker that his jokes were a gift.

“I assumed everybody could do this,” he said, explaining that he often hears a phrase and immediately wonders what that would look like if it was taken literally. Usually, it triggers a funny joke.

“When I was in the throes of coming up with these my wife would laugh and say, ‘You can turn this off, right?’ She didn’t want to spend the rest of her life finding out what happens when the banana robs a bank,” Strecker said.

In case you were wondering, he got off on a peel.

Now, with two books finished, Strecker does regular stand-up comedy shows and sometimes lets his funnier side pop into his day job.

“I’m in a sweet spot. I love my job in public relations and I love doing comedy and sometimes they intersect,” Strecker said. His sons, ages 2 and 7, have been trying their hand at joke telling too, though they don’t always give dad the floor.

“I was on the local news and he was very upset that we had to change the channel from his cartoon to dad,” Strecker said.

Now, Strecker is working on his third book of jokes, titled “Jokes for Crescent City Kids” all centered around New Orleans. He has one rule when writing, he only puts jokes in his books that he and his wife think are funny. There are no filler ha ha’s. And when he hears kids roaring and giggling over his pages, that is the best reward.

“I think they’re funny but until I hear a kid say they’re funny, I don’t feel like I’ve done what I set out to do,” he said. “Hearing kids laugh at my jokes is the best reward.”

Pick up a copy of Young Comics Guide to Telling Jokes, both volumes, at Barnes & Nobles stores nationwide and on Amazon.com.