Rodney Dangerfield’s Funniest ‘My Wife’ Jokes, According to His Wife Joan
If you know famed comic Rodney Dangerfield, then you know his punchline, “I get no respect!” But whether he was performing at a nightclub or chatting with Johnny Carson on the couch of The Tonight Show, some of Dangerfield’s most fertile comedic ground was joking about his wife. Their terrible sex life, her being a lousy cook, how much she loathed him — all were fair game.
Arguably, it was his wife Joan Dangerfield, who “got no respect” in his stand-up sets. Thankfully, she enjoyed her late-husband’s “my wife” jokes as much as anyone else. And so, just in time for Valentine’s Day, we asked Joan to share some of her favorite Rodney Dangerfield “my wife” jokes — and to let us in on which had the most truth to them.
‘My wife is a cold person. Her side of the waterbed is frozen’
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“When my dad traveled to Vegas to see Rodney’s act after we got married, I was concerned he would believe his ‘wife’ jokes were true or, even worse, not funny. But I was wrong. I remember him laughing really hard, especially at this joke,” Joan recalls.
‘When my wife has sex with me, there’s a reason for it. Last night, she used me to time an egg’
“Rodney always gave me romantic cards on special occasions that he personalized with funny comments. This joke is one example,” Joan says.
“All of Rodney’s jokes about his wife’s bad cooking truly applied to me because I’m the worst cook in the world,” explains Joan. “I’d blame recipes that said vague things like ‘season to taste.’ My cooking disasters started when I was a teen, and I confused baking powder with baking soda which resulted in my dad — who also had a sense of humor — throwing a biscuit I made out the door for our dog. She buried it like a bone.”
‘What’s really annoying with my wife, the way she serves the meal, it’s terrible. I mean, you put down a steak, how do you forget the plate?’
“Rodney and I watched The Sopranos regularly, which is how I found out the story behind this joke,” Joan begins. “His favorite episode was ‘Pine Barrens,’ partly because he could relate to the scene where Tony’s girlfriend hurls a freshly-cooked steak at his head during an argument. The same thing happened to Rodney in the early 1970s. He was really hungry, listening to the crackling, bubbly sound of a steak being cooked for him, when an argument erupted and his ladylove threw the steak at him like a dagger. It landed on the table after hitting his jaw — hard.”
After telling a joke about the incident on Carson, Joan recalls that Rodney received a call from Jack Benny, an entertainer he admired but never met. Benny praised him for that joke and his talent at large. “The call meant so much to Rodney, he paid it forward by making a point of personally acknowledging others in his profession when he was impressed by their talent,” recalls Joan.
‘The other night, my wife met me at the front door wearing a see-through negligee. The only trouble is, she was coming home.’
“Rodney and I didn’t live together before we were married, so one of the things I had to adjust to when we got married was telling someone when I was leaving the house and where I was going. To fix that, Rodney would walk me to the door and nuzzle my neck when I left and greet me at the door with a hug when I returned, even if he was in a meeting with other people at the house. It was so sweet. We loved being married,” says Joan.
‘With cigarettes, my wife and I, we made a deal. We only smoke after sex. I’ve got the same pack since 1975. What bothers me is my wife, she’s up to three packs a day’
“In reality, maybe due to my Mormon upbringing, I never smoked cigarettes or marijuana,” Joan admits. “Rodney stopped smoking cigarettes by the time we got married, but couldn’t give up marijuana. He died before it was legalized so I was always worried he’d get arrested.”
‘I haven’t spoken to my wife in years. I didn’t want to interrupt her’
“I thought about this joke when Rodney was in a coma for 40 days following his final heart surgery. I talked to him constantly during that time, praying he would interrupt me,” Joan recalls. “Thanks to real-time EEG therapy treatments, Rodney woke up a few days before he passed, which was incredible. Had he lived another month, we would have been married for 11 years. We dated for 10 years before that so we were super close for 21 years. I’m grateful for every moment we shared.”
