Another Cultural Stone Kicked Over

I had reason to mention "Mommy, Mommy" jokes last night, and a colleague of mine expressed unfamiliarity with the form. Of course, someone has created a web site devoted to them, but first a quick discourse on the nature of the gag. They're a pre-adolescent joke form, usually without sexual, ethnic, or class aspects. They take a simple two-line format in which the first line is a seemingly innocent complaint from a child about some aspect of the parenting he or she is receiving; the second line, delivered usually by the child's mother, reveals the horrifying depths of depravity in which the family unit is existing. Extreme cruelty, to someone, is usually involved.

For example:

"Mommy, Mommy, I don't want to go to Europe!"
"Shut up and keep swimming!"

I seem to remember these from grade school, say two to three years either side of 1960, and as being overshadowed quickly by more sophisticated media-driven humor such as elephant jokes. Later, the set of puns supported by this structure:

What do you call [describe person of disability here]
in a [describe quandry or dire straits here]? [Pun goes here,
usually something about "stew."]

put the superficially horrible circumstances of Mommy, Mommy jokes into the
shade and relegated them to the occasional neuron-firing memory of truly bad childhood humor.

We did discuss the potential of Mommy, Mommy jokes for being at least politically clean in the sense of being hard to direct against individual groups. Here are a few opening lines you can play around with:

"Mommy, Mommy, I don't want to play for Rutgers!"

"Mommy, Mommy, I don't want to be a Federal Judge!"

"Mommy, Mommy, I don't want to have to override a veto!"

If you care, here's a web site that collects some of them.