Swear this is original, but someone must have come up with the idea before now. Perhaps a repressed memory?

An old man was sitting at an outside table of a bakery in Montreal, enjoying some coffee. As a limousine raced by, a tiny object flung from the window landed nearly at the man's feet. Several seconds later, a violent crash was heard in the distance. The old man picked up the object and examined it. It appeared to be a very old small coin with some French writing stamped in it. Not knowing what to think of it, he placed it on the table in front of him and drank some more coffee. The man stared in stunned silence as the coin sprouted tiny legs, then got up and raced in circles on the table. Finally after several seconds, the coin stopped and lay where it was, the tiny legs disappearing back into it. The astonished man was apprehensive but took the coin with him as he left the bakery, wondering if he had come upon a valuable find.

He was found dead on his balcony the following morning, with a look of horror frozen on his visage.

The moral:

Keep away from a Runaround Sou.

In this case, 'gag' is an apt characterization.

Shaggy, man. Shaggy!

http://wordsmith.org/board/showflat.php?...&Main=14722

Oldie and goodie

How about:
A mother snake wanted to clean out the snake pit. She asked the children (snakes) to go outside. They, instead, remained in the pit and continually hissed.
Frustrated, the mother snake instructed the children to go next door to Mrs. Potts. They left.
A few minutes later the children returned. When questioned by the mother they told her that Mrs. Potts sent them away because she did not like all the hissing.
Indignant, the mother shouted, "How dare she. I can remember when Mrs. Potts didn't have a pit to hiss in!"

One of the groaniest ones I've heard was from an old BBC TV show that majored on wordplay (I forget its name). I found this version of it somewhere:

William Penn, the founder and mayor of Philadelphia, had two aunts,
Hattie and Sophia, who were skilled in the baking arts. "Big Bill"
was petitioned by the citizens of his town because the three
bakeries in the town during the Revolution had raised the price of
pies to the point that only the rich could afford them.

He turned to his aunts and asked their advice. The wonderful old
ladies were so incensed over this situation that they offered to
bake 100 pies and sell them for 2 cents lower than any of the
bakeries were charging.

They were not only successful in bringing the price of pastry
down in Philadelphia, but they established an historical item for
the reference books.

To this day, scholars still remark about the remarkable
pie rates of Penn's aunts.

(with apologies to Gilbert and Sullivan)