An unanticipated side effect of ConJosé was learning where the slogan of this website originated.
Back in 1990, Jerry Kaufman and Sue Tompkins presented the Last Live Mainstream at Minicon — where the contributors (Andy Hooper, Jeanne Gomoll, David Emerson, Jon Singer) read their articles, while the illustrations were displayed on an overhead projector (this was 1990 for Ghu’s sake.)
The slogan of that ‘zine was “The more you know, the more jokes you get.” I loved it.
Somewhere around the mid-1990’s, I started using that line as a .sig. I asked Jerry and Sue if they minded me borrowing their line. Jerry told me that he didn’t know where it came from.
Today, we know.
Kate Yule and David Levine were down from Portland for WorldCon, and at a pre-con party. They were passing out copies of their wonderful ‘zine Bento. I read my copy that night, and in a letter of comment from Peter Larson, the truth was outed:
Interestingly, an issue of Gourmet had a kitchen science article that featured Professor Kurti, who also appeared in David Langford’s Platen Stories. Garth Danielson has it right. “The More You Know, the More Jokes You Get.”
emphasis added
Garth is also notorious for his tableaus depicting Smurfs meeting unplesant fates.
