Ok this may be difficult to explain in typing but I will try...
In my stage shows I get ready to perform bill in lemon, I look at the audience and tell them, "I need to borrow something green" (pause), "I need to borrow something with numbers on it" (pause), I lean forward a little and say, "it's called money people."

Every time I do this 85% to 90% of the audience laughs. Why is this line funny???

The way you tell it?

Curly Howard of The Three Stooges once said, "One night I was on stage and I went, "Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk". The audience laughed. I kept it in the show."

Don't over think it.

I don't care if they're are laughing at me or laughing with me as long as they're laughing.

It may be because people are reluctant to part with money, especially at a magic show where many will have already seen a magician destroy someone's money before. The delivery you're using, if I've correctly interpreted it, is playing off that reluctance. I've found that in dealing with money, making jokes or comments about trust or people being cheap etc. tend to work well because of the common experiance of not wanting to give up your hard earned cash. They may be laughing because they realized what you wanted, and had no intention of giving you any. Thus when you give a comment that essentially implies in a non-offensive way "come you cheapskates you're holding up the show."
I use a line sometimes when I hand a spectator a bill for a transposition effect, "I'm going to trust you for a moment....But only for a moment." Implying that I want my money back and the end of the trick, don't run off with it. Sometimes it's funny simply because your joke points out exactly what they were thinking at the time.

If it works don't change it.

They forgot what money looks like?

Laughter can sometimes be a polite way of expressing embarrassment.

Sometimes, the joke is on us...

It could be worse in my kid shows I use a die box but refer to it as a dice so smaller kids understand what I'm saying and just the other day I had a guy correct me on it... The first time since ive been performing this for 10 years someone corrected me on it... so from now on its a block with colored dots on each side

To dissect it:
It's funny because it has a twist ending that people can't immediately see coming.

If it works keep it!

I think kal is right. Not being there, I can only guess, but here's what I think might be going on:

Saying, "I need to borrow something green," would normally be an odd request, but where you're an entertainer, and in particular a magician, it's not that strange and it generates interest. Most people in the audience probably have no idea where you're heading at this point.

Then, when you say, "I need to borrow something with numbers on it," it sounds like a totally separate request, as if you need one thing that's green and then another thing that has numbers.

Finally, when you connect them in a request asking for money, the audience makes the connection and is amused both that they didn't make the connection earlier and that asking for money is a mild imposition and inherently funny anyway. Drawing them in like that is amusing.

Again, that's just a guess.


Once when I was performing a routine in a Veteran's hospital, I showed a red handkerchief and then a green handkerchief at the start of a routine. As I briefly displayed the green handkerchief, one of the patients said loudly, "It looks like a map." I said, trying to agree with him, "Well, it is green." That got a big laugh from most people in the room. To this day, I have no idea why that was considered so funny. He might have been hard of hearing and been talking to someone else? Perhaps there was some other reason.

I agree with Bill. I think that the audience may feel little stupid when they haven't been able to connect two things (green,numbers) to thing as simple as money and that's why they laugh. But if it works just do what Nike tells you to do: just do it.

~Atte

Yeah that's why I laughed. I felt dumb for not making such a simple connection

I think maybe because no one wants to be the one to volunteer. As soon as you say something green, they all know what you are talking about, but no one wants to be called on to help out. So, everyone is hesitating because they hope someone else volunteers.

So the awkward pause is because of this. By using the pauses like you did and using the magic of three, the line about money releases their uncomfortable feeling and they release in laughter. Plus, attitude also makes people laugh. I'm sure when you say the line, "it's called money people" your attitude changes.

I don't doubt that the line gets a laugh, but I don't think the line is funny.

The line may not be funny, but somehow it strikes the audience as funny. Sometimes you just can't explain it.

Yeah it is not a one liner kind of joke. It is a situational humor joke.

Could be they did not make the connection, so it was an embarrassment laugh. Or they don't want to loan money so it is a nervous laugh. Could be any number of things. If it works - keep doing it

If it is an embarassment laugh or a nervous laugh, it is not because the situation is funny. It would be indicative of being uncomfortable.

In todays culture if you ask for something green... someone may hand you a 'joint'.

Ray

I suppose that the guy told you that the proper word was "die". Well, THAT shows you that the guy never saw the late Jay Marshall, do the die box!!!

Jay, in his very funny routine, which he did on the USO circuit in the mid '40s, always explained that the "proper" term was, "DOUSE". ("MICE" (plural) therefore, "MOUSE" (singular) Besides, his father had told him when he was a young lad: "NEVER say die!"

Jay never did explain about "house"/"hice"!

(About 13% of our 'every day' language is from Anglo/Saxon words.)