“I spent three weeks trying to stuff the Thanksgiving turkey—through the beak”

American comedian Phyllis Diller is credited with a popular Thanksgiving line:
 
“I spent three weeks trying to stuff the Thanksgiving turkey—through the beak.”
     
Diller included the joke in her act by at least 1960, when it was cited in newspapers. In her book Like a Lampshade in a Whorehouse: My Life in Comedy (2006), Diller explained that she filmed this comic turkey-stuffing procedure in 1952.
 
   
Wikipedia: Phyllis Duller
Phyllis Ada Driver (July 17, 1917 – August 20, 2012), better known as Phyllis Diller, was an American stand-up comedian, actress and voice artist, best known for her eccentric stage persona, her self-deprecating humor, her wild hair and clothes, and her exaggerated, cackling laugh.
 
11 March 1960, Dallas (TX) Morning News, “Distaff Humor At Century Room,” sec. 3, pg. 9, col. 5:
“I spent three weeks trying to stuff the Thanksgiving turkey—through the beak.”
(Phyllis Diller.—ed.)
 
24 March 1960, St. Louis (MO) Post-Dispatch, “Housewife Who Became a Top Comedienne: Phyllis Diller’s Family and Friends Told Her She Was Funny, So She Made a Career Out of It” by Jack Rice, pg. 3F, col. 3:
No housewife would stuff a turkey through the beak, using tweezers, but any housewife is delighted to hear Mrs. Diller explain how she did it through the genius of ignorance.
 
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11/24/05
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It took me three weeks to stuff the turkey. I stuffed it through the beak. - Phyllis Diller
 
Google Books
Like a Lampshade in a Whorehouse:
My Life in Comedy

By Phyllis Diller with Richard Buskin
New York, NY: Penguin
2006
Pg. ?:
One time at home, after I had used my vanity scissors to try plucking a turkey, it looked like it was covered in little craters. Well, this lent itself to a skit in which I lifted a turkey with tweezers, cut it with cuticle scissors, stuffed it through the beak, and left the giblets inside because I didn’t want to stick my hand up its ass.
 
I actually filmed this routine in October 1952, ...
     
Google Books
Snark! the Herald Angels Sing:
Sarcasm, Bitterness and the Holiday Season

By Lawrence Dorfman
New York, NY: Skyhorse Publishing
2011
Pg. 150:
It took me three weeks to stuff the turkey. I stuffed it through its beak. —PHYLLIS DILLER
 
Twitter
Roberta
‏@MoreThymeBlog
I’ll never forget watching Phyllis Diller trying to stuff a turkey through the beak. RIP In honor of her cooking: http://ow.ly/d7f1O
11:10 AM - 21 Aug 2012