“Why don’t cannibals eat clowns?”/“Because they taste funny!”

“Why don’t cannibals eat clowns? Because they taste funny!” This popular cannibal-eats-clown joke (wordplay on “tastes funny” meaning “strange” or “not right” and “tastes funny” meaning “ha-ha”) dates to at least 1991.
 
“Two clowns are eating a cannibal” is a jocular backwards variation of this joke.
     
 
Google Books
Self-Regulation of Stereotypic Responses:
Implications for prejudice reduction efforts
By Margo Jeanne Monteith
Thesis/dissertation
1991
Pg. 156:
Why don’t cannibals eat clowns? They taste funny.
 
27 February 1991, St. Louis (MO) Post-Disaptch, “Peoria: How Is The War Playing There? Often With Worry-And Tension-Relieving Humor” by Bill Smith, pg. 11A:
’‘Why don’t cannibals eat clowns? Because they taste funny.”
     
Google Books
The Secret Survival Manual:
A guidebook for teens
By J Brent Bill and Rob Suggs
Grand Rapids, MI: Fleming H. Revell
1993
Pg. 47:
Oh, by the way, the reason cannibals don’t eat clowns is — they taste funny.
 
1 January 1993, Fresno (CA) Bee, ‘Bartending”:
“How come cannibals don’t eat clowns?” a waitress said, picking up her order. “Because they taste funny,” she said, giggling, and went away.
     
Google Books
Kids’ Funniest Jokes
Edited by Sheila Anne Barry
New York, NY: Sterling Publishing Co., Inc.
1994
Pg. 70:
Why don’t cannibals eat clowns?
Because they taste funny.
     
29 October 1884, Boston (MA) Herald, “Rosie O’Donnell at the Comedy Connection” by Dean Johnson, features, pg. 23:
“Two cannibals are eating a clown. One says to the other, `Say, does this taste funny to you?’”
     
Google Books
The Reader’s Digest
v. 149, nos. 891-896
1996
Pg. 50:
ONE CANNIBAL TO ANOTHER while eating a clown: “Does this taste funny to you?”