“Would you like to see a model home?”/“Sure! When does she get off work?”
New York City-born comedian and actor Milton Berle (1908-2002) was quoted with this joke in the January 1943 Reader’s Digest:
“Would you like to see a model home?”
“Glad to. What time does she quit work?”
The joke is that the person interpreted “see a model home” as “see a fashion model to her home.” The joke was printed in many newspapers in 1943.
4 January 1943, Chicago (IL) Daily Tribune, “A Line O’ Type or Two,” pg. 12, col. 3:
Milton Berle, quoted in January, 1943, Reader’s Digest: “Would you like to see a model home?” “Glad to. What time does she quit work?”
Quizzicuss.
6 January 1943, Hopewell (NJ) Herald, pg. 8, col. 5:
Dick—Would you like to see a model home?
Tom—I sure would; where does she live?
30 April 1943, The Prairie Flier (Winfield, KS), “Kownick’s Korny Kollumn by Cpl. Harold Kownick, pg. 3, col. 1:
Sgt. Johnson: “Would you like to see a model home?”
Sgt. Peterson: “Glad to. What time does she quit work?
5 June 1943, Boston (MA) Daily Globe, pg. 12, col. 1:
Willing
“Would you like to see a model home?”
“Glad to. What time does she quit work?”—Windsor Star.
Google Groups: rec.humor
Some old stuff, one liners, puns
Henry Cate III
6/7/90
(...)
Real-estate man: Would you like to see a model home?
Man: I sure would, when does she get off work?
Google Groups: rec.humor
Henry Cate’s Life2.Q
Scott Thurston (ex-zoomie)
7/15/91
(...)
Real-estate man: Would you like to see a model home?
Man: I sure would, when does she get off work?
Google Groups: alt.tasteless.jokes
Model Home
G - P
7/15/99
Real estate man: Would you like to see a model home?
Man: I sure would, when does she get off work?
Google Books
Metarepresentation, Self-Organization and Art
edited by Wolfgang Wildgen and Barend van Heusden
Bern, Switzerland: Peter Lang
2009
Pg. 80:
(8) In the Frank and Ernest comic strip, Frank says to a real estate agent, “Sure, we’d like to see a model home. What time does she get off work?” (Nilsen & Nilsen 2000: 26)
In joke (8), the phrase “see a model home” could be understood in two ways: 1. to see a home which is used as an example of houses to be sold by the real estate agents. The word “model” is an attribute of “home”. 2. to see a person go back home, that person is employed to display clothes (or other merchandises) or serves as a pattern for artists.
Twitter
Moe Farahat
@farahato
Real estate man: Would you like to see a model home?
Man: I sure would, when does she get off work?
#joke
12:25 PM - 18 May 2009
Twitter
Ron
@upminster13
I was at the Ideal Home Exhibition and one of the exhibitors asked me if I wanted to see a model home
“Yes what time does she finish?”
3:06 AM - 6 Mar 2017
Twitter
lorraine Jo King
@LahLahBean
#sillysaturday
Real estate man: Would you like to see a model home?
Man: I sure would, when does she get off work?
5:30 AM - 28 Jul 2018