A Zettelkasten for jokes!

BredenbeckCorp, Hanna. “Up Close and Personal with Phyllis Diller’s Gag File.” National Museum of American History (blog), March 1, 2017. https://americanhistory.si.edu/blog/close-and-personal-phyllis-dillers-gag-file.

Hanna BredenbeckCorp numbered and scanned 52,569 index cards from Phyllis Diller's gag file. Prior to this archival effort most estimates for the numbers of cards were in the 40-50,000 range.

Spanning the 1960s to the 1990s roughly. The index was donated in 2003, so there were certainly no

Exact dating on the cards may give a better range, particularly if the text can be searched or if there's a database that can be sorted by date.

Via https://hypothes.is/a/UbW8nERrEe6xjEseEEEy1w we can use the rough dates: 1955-2002 which are the bookends of her career.

This gives us a rough estimate of:<br /> 2002-1955 = 48 years (inclusive) or 17,520 days (at 365 days per year ignoring leap years)

52,569/17520 days gives 3.000513698630137 or almost exactly 3 cards (jokes) per day.

Going further if she was getting 12 laughs (jokes) per minute (her record, see: https://hypothes.is/a/MTLukkRpEe635oPT5lr7qg), then if continuously told, it would have taken her 52,569 jokes/12 jokes/minute = 4,380.75 minutes = 73.0125 hours or 3.0421875 days to tell every joke in her file.

The potential separation of newspaper clippings from index cards and their attendant annotations/meta data (due to aging of glue) can be a potential source of note loss when creating a physical card index.

Not only a short description of the broad standard form of cards in Phyllis Diller's gag file, but also an enumeration of some of the non-standard cards, many of which are specified because of the issues which they presented in scanning/digitizing for transcription.

The numbers which appear in pencil on the verso of Phyllis Diller's index cards were those added by archivist Hanna BredenbeckCorp prior to scanning them for transcription.

Edwards, Owen. “Comic Phyllis Diller’s Cabinet Keeps the Jokes Coming.” Smithsonian Magazine (blog), March 2007. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/comic-phyllis-dillers-cabinet-keeps-the-jokes-coming-147794613/.

Topical headings in Phyllis Diller's gag file

Owen Edwards in 2007 compared Phyllis Diller's gag file to a safe.

Py-Lieberman, Beth. “Comic Phyllis Diller, the Betty Friedan of Comedy, Dies at 95.” Online magazine. Smithsonian Magazine (blog), August 20, 2012. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/comic-phyllis-diller-the-betty-friedan-of-comedy-dies-at-95-28360980/.

Phyllis Diller analogizing her index card file to a tree.

Some of the topical headings in Phyllis Diller's gag file

Dwight Blocker Bowers in Remembering comedian Phyllis Diller at 2012-08-21<br /> (accessed:: 2023-08-28 01:46:49)

https://collections.si.edu/search/record/edanmdm:nmah_1218386<br /> Phyllis Diller’s Gag File Expansion

https://transcription.si.edu/project/8547

The Transcription Center's Phyllis Diller Gag File repository.

Was this compiled into some other searchable database?

https://collections.si.edu/search/detail/ead_component:sova-sia-fa13-194-refidd1e6139?q=phyllis+diller+gag+file&record=12&hlterm=phyllis%2Bdiller%2Bgag%2Bfile

Phyllis Diller Joke File, 2010

In addition to her larger indexed gag file, it appears that Phyllis Diller donated a separate joke file (box 6 of 8) to the National Museum of American History which contains archival materials and has been restricted for 15 years until 2027-01-01.

ARCHIVAL REPOSITORY: Smithsonian Institution Archives EDAN-URL: ead_component:sova-sia-fa13-194-refidd1e6139

https://collections.si.edu/search/record/edanmdm:nmah_1218385

Phyllis Diller's gag file appears to have been made of 16 standard three-drawer beige Steelmaster (Art Steel Company, Inc.) index card files which were stacked in two columns and enclosed in a matching beige external frame which was mounted on casters. Having overflowed the 48 available drawers, there was an additional 3-drawer file added on top as an expansion.

The Smithsonian dates the files from 1962 to 1994, but perhaps the digitized version can be searched by date to determine the actual earliest and latest dates on included cards as most had at least a month and a year.

From this close up photo, it's more obvious that drawer 49 of Diller's gag file (the extension portion) is dedicated to cartoon strips from The Lockhorns.

https://americanhistory.si.edu/press/fact-sheets/phyllis-diller%E2%80%99s-gag-file

nothing new here

https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_1218385#

52,569 3x5" index cards!

Equal rights for the sexes will be reached only when totally unqualified women occupy high positions of power. —Phyllis Diller, May 1979, gag file under Women's Liberation

From the Phyllis Diller gag file at https://transcription.si.edu/project/8547<br /> via https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_1218385#

https://smithsonian.figshare.com/collections/Phyllis_Diller_Gag_File/6286386

Apparently Rebecca Dikow had a github repository with Phyllis Diller's gag file, but it's no longer active.

https://github.com/kzwa/PhyllisDillerGagFile

Librarian Kate Zwaard of the Library of Congress has a GitHub repo of Phyllis Diller's Gag File.

The Gag File - The Phyllis Diller Gag File - Albert H. Small Documents Gallery (accessed:: 2023-08-26 06:09:54)

In this set, you will find cards from the following category: Lockhorns.

https://transcription.si.edu/project/9431

I had some collections of comic strips in my youth, but sadly didn't keep up the practice or them.

BredenbeckCorp, Hanna. “The Evolution of Phyllis Diller’s Career in 7 Objects.” Smithsonian Institution (blog), March 13, 2017. https://www.si.edu/object/evolution-phyllis-dillers-career-7-objects%3Aposts_f0bf8f9142b02dbb88d3d720517f6697

Some of the cards in Phyllis Diller's gag file were numbered, but the curatorial and collections team at the Smithsonian didn't have enough data to determine what these were or what they meant at the time of transcription.

Finally a source that indicates the full 51 drawers of Diller's gag file.

National Museum of American History Showcases Life and Laughs of Phyllis Diller - Smithsonian Institution 2011-07-26 press release

Jacqueline Trescott in The Washington Post [Phyllis Diller’s joke file becomes a Smithsonian exhibit] (https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/phyllis-dillers-joke-file-at-the-smithsonian/2011/07/27/gIQAZ0dXjI_story.html)<br /> (accessed:: 2023-08-26 04:59:59)

The National Museum of American History debuted Phyllis Diller's gag file on August 12, 2011 in the Albert H. Small Documents Gallery in an exhibition entitled "Have you Hard the One...? The Phyllis Diller Gag File."

see also: press release https://www.si.edu/newsdesk/releases/national-museum-american-history-showcases-life-and-laughs-phyllis-diller

Repetition of the number 48 for the file drawers in the Phyllis Diller gag file despite photos which show the main file and an additional section with 3 drawers on top.

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=2839019692842995

00:06:19 segment Laughter in the Vaults from “Famous Donors.” Stories from the Vaults, September 2007. Season 1, Episode 1. The Smithsonian Channel. https://www.smithsonianchannel.com/episodes/1wyzyg/stories-from-the-vaults-famous-donors-season-1-ep-1.

1955 Diller was a suburban housewife with 5 children. Her first stage appearance was at 37 years old at Purple Onion Night Club in San Francisco, CA, and her last show was in 2002 at 84 years old.

Broadway costume from Hello Dolly

Phyllis Diller points to her card index in the video and calls it her "gag file". Curator Dwight Bowers called it her "joke file".

Tom Canavagh, actor/comedian<br /> Dwight Blocker Bowers, curator at Smithsonian

David Pescovitz in Boing Boing: Help the Smithsonian transcribe Phyllis Diller's jokes at 2017-04-17 (accessed:: 2023-08-26 03:50:15)

Catlin, Roger. “How Many Volunteers Does It Take to Transcribe Phyllis Diller’s 53,000 Jokes?” Smithsonian Magazine, March 6, 2017. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/how-many-volunteers-does-take-transcribe-phyllis-dillers-jokes-180962384/.

Most of Phyllis Diller's gag files are written one joke to a card, but some have multiple jokes and some even span multiple cards.

(Note this is a secondary source and can/should be verified against the digital files.)

As a preliminary indication, most of Phyllis Diller's index cards were written from the 1960s to the 1980s.

Meghan Ferriter, a project coordinator at the Smithsonian Institution, claimed that the transcription of Phyllis Diller's gag file helped the Smithsonian Transcription Center gain 115 volunteers in a single day.

Phyllis Diller donated her gag file consisting of 51 drawers of Steelmaster card index files (on wheels) along with various dresses, costumes, and wigs to the Smithsonian Institution in 2003.

Note that this source indicates 48 drawers, which is the primary collection/cabinet, but there is also an additional 3 drawer addition which is often pictured, but apparently not counted here). Compare the actual listing: https://collections.si.edu/search/results.htm?q=phyllis+diller+gag+file

“Phyllis Diller’s File Of 53,000 Jokes.” Weekend Edition Saturday. NPR, March 11, 2017. https://www.npr.org/2017/03/11/519807672/phyllis-diller-s-file-of-53-000-jokes.

Phyllis Diller called her card index a "gag file".

(It would be nice to have separate confirmation of this as it's a journalist ostensibly quoting a second party.)

Diller's manager indicated that she wrote jokes on paper and had her assistants type them up on 3 x 5" index cards.

Liebenson, Donald. “Classic Hollywood: Remembering Phyllis Diller (and 52,569 of Her Jokes) at the Smithsonian.” Los Angeles Times, May 12, 2017, sec. Television. https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/tv/la-ca-st-phyllis-diller-smithsonian-20170512-story.html.

While many sources seem to indicate that Phyllis Diller had approximately 52,000 index cards with jokes, the ultimate tally after the completion of transcription for the Smithsonian Institution seems to have been 52,569 cards.

While the Los Angeles times lists this as the number of jokes, it's far more likely to be the number of cards as some cards I've seen have multiple jokes.

It took three weeks of volunteer effort for transcribers to convert the 52,569 index cards of jokes in Phyllis Diller's gag file into digitized text.

The Smithsonian seems to consistently refer to Phyllis Diller's card index of jokes as a "gag file", but what did Diller herself call it?

quote by Hanna BredenbeckCorp, of Smithsonian on Phyllis Diller's gag file

Quote from Roseanne Barr on Phyllis Diller's card index gag file.