Of the many popular characters Jeff has portrayed over the years, the most enduring is one that we came to know as "the Corporate Weenie." No one can say for sure exactly when the Weenie came into existence - I suspect he's been living inside Jeff since the 70s - but the first concrete evidence I have of him is this exchange from Nov. 13, 1991:
DB: Guess what - Uncle Eric's gonna join us for lunch!
JG: That's fine news, indeed. However, once again I must stress the importance of the upcoming end-of-the-year deadlines, and urge, for the sake of the company, that we remain in our cubicles throughout the lunch hour.
eb: you and your urges can sit on that deadline
in your cubicle
throughout the lunch hour
enjoy
JG: While I certainly appreciate a little office-time levity as much as the next guy, I just can't help feeling a little bit disappointed, even sad, at the responses I've been receiving to my recent proposal. Hey guys, what do you say we channel this robust level of energy and humor into our production of computer books? It really can be fun! I know how much fun it can be to socialize with co-workers during the lunch hour - I've read articles on the subject in Business Week and Fortune. (I even went out once for some quick takeout when I forgot my trusty sack lunch - no telling!!) But I'm telling you, nothing feels as good as knowing you've helped the company succeed. So, what do you say? Let's stop kidding around, sharpen our pencils, and buckle down to do some good, serious work this lunch hour! All right!
...from a long list of Jeff-related movie titles, circa 1992:
The Way Jeff Was
Eraserjeff
New Jeff City
Jeffs on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
Koyanisjeffti
Stop Making Jeff
Bright Lights, Big Jeffrey
Jeff Is Cheap, But Toilet Paper Is Expensive
Yojeffbo
Purple Jeff of Cairo
The Goodbye Jeff
It's a Jeff, Jeff, Jeff, Jeff World
Everything You Wanted to Know About Jeff But Were Afraid to Ask
and the grand prize winner:
The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Jeff Manchu
Today's nugget is an in-joke so obscure that I'm not going to even try to explain it. Those of you who were there will understand; everybody else is just going to have to take my word for it that this is one of the funniest one-liners ever written.
Q: What sexual act would I like to perform right now that also happens to be the name of a balding, fat, nasal-voiced rock star?
A: Phil Collins.
Today's selection is short, but indisputably a classic, again from back in 92.
WM, 30, searching for that special someone to take him away from it all. Me: Like walks on the beach, sunsets. You: Have lots of money, like to be called Mommy. Men OK.
I am not Jeff Green. Not by a longshot. But I am the world's foremost (and only) Jeff Green historian, and for years now I've been promising--nay, threatening--to break open my stash of vintage email from Ye Goode Olde Dayse and start deluging the Internet with ancient shtick. Warning: This stuff is mostly a) penis jokes and b) in-jokes that even those involved won't really get anymore. But no Jeff Green blog can be really be complete without it.
Today's nugget comes to us all the way from the twenty-first day of July, nineteen hundred and ninety-two A.D.
Jeff: I just got an error message on email saying that my internal system heap has been corrupted. Is this from eating at Lois's?
Me: Tonto might say that your internal system is heap corrupted.
Jeff: You know, Mr. Comedian, that we Native Americans don't take too kindly to Tonto jokes. My father, Runs Like a Girl, is head of the Sherman Oaks brance of AIM. So watch yourself, white man.
Me: You're not a Native American, you're a Naive American.
Jeff: Top 3 Reasons That Prove I'm a Native American:
1) Cigar store Indian based on my grandfather.
2) You call it corn; I call it maize.
3) Can put ear to the ground and hear Harry approaching.