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For what it's worth, this particular kind of joke is called a "shaggy dog story". The point of a shaggy dog story isn't to entertain the listener, it's to entertain the teller by keeping the audience on the hook for as long as possible. The lame punchline is part of the act, a way of driving home the point that the teller was conning the audience.
True shaggy dog stories are improvised from basic guidelines, with the skill being how long you can keep improvising and building on the basic framework without losing the audience, and climax without a real punchline.
There is an original "Shaggy Dog Story". The basic framework is this:
A man see in the classified ads an ad from a rich man who wants shaggy dog. He gets a shaggy dog, cleans it up, and takes it to the home of the man who put the ad. The butler greets him, sees the dog, and says, "We wanted shaggy, but not *that* shaggy."
I doubt anybody would memorize the joke in the first linked thread, but the basic framework could be greatly condensed into a single paragraph.
Sissy can do a killer version of "If I play my cards right . . . ." I've seen her keep a group hooked for close to ten minutes, the delight she was having with keeping her audience hooked obvious. It is a thing to behold.
Gilda
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