Please explain this 43-year-old joke to me

April 20, 2020 3:58 AM

We are in a bar on Halloween. The narrator describes a series of jokey and punny costumes that the bar patrons are wearing, and then his own: "Me, I was dressed as a pirate with a black eyepatch and the name of a certain oil company painted across my chest." What's the joke?

This is from Callahan's Crosstime Saloon. The book was published in 1977 but it's a compilation of short stories which may have been published a few years before then.

posted by Glier's Goetta to Writing & Language (4 answers total)

Man, it's been forever since I've read that book - maybe I'll go digging in the shelves, see if I've still got a copy.

In any case, to answer the question & unless there's more context in the story, I don't think the joke is referencing a specific oil company. It's more a reference to the very common 70's position that oil companies were some of the worst corporations, looting and pillaging the markets and the bank accounts of regular people and the environment in search of ever greater profits.
posted by soundguy99 at 4:19 AM on April 20, 2020

Best answer: ARRRRRCO? "In the 1970s and 80s, ARCO was one of the largest companies in the world, consistently a top 20 company of the Fortune 500."
posted by unknowncommand at 4:19 AM on April 20, 2020 [31 favorites]

I only saw the above the fold and thought to my self "that sounds like a bad pun from one of the Callahan books"...then I saw the rest of the post :)
posted by Captain_Science at 7:29 AM on April 20, 2020 [4 favorites]

Response by poster: It must be ARCO! Thanks folks.
posted by Glier's Goetta at 2:48 AM on April 21, 2020