Two jokes

Dear Teachers,

I do not understand these two jokes. Could someone please explain these for me.

1. What inference makes the following joke funny?
Sam: Do you know how to save a politician from drowning?
Joe: No.
Same: Good.

Texpayers like to dislike politicians, and this joke falls into that category. as a rule, when you have to explain the inference in a joke, the un is lost. You want your audience to make the connection and laugh uproariously.
--I quoted this from the book exactally. And I do not understand this joke.

2.What do you know about a jury? What is being implied about this cartoon? (I am sorry that I am not able to draw the cartoon here so I just describe the cartoon for you.) In the cartoon, there is a police officer taking order for the jurors. Below the picture, there is a sentence. "Eleven hamburgers, one "frank", Eleven coffees, one tea. eleven apple pies, one chocolate cake..."
--What does "frank" here mean?
--Also what make this cartoon funny?


3.What does "infectious wit" mean?

4.What does "home folks of rural America" mean?

Thanks:)

Emily

[Tdol]

The first joke is just a way of expressing our dislike for politicians. Try telling it to somebody. they say 'no', expecting an explanationg and get the unexpected reply 'good'.

The cartoon doesn't sound that funny, but it depends very much on the picture. Clearly one person is meant to be completely different from the rest.

Humour is infectious because one person's laugh can start another person laughing. 'Wit' is the ability to make rapid jokes, especially playing with words. So if someone's wit is infectious, it spreads to other people.

'Home folk of rural America' sounds as if it's meant to describe people of conservative tastes.

[oldman2]

I'm not a native, but I'd say, in most cases, when you try to get sb to explain a joke you don't get--be prepared, they may no longer be funny anymore (to you), but I guess we get a little bit of the essence of the sense of humor in a certain culture, hopefully I'll get it the next time.

I'll try to explain it this way by putting a parenthesis after the last line:

good. (It's good that you don't know how to save them because I want them drowned!---it's this unexpected reply that makes the joke funny)

[Marylin]

I agree with Tdol. It's a pretty lame joke, I think.
The cop takes food orders from jurors because the jurors' deliberation takes a long time, I guess.
"frank" stands for "hot dog" = Franfurter is a larger hot dog than just a regular hot dog, otherwise also known as a "smokie dog".