Depends on the Meaning of Who's On First

I once did a cartoon involving "Rock, Scissors, Paper," before the invention of Scissors & Paper. Since then, I've seen a similar cartoon twice, and corresponded with one of the two other cartoonists. They weren't rip-offs. And that's not even "Great minds think alike." More like "Desperate for dailies hit on similar obvious gags."

And so it is with "Is Is." I'm tracking this one.

I'll give Mrs Jarlsberg points for best original-context use so far. (Hat tip to her. My own Mrs has provided me some great punch lines, too.)

But an Aug 24 headline on American Thinker beat you by a day. (But that one hardly counts, because the usage was divorced from the phrase's Clintonian ancestry - and the article itself.)

However (puffs out chest), I commented on Ace of Spades Aug 23, 7:48am, and repeated the joke at 8:53am:

Barry the O: It depends on what the meaning of IS is.

_______

C'mon, I've had that in my head for DAYS, and I finally find a place to hang it and nobody notices. I would haz a sad if I cared.

Maybe nobody got it. Let me explain. See, ...

Commenter Lou Grant was the only response I got, after the 2nd time:

"MWW that Is Is thing is pretty good. I'm I'm surprised it it has not not come up sooner."

Just keeping track to see if I reallllly got first use on it. I'll bet, somewhere on the web, there's someone who beat you, AT, and me to it.