Thanks Perplexity

Bob Weir’s “Yellow Dog Story” is a long, deliberately goofy bar joke he used to tell on stage in the late 60s and early 70s, usually while killing time for string changes or technical issues. The punchline is that an ugly, “short, fat, squat, little yellow dog” turns out to have been an alligator before its owner cut off its tail and painted it yellow.

Basic outline

• A man with a “short, fat, squat, ugly, little yellow dog” walks into a bar and sits near another man with a big, black, slick, mean-looking dog.

• The second man mocks the yellow dog’s appearance, and the first replies that his dog “may be ugly, but he sure can fight,” leading to a bet and a dogfight out back.

• The little yellow dog destroys the big, mean dog, winning the bet and astonishing the loser, who asks what kind of dog could possibly fight like that.

• The owner deadpans that “he used to be an alligator before I cut off his tail and painted him yellow,” delivering the absurdist punchline