It's Not Doing the Backstroke

How far back does the “Waiter, there’s a fly in my soup” joke go?

There’s a version in the Flip the Frog cartoon The Soup Song (1930).



The fly shakes itself dry, congratulates itself, and flies out of the cartoon.



The “sound” in this sound cartoon are music and effects. No dialogue. Ub’s still in the cartoon-star-makes-music-using-things-around-him stage.

As for the joke, the earliest I’ve found in print is from a newspaper of August 4, 1870. The same joke appeared for the next number of years in various American publications.

Guest: “How comes this dead fly in my soup?”
Waiter: “In fact, sir, I have no positive idea how the poor thing came to his death. Perhaps it had not taken any food for a long time, dashed upon the soup, at too much for it, contracted an inflammation of the stomach, which brought on death. The fly must have had a very weak constitution, for when I served the soup it was dancing merrily upon the surface. Perhaps, and the idea presents itself only for this moment, it endeavored to swallow too large a piece of vegetable, this remaining fast in the throat, caused a choking in the windpipe. This is the only reason I could give of the death of that insect.”

Yeah, there’s nothing like stiffly-worded sarcasm. Iwerks cartoons were not exactly known for wit and rollicking humour, but I’ll take Flip’s joke over the overblown facetiousness of the newspaper.