Here now is the next installment of our regular series — the Joke Reality Check — in which we put jokes told on the campaign trail or in the media or in the general political discussion through a VIP check-up and washing. We check whether jokes are stolen, poorly-premised, or poorly written or delivered. And we offer strategic advice to improve the attempt.  If we’re not too lazy.

On a happy note, we were thrilled this morning to see the Washington Post’s “Reliable Source” column run this amid its Eliot Spitzer coverage:

Isn’t there a great old joke about the Mann Act of 1910 (which Spitzer may have violated if he transported a hooker across state lines)?

So there was this zookeeper who was caring for these ancient dolphins. The secret to their long life, it seemed, was that they would only eat a certain kind of sea bird. So every month, the zookeeper had to drive to a state park filled with all kinds of exotic animals where he’d pick up the food. One night he was driving back late and ran over a big cat. He was arrested for violating the Mann Act: transporting gulls across state lions for immortal porpoises.

Kudos for digging up an old favorite.  Here are some other ways it’s been told through the years:

Lawyers Weekly, Oct. 26, 2001:

… a pun known to every U.S. high school student as late as the 1970s or 80s. The set-up joke varied, but generally concerned a scientist performing research on aging. The scientist experimented on dolphins, the joke usually went, which he fed baby gulls or mynah birds. For security, he also kept a couple of lions in his lab. The police inevitably charged him with “transporting gulls [or mynahs] across staid lions for immortal porpoises.”

Charleston Post and Courier, Feb. 27, 1999:

A scientist discovered that a species of dolphins, which apparently lived forever, was endangered because its supply of young sea birds was dwindling. He decided to go to the one island where he could find the needed birds. On the island, things got scary. In order to get to the birds, he had to tiptoe past two lions which had eaten a big meal and fallen asleep on the mountain path. He grabbed the birds and tiptoed back safely only to be arrested by the FBI.

His crime? He broke the Mann Act. He was transporting young gulls across sated lions for immortal porpoises.