Raoul Pascual started doing cartoons for his officemates in his old job as a designer in a marketing/publishing company in Burbank California. After leaving the company, he decided to keep in touch with his friends by sending them original cartoons based on some joke emails he received. Encouraged by their positive reactions, he decided to send them out to other friends. This continued and what started with a handful of recepients, he now delivers his jokes to thousands of people in several countries every Friday morning.

One thing Raoul realized was there were still many who were using slow dial-up internet connections so he intentionally keeps the file sizes very small for an easy download.

At first the drawings were just quick black and white pen sketches. Then it evolved into full color cartoons. Now, people send him large videos and graphics. Many are not TGIF material simply due to the file size but there are some exceptionally funny clips that Raoul sends them out as attachments.

In the beginning Raoul's choice of jokes were simply based on how hard he laughed when he read them for the first time. Then some readers complained about the content being too graphical. He screened those out. Then some complained about obscene languages and Raoul got rid of that too. Then someone pointed out that some jokes were offensive to some ethnic segments of society. Aging jokes are still fair game but blonde jokes, ethnic jokes, political jokes, religious jokes, sexual jokes --- these are off limits! With so many "sensitive" people out there, it's amazing that any joke even makes it to the list. But somehow a few do. Thank God for that! Of course a few borderline jokes make it through the cracks especially when Raoul has so much in his hands that he zombies out on Thursday evening.

Raoul considers this as one big experiment. Since his first TGIF joke (the exact date is vague but his earliest one on file was dated April 23 2004) he has not missed delivering a joke on Friday morning. Even on vacation, he sends them out one way or another. The experiment is one of consistency and quality --- how long will this record stand? How long can jokes be funny without offending anybody?

If you do not receive your TGIF joke by Friday lunch time (PST), there might be a glitch in your email system. If this ever happens don't hesitate to re-subscribe to the list.

To know more about Raoul, click here to read Raoul's bio.

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