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The Dubious Art of the Dad Joke

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Re: The Dubious Art of the Dad Joke

#91

Post by smoyer »

mbg721 wrote: post #84
jacobkg wrote: post #38

My take on the Dad joke: A “Dad” joke is usually characterized by relying heavily on dumb puns and wordplay. I now believe that this is not because Dads inherently like puns but rather that two aspects of child development happen to coincide, namely: -Between ages 2 and 6 or so children often develop the ability to giggle uncontrollably in a way that is so utterly endearing that it practically takes your breathe away…

Building on your second point, kids at that age are also prone to verbal misunderstandings, many of which turn out to be hilarious. So turnabout is fair play.

Many years ago my father-in-law was concerned about the pressure I one of his tires. I told him not to worry because I had a tire gauge in my car and we could check it. My sister-in-law was three or four at the time and approached me wide-eyed and said incredulously "you have a tiger cage in your car? "

Re: The Dubious Art of the Dad Joke

#92

Post by smoyer »

adolph wrote: post #43
jacobkg wrote: post #38

My take on the Dad joke: A “Dad” joke is usually characterized by relying heavily on dumb puns and wordplay. I now believe that this is not because Dads inherently like puns but rather that two aspects of child development happen to coincide, namely: -Between ages 2 and 6 or so children often develop the ability to giggle uncontrollably in a way that is so utterly endearing that it practically takes your breathe away…

Maybe you don't mean to suggest that all puns are "dumb?" For if you did someone would certainly shake a spear at you. https://nosweatshakespeare.com/blog/shakespeare-puns/

Hanging is too good for the man who uses puns - he should be drawn and quoted!

Re: The Dubious Art of the Dad Joke

#93

Post by hluska »

wolverine876 wrote: post #79
conductr wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds quite familiar to my experience with my 3 year old. He tells jokes back to me that are just as absurd and we try to one up each other. Since he’s learned a good deal of vocabulary and matching and opposites, he finds things that unexpectedly clash hilarious knock knock … porcupine who? Porcupine bulldozer - makes no sense why those things belong together and that’s what makes it funny. Then we’ll laugh an…

> I’m also a serious adult. I don’t joke around with my friends like I did in my youth. My hangout sessions with friends are all calendared weeks/months ahead. I have friends, we joke, but it’s different and not side splitting type jokes; more like chuckles. I see adults do that, but I don't understand it. To me, 'serious' means having consequential responsibilities, prioritizing them, and reliably delivering on them…

I like to laugh and still share side-splitting laughs with my friends, but I understand their point. There’s an entirely different level of laughter where my child is involved. She’s six now so I’m used to it but when she was little, I could truthfully say that I had never laughed so hard in my entire life. That’s not quite true - I have laughed that hard but the emotional side of parenting makes everything into a superlative.

Re: The Dubious Art of the Dad Joke

#94

Post by hluska »

aidenn0 wrote: post #85
Cerium wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have enjoyed that one for a while. My wife and I are expecting that I will give up that joke in a few weeks for the same reason.

Congratulations? (You can always tell when a parent is congratulating you as there is that lilt on the end that signifies they aren't certain that having to take care of an infant is an event definitely worth congratulating).

Hahahahaha, I relate. I want to say ‘congratulations’ but also want to say “holy shit, welcome to an 18 month long hangover.” :)

Re: The Dubious Art of the Dad Joke

#98

Post by humanrebar »

Lots of good comments here, but nobody has really pointed out the next level of metahumor in a dad joke.

All humor is based on something unexpected. In a good pun, the wordplay is clever and unexpected. In a good punchline, the particular completion of a setup is unexpected.

Sometime a dad joke is funny because telling a joke that awful is itself unexpected! It's sort of a metajoke that someone would even try to tell that joke. And the joke self-deprecating at the same time because there's real risk the audience won't even get that telling the joke is the joke.

The best example of the bad joke metajoke was the Norm MacDonald roast of Bob Saget. If you know anything about roast comedy, his set was a work of comedy genius. Someone out of the loop might think Norm was just lame, but he was really doing something clever with top notch delivery.

There is a nice synergy with the above when young children are involved. Those aspects (teaching, it's new to them, they just want to share a laugh) are there still even with the metajoke hanging out there for the grownups in the room to (hopefully) appreciate. I'll also add that it's good to teach kids not to take the adults too seriously. Even kings get the toots, etc.

Anyway, all that being said, you can run even the bad joke metajoke into the ground, dads. At some point it stops being meta and self-deprecating and just becomes G-rated cringe trolling. I think the best comics try to delight their audiences. Be funny and delightful please.

Re: The Dubious Art of the Dad Joke

#99

Post by saghm »

radiorental wrote: post #73
jacobkg wrote: post #38

My take on the Dad joke: A “Dad” joke is usually characterized by relying heavily on dumb puns and wordplay. I now believe that this is not because Dads inherently like puns but rather that two aspects of child development happen to coincide, namely: -Between ages 2 and 6 or so children often develop the ability to giggle uncontrollably in a way that is so utterly endearing that it practically takes your breathe away…

Dad here, I agree with all of the above with a caveat... my kids are now 9 and 11. After a long road trip when they're farking around in the back of the car I'll start throwing down some dad jokes. They soon plead for me to stop. There's something agonizing about processing a good Dad joke, it's now become torture for them. The deeper and more twisted the pun the better. Maybe I'm about to reach Peak Dad?

Honestly, I think that almost anything that would otherwise be interesting can become tiresome to people who experience it too much. I remember reading that the Red Sox manager, Alex Cora, would video call one of the Red Sox star players (Xander Bogaerts) to have him tell his kids to eat their vegetables when they were refusing, and it worked! The kids clearly were Red Sox fans who were impressed to hear from one of their favorite players, and yet, the fact that their dad was this player's boss was somehow not suitably impressive. No matter how impressive you might otherwise be to them if you were a stranger, it's hard to avoid being boring to your own kids.

Re: The Dubious Art of the Dad Joke

#100

Post by saghm »

nonameiguess wrote: post #46
jacobkg wrote: post #38

My take on the Dad joke: A “Dad” joke is usually characterized by relying heavily on dumb puns and wordplay. I now believe that this is not because Dads inherently like puns but rather that two aspects of child development happen to coincide, namely: -Between ages 2 and 6 or so children often develop the ability to giggle uncontrollably in a way that is so utterly endearing that it practically takes your breathe away…

I don't know about that, man. I think it's just men over 35 or so no matter what. I'm 41 with no kids and love dad jokes, not to try and rekindle the feeling of feedback from a 4 year-old since I haven't regularly interacted with 4 year-olds since I was a 4 year-old myself.

I'm 28 and have loved puns about as long as I can remember. No plans to have kids, but it turns out you can get almost anyone to groan, even adults!
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