Dad jokes

Knock-Knock

13 jokes, all of them clean

Knock-knock jokes are the only format on this site that needs the other person to participate. That is the entire mechanic and it is also why they are the first joke most people ever learn to tell.

A joke with a script for 2 people

Every other joke here is a monologue. This one hands the listener 2 lines and makes them complicit in their own groan, which is a genuinely clever piece of design for something usually told by 6-year-olds. It also means the format teaches itself. A kid who hears 1 knock-knock joke knows the structure of all of them immediately, and will then produce roughly 40 bad ones.

The interrupting cow problem

The interrupting cow is the best knock-knock joke and it is the one that breaks the rules — it does not wait for the second line. That is worth noticing, because it means the format is strongest when it violates its own script. Most of the others on this page play it straight and land as gentle. Tell the cow one to somebody who thinks they have heard every knock-knock joke.

The one to actually use

The interrupting cow, and it wins by breaking the format. Every other joke on this page waits politely for the other person to say who. This one does not wait, and the whole joke is the interruption arriving early. That is worth noticing — the strongest version of a rigid format is usually the one that violates it. The banana and orange one is the other exception, and it works by being far too long on purpose.

Got one that belongs here?

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Every joke is read by a human before it goes up. Keep it clean — PG-13 at the very edgiest.