Dad jokes
Video Games
18 jokes, all of them clean
Video game jokes reach back further than the other fandom topics — Mario is 1981, Pac-Man is 1980. That means these work on people who have not touched a controller in decades, because the references predate most of the players.
What do you call a gamer's bedtime? One more level.
Why did Mario break up with Princess Peach? She was always in another castle.
Why is Waluigi always sad? He's still waiting for his own game.
Why did Bowser open a bakery? He makes a mean peach cobbler.
What's Yoshi's favorite party trick? Swallowing his pride. And everything else.
How does Pac-Man like his pizza? With one slice missing.
Why is Link so quiet at parties? He never says anything.
What's Sonic's favorite candy? Ring pops.
Why does Kirby get invited to every dinner party? He always inhales his food.
Why do gamers hate nature? Too many bugs.
Why did the Tetris player go to therapy? He couldn't get his life to fit together.
What's a gamer's favorite kind of music? 8-bit tunes. They're classics.
Why did the gamer bring a broom to the arcade? To sweep the leaderboards.
What's Luigi's favorite fabric? Denim, denim, denim.
Why don't video game characters ever get lost? They always follow the quest markers.
Why did Donkey Kong throw barrels? He went bananas.
Why don't NPCs ever gossip? They just repeat the same three lines.
What did the Wii say to the Switch? "I used to be the console of the party."
The oldest characters make the best puns
Mario, Pac-Man, Sonic and Bowser have been around long enough to become general knowledge rather than gaming knowledge, the same way Mickey Mouse did. Somebody who has never played a game knows Pac-Man eats dots and Mario jumps. That shared floor is exactly what a 1-line joke needs. Newer characters make sharper jokes for a smaller room; the 1980s ones make an easier joke for everybody.
The princess line is the tell
Half the Mario jokes here run on "she's in another castle," a line from 1985 that has outlived the game it was in. If you want a test for whether a game reference has crossed into general culture, that is it. Anything that quotable is safe at a dinner table. Anything that needs you to explain a mechanic is not.
The one to actually use
Mario and the castle. It is the only joke on this page built on a line rather than a name, and that line has been in general circulation since 1985. You can tell it to somebody who has never held a controller and they will still follow it, because the phrase escaped the game decades ago. The Waluigi one is genuinely funny and lands with about 1 person in 20.
Got one that belongs here?
Send it in. A human reads every submission before it goes up.