“A guy bought his friend an elephant for his room. The friend said ‘thanks.’ The guy said ‘don’t mention it.'”

Most of us had to experience them first hand whether we liked it or not. There almost as impossible to escape as the SATs during the college process. You may have heard them from friends, strangers at parties, or from none other than…your dad. Dad jokes. Dad jokes are typically the cheesiest jokes anyone can tell. This type of joke is a dangerous matter. If you play it too safe, your joke will be ignored and your joke telling credibility will start to diminish. If you are too bold with dad-joking, be careful because you may receive plenty of rolled eyes and disapproving stares. Depending on the severity of the cheesiness of the joke, you may even lose some friends. Dad jokes are not meant to be knee-slapping jokes. You know your dad joke was a hit if your audience laughs at you, gives disapproving looks, and whine to you about just how cheesy your joke was. To which you would reply “Want a little cheese with that wine?”

In the media, particularly on ABC’s television series Modern Family, Phil Dunphy never fails to deliver a dad joke. Before we begin to converse about Phil’s wonderful, if I do say so myself as an avid dad joker, sense of humor, lets get to know Phil. Phil Dunphy is married to Claire and is the father of Haley, Alex, and Luke. Speaking of Phil’s kids, have you heard about the kidnapping recently? It’s alright, he woke up. Get it? Anyway, Phil works as a real estate agent in California and has worked long and hard to establish the role of being the “cool dad.” To just shed a little light on Phil’s dad joking skills, caught in the heat of the moment he tells everyone to “Prepare to Phil the agony of the Dunpheat.” If that doesn’t scream avid dad joker to you maybe his joke about him drawing up plans for a Duckingham Palace will. He can’t find his Duckingham Palace plans, so he decides to just “wing” it. Look, I don’t know about you, but Phil Dunphy is one of my idols for dad-joking. Phil Dunphy’s loving, optimistic, and hilarious personality allows him to consistently make high quality dad jokes throughout the series.

Aside from Phil Dunphy, President Barack Obama has also proven his prowess in the act of dad-joking. This previous year as Obama was pardoning a turkey for a cool Thanksgiving. It was almost chilly enough to grab a bowl and a spoon to eat it. Eh? I’ll try harder. Anyway, he delivered a set of terrible/awesome, depends on how you look at it, dad jokes that even made his daughters laugh and cringe on national television. They included “…TOTUS. The Turkey of The United States” and my favorite “It’s hard to believe this is my seventh year of pardoning a turkey. Time flies even if turkeys don’t.” Come on guys. If you didn’t at least smile reading this, please reevaluate your sense of humor.

Dad jokes are one of the most unappreciated jokes today. They are not limited to just dads, but are open to anyone who likes to tell corny jokes that they can laugh at themselves. I believe that telling dad jokes is like a gateway to more advanced styles of humor like sarcasm and satire. Every person who enjoys telling jokes, having a good sense of humor,laughing at their own jokes should experience the joy of telling dad jokes. Hopefully, you guys enjoyed, or at least tolerated, my blog. If you did not like my jokes, try to be less like a kleptomaniac and stop taking things literally. (Sorry, had to get one last joke in.)

“Humor is just another defense against the universe.” – Mel Brooks

When was humor and comedy first incorporated into our routine lives? The world’s oldest recorded joke has been found and dates back to 1900 B.C. The joke goes “Something which has never occurred since time immemorial; a young woman did not fart in her husband’s lap.” Of all of the different styles of jokes to tell, the oldest joke found is nothing but a toilet joke. Shows just how much society and our jokes have
changed, right?

Anyway, following the oldest joke the oldest surviving joke book is The Philolegos, or Laughter Lover. The Greek anthology dates back to the fourth century and is considered, at least by me, to be the holy grail of joke books. Even though the jokes may not be the best out there, even some of my jokes are better, to hold a piece of history so important to the unifying act of laughing is beyond words.

There are many theories describing why humor has been around all throughout history. When analyzing humor, most philosopher’s have been critical in their assessments. Plato seemed to have not understood the joy of laughing in the Republic where he says that Guardians of the state should avoid laughter because it “provokes a violent reaction.” He also took it as a personal offense that in the Illiad and the Odyssey Mount Olympus was ringing with the laughter of the gods. He believes that it is a malicious thing because we laugh at those who believe themselves to be higher up than what they are. Plato isn’t a complete stick in the mud. He believed that comedy should be allowed in a controlled sense where only slaves and hired aliens get to partake in the act. Plato, a lot less fun than play-dough,  refused to mold his opinions and stuck with his belief that laughing was for the ignorant. Unfavorably for Plato, researchers have found many beneficial theories for the development of humor.

A very popular theory for humor is the relief theory. Lord Shaftesbury describes this theory in his essay “An Essay on the Freedom of Wit and Humor”. Scientists of the day believed, and I swear by it, that our nerves carried “animals spirits” that were gases and liquids. Shaftesbury believed that laughter released the animal spirits from our mind’s zoo to release pressure in the nerves. This theory was furthered thankfully by more scientific research on the physiology of the body. There are two prominent relief theories by Herbert Spencer and Sigmund Freud.  Respectively, the two theories are that laughter is the result of a release of excessive energy and that it is the release of tension or energy. So maybe Shaftesbury wasn’t too far off with the whole animal spirits escaping your body theory.

The most popular theory of humor is the incongruity theory. Aristotle gives the oldest insight into this theory in the Rhetoric. He explained that a comedian, or anyone who likes to make people laugh, should setup an expected joke and switch up to something unexpected at the last moment to “give it a twist.” Reminds me of that awkward phase my generation all went through in middle school. We all wanted to be the “random/funny kid” so we tried are hardest to make people laugh using the one and only rule of this theory. We used to randomly scream “rawr” at our friends and tell them that it meant “I love you ” in dinosaur. Or even buy shirts with awful paired up words that did not make any sense whatsoever.  Some included folded meatball, hairy taco,  or scuba donkey. The worst was when people would substitute the end of their sentences with the word salad leaving the listener with nothing more than craving a healthy meal.

Well now that we know a little about the history of humor time to have some fun right? Yeah! But not right now. If you follow along, this blog will entail the different styles of humor and comedy and some pretty funny or terrible jokes depending on how you perceive them. Make fun of me if you’d please. Referencing the Mel Brooks quote above, I’ve got humor on my side So, if you’re into humor and all things funny, continue along in my adventure. But if you’re like Plato, not even fun to play with and definitely not to eat, click that nice little “x” on the top right of your screen. For those of you who have stayed, let’s get ready to release some “animal spirits.”