The 200 Best Dad Jokes of All-Time Guaranteed to Make You Laugh
These are guaranteed to earn some groans.
Published on 3 November 2022
This is a story about one of my favorite dad jokes.
My dad passed away ten years ago. He died of an enlarged heart, and when the news spread in our neighborhood, well-meaning friends and acquaintances would walk up to my brother and me and tell us, “Your dad died as he lived, with a big heart.” It never failed to annoy us. We didn’t want to be cheered up with idiotic aphorisms that put a positive spin on his medical condition. So we started telling people that he’d been killed by a colon parasite.
“He died as he lived,” we’d say, nodding meaningfully. “With angry, irritable bowels.”
It made us laugh. But more importantly, we knew it would’ve made our dad laugh. For most of his life (or at least as long as I knew him), he was a huge advocate and gleeful teller of Dad Jokes.
If you’ve ever had a father (or currently are one), you don’t need me to explain a Dad Joke. To paraphrase US Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart when expounding on how to identify pornography in 1964, you’ll know it when you see it.
If it evokes a reaction somewhere between cringing and earnest laughter, and you simultaneously want to tell the person sharing the joke to tell you more and also shut up because they’re embarrassing you in front of your friends, congratulations, you’re in the presence of a Dad joke.
Are Dad jokes good for you? Inarguably. Recent studies have shown that a good dose of humor, however groan-worthy, can lower your risk of cardiovascular illness, increase your body’s ability to fight pain and prevent disease, and even help you live longer. Yes, fine, it didn’t help my dad live longer, but I know for a fact that he was laughing on the last day of his life, and that seems like the best possible way to leave this mortal coil.