Q. Why did the scarecrow get a medal?
A. Because hewas outstanding in his field
TERRIBLE jokes are reportedly enjoying a popularity boom. This might usually prompt the question: ‘So how come Theresa May has such low approval ratings?’ But that would be too political and uncharitable — and on both counts would rule me offside in what seems to be a widespread desire for harmless fun.
‘Dad jokes’ — so called because such corny and safe wisecracks are often told by middle-aged chaps in woolly jumpers behind the wheel of the family Vauxhall — are the new internet craze.
It was reported yesterday that an online Reddit forum — where users can discuss everything from last night’s TV to wacky YouTube videos — devoted to such yo-ho-hos has attracted more than a million subscribers. That’s an awful lot of groans and slapped foreheads.
A typical offering: ‘What do you call a flirty philosopher? Socra-tease.’ Or try this one: ‘At work we’ve got a printer we’ve nicknamed Bob Marley. It’s always jammin’.’
Or maybe you prefer this: ‘I’ve just burned my Hawaiian pizza. I should have put it on aloha setting.’ Roll on the drums, please. Oh yes.
The late Tommy Cooper would have been delighted. Wearing his trademark fez, he would have shot his cuffs and done a growly laugh. One Cooper joke I liked was: ‘How do you get a fat girl into bed? Piece of cake.’ But you might not get away with that one these days. Too cake-ist.
Anyway, he told corny jokes almost as a joke against corny jokes. His performances had a layer of irony not evident in the words themselves. But the jokes now in vogue often lack that irony.
When sarcasm has become the default setting of so much public discourse, this is not surprising. Everyone is so determinedly cynical these days, it has all become terribly wearying.
The success of that Reddit chat site is not a freak occurrence. The Dad Jokes video series on Facebook is pulling in a seven-figure audience, which will ignite envy among many trendier media operations. Faultlessly stubble- chinned, Leftleaning comedians on the club circuit who specialise in politicised rants will look at such sign-up rates and wonder, how come?
The suburbs are hitting back. Innocence is mounting an impressive rearguard action on the internet subculture. DAD
jokes were even the subject of highbrow discussion in the leader columns of The Times newspaper yesterday. An American professor’s theory is that they are on the rise because so many of us have had enough of the ‘new age of nastiness’ in satire, particularly on social media.
The Times’s chinstrokers went on to wonder if Dad jokes were popular because they were an alternative to Dads losing their temper, or Dads bursting into song.
There may be something in that, but in my experience Dad jokes are more often a distraction when Mum is about to blow her top, or a desperate attempt to keep the children amused when things elsewhere are going wrong.
It is no coincidence that Christmas crackers — a reliable seam of terrible Dad jokes — provide corny merriment on a day when tempers habitually fray and whoever is cooking the turkey frequently ends up sobbing in the kitchen.
The Reddit and Facebook figures are repeated, on a smaller scale, in The Phoenix, our parish magazine in Herefordshire. The page many readers turn to with the greatest enjoyment is ‘ Steve Dean’s observations’, in which our neighbour Steve, a retired office worker, cracks terrible jokes. ‘Whenever anyone asks to share my KitKat, I give them two fingers,’ says Steve. ‘You’re never more than two feet away from a pair of shoes.’ ‘I tried the tinnitus helpline but it’s no good. It just keeps ringing.’
Why do we love such jokes? Because we’re puerile? If that is the opposite of loving Twitter putdowns about politics, guilty as charged.
How boringly venomous social media users have become, crazed in their certitude. The British have always been suspicious of zealotry. We prefer the mildly lavatorial — Les Dawson telling his doctor he needed something for wind and being given a kite. Or The Two Ronnies gag about the retired general who confessed he hadn’t kissed a woman since 1956.
On hearing his friend’s commiserations, he replied: ‘Mind you, it’s only 2030 hours now.’
Groan if you must, but corny ‘dad jokes’ like this are having an unlikely last laugh on the internet as an antidote to our age of cynicism