Endless Thread - Snacktime: Dad Jokes

Episode Date: August 28, 2020

The spotlight is on r/DadJokes, which -- you guessed it -- is home to the most pun-derful, cheesy-but-lovable comedic material the internet has to offer. Starring the experts: Ben & Amory's DADS!

Support for endless thread comes from Mathworks, creator of MATLAB and Simulink Software, to design and develop engineered systems, accelerating the pace of discovery in engineering and science. Learn more at Mathworks.com. Support for WBUR comes from Is Business Broken, a podcast from the Marotra Institute at Boston University that explores questions like, why is innovation in healthcare so hard? Is ESG just greenwashing? of course, is business broken? Listen, wherever you get your podcasts. Produced by the I-Lap at WBUR, Boston. Amory. Benjamin. So there's a guy going through the black forest in Germany. Okay.

Just having a nighttime walk and he hears this beautiful, beautiful music. He recognizes it. It's Beethoven's music. Okay. And he's wondering where. where it's coming from, but right as he's starting to get a sense of it, the music cuts off really aggressively. You know, it's that part in,

I think it's Beethoven's 9th symphony, where it's like, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. And so he's like, wow, that was weird, and he keeps walking. And then all of a sudden it starts back up again. and da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. And then it cuts off again really aggressively.

And he's like, what is going on? And it keeps happening, and the refrain gets shorter and shorter. And he's like, what the hell is going on? And so he just, he starts running towards the music. He's running through the black forests of Germany towards the music. And eventually he comes upon this clearing. And in the middle of the clearing, is this wizened old man.

And he's sort of sitting on top of this pile of dirt, and he's stuck in the dirt, is this, essentially, it's basically like a sarcophagus. And he walks up to it, and as he gets closer, he recognizes this man as Beethoven. And he gets to Beethoven, and, you know, Beethoven kind of pops. pauses. He's sort of shuffling some papers around and doing something and the man gets closer to Beethoven and he realizes, like, Beethoven is like doing something with the paper and it's actually sheet music. And he gets closer and he's like, Beethoven, Herr Beethoven, what do you? This is amazing. I'm such a big fan of yours and your music is so beautiful. What are you doing here? How are you like, I just, I don't even know what's happened. I'm so confused. And as he, as he steps a little bit closer to Beethoven. He realizes that Beethoven is holding along with this, you know, in these, just these like, just, I mean, they're basically skeleton hands. He's holding this sheet music

in an eraser. And Beethoven looks at him and he says, oh, my boy, I'm decomposing. Oh, man. That one requires some patience, but the payoff is pretty good. You are your father's son. I can say that now. I can say that now with some knowledge behind me because I've spoken to your dad. Yeah, and I've spoken to your dad because this week our snack time is a dad joke snack time. You remember our snack time episodes are not our full throttle episodes, but episodes where we just kind of talk about Reddit stuff that we're into. And this week, we are into Reddit dad jokes.

I mean, we're into dad jokes all the time. True. But this week, they get their time in the spotlight. Do you want to hear a shorter dad joke? Sure. This one is straight from Reddit, hosted by someone that goes by Mad As a Hatter. It says, my wife threatened to divorce me when I said I was going to give our daughter a silly name. So I called her bluff.

It's not bad. It's not bad. I've got more up my sleep, but maybe we should let our dads do the talking at this point. Yeah, I think so. So, Emery, I called your dad up. And we had a little dad-to-dad chat. All right.

Okay. We're live. We're live. Tim, why don't ants get the coronavirus? Why don't ants get the coronavirus? Yeah. I don't know. Because of their little antibodies.

Oh. Oh, that's pretty good. All right, I got two more for you, and then I want to hear yours for me, okay? Okay. Why can't you use beef soup as a password? Why can't you use beef soup as a password? It isn't stroke enough. Oh, okay.

That's pretty good. Those were my short ones. I got a slightly longer one for you, and then I want to hear yours, okay? Okay. Duck walks into a pharmacy, walks up to the pharmacist, looks at the pharmacist, says, Godney corn? Pharmacist says, no, this is a pharmacy. Get out of here.

Duck walks out. Next day, the duck walks back in around the same time of day. Pharmacist is just wrapping up. Duck walks right up to the counter, kind of cocks its head, looks at the pharmacist. Got any corn? Pharmacist says, no. I told you yesterday. This is a pharmacy.

We don't have any corn. Duck walks out. Third day. Same time. Pharmacist is just getting ready to pack up his lunch and, you know, just. go home and have a nice restful evening. The little doorbell on the door tinkles. Sure enough, it's the duck.

Duck waddles up to the counter, looks at the pharmacist. Pharmacist looks at the duck. Duck says, got any corn? Pharmacist says, man, you've been coming in here every day. I'm sick of this. I've told you every single day that we do not have any corn. This is a pharmacy.

It is a up-and-up business establishment. I don't know what you're talking about. It's clearly ridiculous that you're asking me this days in a row. If you come back in here tomorrow, I'm going to nail your webbed feet to the floor. Duck walks out. Next day, it's almost quitting time. Sure enough, the bell dings.

Pharmacists can't see a customer at first, but then, yes, yes, as he expected, the duck is waddling up. to the counter. The duck pauses, cocks its head, looks at the pharmacist. Got any nails? No, well, we don't have a good. Got any corn? Okay.

Took a while to get there, but that works okay. All right, those are my three dad jokes for you. What do you got for me? That's pretty good. I don't know. I've got a few of them. How do you make holy water? Oh, man. I don't know.

You boil the hell out of it. That's good. Self-deprecation society is taking new members. I've already put myself down. That's good. Let me see. one that I liked. Oh, a ham sandwich walks into a bar and orders a beer. The bartender says, sorry, we don't serve food here. That's a classic setup. It's good. That works pretty well,

doesn't it? I had never heard that. I just found that one. And then I made one up. A friend offered me a can of Paul Bunyan beer. I said, no thanks. I don't like loggers. That's also very good. I have one that I made up that's similar, I think. Why did the undercover agent get out of the swimming pool? Undercover agent get out of the swimming pool. Yeah. I don't know.

He was in too deep. Oh. Here's one for Amory. Okay. What do you call apacoderm that doesn't matter? What? Irrelevant. How would you describe your own sense of humor?

Probably very lame. I really liked, I would say, I don't care for insult humor or put down humor like Don Rickles never appealed to me at all. But I really like to get smart as a kid growing up. And Buck Henry and Mel Brooks were the writers on that. And I like the Dick Van Dyke's show. I thought a lot of the things on that show were pretty funny. And there's a Carol Burnett skit from her show called The New Training. And if you haven't seen that, I'd recommend watching that one.

I know it's on YouTube. Okay. Anyway, I'll just leave it at that. It's better not to tell you about it. It's better just to watch it unfold. I think it's very tightly written. everything one thing ties into the next ties into the next so so you so you kind of got it you you would say in some ways you got your sense of humor from pop culture probably i would say so amory is it is an

easy laffer which is really good for me that's it like i feel like that's really helpful for my um you know for my needs as somebody who likes to crack jokes has she always been an easy laugher I don't know. I mean, she always found my jokes corny, I think. But I also think that when she hears corny jokes now, she thinks of me in a warm way. So. Yeah, totally. You know, Tam, thank you very much. I know, I know we were pressed for Tam, but we did pretty well. I hope this works out for you. I hope you got the material you're able to splice to make it work. Now, will Amory get in touch with me this evening to get this from my phone to you? No, I'm going to tell you how to do it right now.

So if you... Oh, Dad. Doesn't know how to send his file, and I love him for it. Coming up, I call Ben's Dad. You can call him whatever you want, but don't call him Harry because he's bald. Oh, God. At Radio Lab, we love nothing more than nerding out about science, neuroscience, chemistry. But, but we do also like to get into other kinds of stories.

Stories about policing or politics. Country music. Hockey. Sex. Of bugs. Regardless of whether we're looking at science or not science, we bring a rigorous curiosity to get you the answers. And hopefully make you see the world anew. Radio Lab, adventures on the edge of what we think we know.

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Whatever your goal, we can help. Discover how the magic is made at WBUR.org slash creative studio. Would you consider yourself to have dad joke humor? Yeah, I do if I understand dad joke humor, and I think I do. Presenting Kit Johnson. What's a dad joke in your mind? Well, they're usually groaners, as I understand them. Growners?

Something where the offspring can be embarrassed, and the dad really enjoys embarrassing his sons or daughters. Sometimes I like to tell underdog jokes. What's an underdog joke? I suppose an underdog joke is where you take a typical underdog, and through humor, they manage to best their superiors in some way. Do you want an underdog joke? Yeah, let's try one.

I have a pretty good underdog joke. Okay. I have a story about three Brits and three Scots that were all taking a train to an Irish soccer tournament. And they were all standing in line at the ticket booth. And the three Englishmen were first in line, and they got up there and bought three tickets, one for each of them. And the Scots were right behind them, and the three Scots stepped up, and they only bought one ticket. And then one of the Englishmen said to the Scotsman, How are you three Scots going to ride the train with one ticket?

And the Scots said back to him, Aye, laddie, watch and you'll see. And so the train started moving out of the station, and pretty quick one of the Scotsmen got up and walked down the aisle toward the loo. And a couple minutes went by, and a second Scott got up and walked down the aisle toward the loo at the end of the car. And then sure enough, the third Scotsman got up, walked down the aisle toward the loo. And not too long after that, the conductor came through asking for everybody's tickets.

And the three Englishmen all gave him their tickets. And the conductor went down and he knocked on the door of the loo because he saw that the little signs that occupied. And sure enough, out came one hand with one ticket. And the conductor took it and walked on into the next car. So they all went to the soccer tournament and they were coming back. And they were standing once again at the ticket booth. And the three Englishmen stood up and were at this look on their face that said, we're as smart as any Scotsman.

And they asked for one ticket. And then they watched as the three Scotsmen didn't get any tickets. They just got on the train. And so the Englishman whispering among themselves had shaken their heads, and they asked the Scots. They said, how do you Scots people expect to ride back home on this train without any ticket? And one of the Scotsmen spoke up and said, aye, that I'd be watching. and year to sea. And so the train got to moving.

And just as you would suspect, one Englishman got up, walked down the aisle toward the Lou, a couple minutes. The second Englishman did the same thing. And then the third Englishman followed the other two down toward the Lou. And a couple more minutes went by, and one of the Scotsmen walked up,

walked down the aisle toward the Lou, knocked on the door of the Lou, and said, ticket, please. Oh, that was a journey. Yeah. And I like to, I think dad jokes, they're either terribly obvious so that they're just a groaner or they challenge you to finish this story. Gosh, I feel like I only have groaners, but if you don't like them, don't blame me because I got them from Reddit.

Hopefully from a Reddit dad. So you're a jazz musician, you're a pianist, and I found some of these jokes from the Dad Joke subreddit, and then I also found some jazz-related jokes from the Jazz Subreddit. Terrific. Yeah, so in honor of your specific instrument, here's just a quick one. How many bassists does it take to screw in a light bulb? I think you've got me on this one. think I don't think I've got an answer. Okay, none. The pianist can do it with his left hand.

That is good. I love that. I will use it with every bass player I hire. There you go. Just as a threat. I'll give you one more short jazz-related one, and then I want to hear another one of yours. What's the difference between a pop group and a jazz group? Well, I don't know. The pop group does the same thing every time, and the jazz musician makes it up in the moment, but that's not particularly funny. I give up. Give me the answer. You are so close. You are good. The pop band plays three notes for a thousand people, and the jazz group plays a thousand notes for three people. Yes. Yes. And you know what? That is so true. That's exactly it. And let me share with you something that is.

truly funny that was an actual occurrence, okay? And it's not a terribly long story. There is a famous jazz violinist that most every jazz person is named. Actually, it's a pretty long story, so we're just going to jump ahead. True story. Oh, that's great. Well, tell me another one of your jokes. I suppose a more typical dad joke would be one like,

how many tickles does it take to make an octopus laugh? I mean, you want to answer eight and that's wrong. So I don't know. Yeah, that's the first place your mind goes and it's not far off. Right, at least eight. But the answer is tentacles. Ten tickles. Oh, man.

See, I, this is how I know. I don't know. This feels really funny. I'm delighted with your response, but somehow I have this need for an audience of groans out there, you know. Oh, tentacles. Is that better? There we go. The most fun dad jokes are the ones that you can actually put into play. For example, I remember one time when we were living in Sheridan, Wyoming, and Ben asked me to come upstairs where his bedroom was and see something that he wanted to show me. I don't even remember what it was. And he said, what's the matter?

And I said, I'd have trouble trusting stairs. What do you mean trusting stairs? And I said, well, you know, they're always up to something. That is true. Of course at that point I think you threw something down the stairs at me. But, you know, when you can get somebody to actually fall into a joke that you've set up, especially a son or a daughter, that's just the best. Well, I feel like this is good advice for other, I'm not even going to say dads,

I'm just going to say other parents in general out there as they, as they, as they, hone their own senses of humor and the senses of humor that they can pass down to their children is anyone can tell a dad joke, but can you incorporate it into everyday life and make it so that the person just really doesn't see the joke coming? I feel like that is next level and only a true dad joke pro can do such a thing. Absolutely. Absolutely. Which reminds me of the one where the The dad comes home and the son or the daughter looks at him and says, did you get a haircut? And the dad says very disdainfully, no, I got them all cut. Oh, wait, I mean, oh, you got them all cut.

Yeah, yeah. Well, Kit, this has been delightful. Thank you for your underdog jokes and your dad jokes and, you. Thanks for making a son who is so much fun to make a show with where we get to do things like this. Oh, I'm so glad. Thank you, Amory. Such a pleasure to talk with you. Amory, I came away from these conversations appreciating your dad so much and just really having those dad joke feelings about my dad.

I think I understand you better after talking to your dad. So I'm glad that you feel like you got something out of talking to my dad as well because, you know, I would. I was raised by my dad for the first large chunk of my childhood. Yeah, it's clear. He was a stay-at-home dad. And, yeah, so you are your father's son and I am my father's daughter, without a doubt. Well, that was this week's snack time. Hope you liked it.

Please also send us your dad jokes. We would love to read them, I think, right? Oh, hell yeah. Yeah, I will send them all to Tam. Endless thread at WBUR. also you should check out our subreddit because i believe we're going to have a poll about who told the best slash worst joke so please vote early and often and uh we'll talk to you next week bye