It’s been exactly ten years since this cartoon appeared, one of the last Ninja Verses strips from its second incarnation.
In the last decade, the kind of joke that made up most of the Ninja Verses oeuvre has come be be labelled ‘Dad Jokes’. Things called Dad Jokes are often the kinds of jokes that you would tell little kids, perhaps extended to more mature themes and more distant cultural references. As far as I can tell, the label extends to cover any corny one-liner.
I’m not sure if the suggestion is that finding such a joke funny makes you a dad. Or maybe just mentioning dad is supposed to be insulting, in the way that “Your Mom” is a modestly insulting universal solvent for insults.1
Regardless, I don’t much like the label but do have a fondness for corny one-liners. Here are some links!
- Francis Hogan’s Dwarven Dad Jokes is kind of a promotion for the Adventure Maximus game, but also just a chance for him to share corny jokes.
- The web show Dad Jokes: You Laugh, You Lose has people pitching corny jokes back and forth at each other. Every time somebody laughs, their opponent gets a point. It’s entertaining in part just because of the genuine, infectious laughter.
My favourite joke from the series is this shaggy dog story.
A guy goes to the zoo. The only animal in the whole place is a dog.
It was a shit zoo.2
I started to write a paragraph about why I like this joke, but I stopped myself.