Whether we laugh at them or groan at them, we’ve all heard our share of dad jokes.
Last fall, The Show checked in with comedian and father of two Anwar Newton about what a dad joke is — and what makes a good one.
Conversation highlights
MARK BRODIE: Anwar, how do you define a dad joke?
ANWAR NEWTON: Dad jokes, honestly it’s anybody who’s a dad who makes a joke.
BRODIE: So the content doesn’t matter.
NEWTON: I feel like if you have dad energy, if you are not cool. It's like a ring. You’re you’re cool and you’re not cool, and then you’re so not cool it’s kind of cool again. It’s kind of cool how uncool you are. They have niches of subgroups: normie behavior, they call it dadcore, things like that. It’s all of a sudden cool again.
But dad jokes. If it doesn’t upset you a little bit that it’s so joyful. I think that’s the core of a good dad joke. It’s upsetting how innocent and joyful it is.
BRODIE: Like everyone’s rolling their eyes except the dad who’s telling the joke.
NEWTON: Like if you’re in a harrowing situation and someone has pointed out someone’s butt is exposed, it’s sort of a dad joke energy. It’s like, “Yeah, I guess there is a but there.”
BRODIE: So here’s my big question about it. I have two kids, and I am frequently accused of making dad jokes. But in my opinion at least, I’ve had the same sense of humor since I was in my 20s, long before I had kids. So have I always just had a dad sense of humor? Or do they become dad jokes once my first child is born? Like, how does that work?
NEWTON: That’s interesting. I’ve never thought of it in that way. And as soon as you were saying it, I was like, that’s actually very interesting because comedy changes and comedy sensibility changes. And I think a lot of people can tell the difference between what’s comedically highbrow now and what was comedically highbrow, say, 20 years ago — or even generally what people accepted as being very funny.
I think about the early aughts, and a lot of the humor was just mean. And now if you go back and look at those now, a lot of people are like, “What was going on 20 years ago? Is everything OK?”
Comedy changes. So I think it’s like if you keep an era of comedy in your heart and you take it for it, then it’s all of a sudden it’s dad. It’s like an obsolete sense of humor that’s sort of refreshing.
