| Alternative name(s) | Knock-knock |
|---|---|
| Language(s) | English |
The knock-knock joke is an audience-participation joke ending with a pun; knock-knock jokes are primarily seen as child's jokes, though there are exceptions.
The scenario is of a person knocking on the front door to a house. The teller of the joke says, "Knock, knock!"; the recipient responds, "Who's there?" The teller gives a name (such as "Noah"), a description (such as "Police"), or something that purports to be a name (such as "Needle"). The other person then responds by asking the caller's surname ("Noah who?" / "Police who?" / "Needle who?"), to which the joke-teller delivers a pun involving the name ("Noah place I can spend the night?" / "Police let me in—it's cold out here!" / "Needle little help with the groceries!").[1]
The formula of the joke is usually followed strictly, though there are cases where it is subverted.
A possible source of the joke is William Shakespeare's Macbeth; first performed in 1606. In Act 2, Scene 2 , the porter is very hungover from the previous night. During his monologue, he uses "Knock, knock! Who's there" as a refrain while he is speaking:
Knock, knock! Who's there, i' the name of
Beelzebub? Here's a farmer, that hanged
himself on the expectation of plenty: come in
time; have napkins enow about you; here
you'll sweat for't.
Knock, knock! Who's there, in the other devil's
name? Faith, here's an equivocator, that could
swear in both the scales against either scale;
who committed treason enough for God's sake,
yet could not equivocate to heaven: O, come
in, equivocator.
Writing in the Oakland Tribune, Merely McEvoy recalled a style of joke from around 1900 where a person would ask a question such as "Do you know Arthur?", the unsuspecting listener responding with "Arthur who?" and the joke teller answering "Arthurmometer!"[1]
A variation of the format in the form of a children's game was described in 1929.[2] In the game of Buff, a child with a stick thumps it on the ground, and the dialogue ensues:
Knock, knock!
Who's there?
Buff.
What says Buff?
Buff says Buff to all his men, And I say Buff to you again.
In 1936, Bob Dunn authored the book Knock Knock: Featuring Enoch Knox, and he is regarded by some as having invented the modern knock-knock joke.[3]
In 1936, the standard knock-knock joke format was used in a newspaper advertisement.[4] That joke was:
Knock, knock!
Who's there?
Rufus.
Rufus who?
Rufus the most important part of your house.
A 1936 Associated Press newspaper article said that "What's This?" had given way to "Knock Knock!" as a favorite parlor game.[5] The article also said that "knock knock" seemed to be an outgrowth of making up sentences with difficult words, an old parlor favorite. A popular joke of 1936 (the year of Edward VIII's brief reign) was "Knock knock. Who's there? Edward Rex. Edward Rex who? Edward Rex the Coronation."[6] Fred Allen's 30 December 1936 radio broadcast included a humorous wrapup of the year's least important events, including a supposed interview with the man who "invented a negative craze" on 1 April: "Ramrod Dank... the first man to coin a Knock Knock."[7]
"Knock knock" was the catchphrase of music hall performer Wee Georgie Wood, who was recorded in 1936 saying it in a radio play, but he simply used the words as a reference to his surname and did not use it as part of the well-known joke formula.[8] The format was well known in the UK and US in the 1950s and 1960s before falling out of favor. It then enjoyed a renaissance after the jokes became a regular part of the badinage on Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In.[8]