"No, that's..."

My dad used to play a game with me and my brother that was, in effect, an extended dad joke.

The "beginner" version, when I was younger, was when I would be talking about something, my dad would intentionally misinterpret it so that we could correct him. The objective being to keep up the misinterpretation in as long of a chain as possible.

Me: "Dad! Top Gun is on TV!"

Dad: "Doesn't that movie have that whiny folk singer on the radio in it?"

Me: "...No, dad, that's Tom Petty, not Tom Cruise."

Dad: "Oh, I thought he was Rosanne Barr's husband?"

Me: "No, dad, that's Tom Arnold, not Tom Petty."

Dad: "Oh. I thought he was that golfer..."

Later, once I figured it out, we moved to "advanced mode", where we skip the "correction" and just prove that you catch the reference by making another error in response.

Dad: "Oh. I thought he was that golfer..." (Arnold Palmer)

Me: "...wait, I thought that was the victim in Twin Peaks?" (Laura Palmer)

Dad: "...no, you're thinking of the lady who was the actress in Jurassic Park." (Laura Dern)

And so on. Did anyone else's dad's do something like this? Or any current dads? I currently play a version of this with my wife where she'll put on the radio and I'll intentionally misinterpret the artist. (Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody is playing, I comment to the effect of "God, I love Styx. Such a great song.")

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📅︎ Jan 28 2015
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A dad joke, taken too far.

Back in the late 80's, my dad had a joke he loved to tell everyone he met. It went something like this:

I was driving down the road and ended up behind this ambulance with its rear door open. I tried honking and flashing my lights to get their attention about it, but they didn't seem to notice. As they turned the corner away from us, a small cooler fell out. I pulled over to rescue the cooler, and when I opened it, I found a human toe, on ice.

At this point, the victim of the joke is supposed to ask what he did with the toe. He responds with "I called the Tow Truck!" and hearty laughter.

Being the 1980's, e-mail wasn't prevalent, and calling long distance could get expensive, so he communicated with his out of state family primarily through mailed letters. He wrote this joke (sans punchline) in a letter to his mom. Not knowing it was a joke, she told the story to her friends and family. My aunt heard this story, and told it to her classes (she's a teacher) and one of her students actually got in a fight with his mom who said that could never happen.

A month or two later, we were getting together for a holiday and the toe story came up in conversation. My dad replied that he called the tow truck, and his laughter was met with horrified stares. By this time, nearly everyone in the small town was enthralled with this amazing story that my grandma had told about her son who lived in the city. She was imagining all of the people she had to contact to tell the real story to. Many took it in stride, but others were quite annoyed. Especially my aunt, who had to apologize to every one of her classes at school.

TLDR: A dad joke with no punch line doesn't belong in a letter.

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👤︎ u/freakmn
📅︎ May 21 2014
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My dad's favorite road trip joke

Driving through hayfields and we pass a couple fields with larger round bales of hay, not the normal square ones.

dad: You know they're outlawing these round hay bales, so we should be seeing any more of them soon.

dad pauses and waits for someone to bite

victim: really, how come?

dad: They found that cows weren't getting a square meal.

love you dad, you goof.

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👤︎ u/bunjamins
📅︎ Aug 21 2013
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