3,99 €
Mehr erfahren.
- Herausgeber: Write Laugh
- Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
- Serie: You're Joking
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021
Knock bad jokes on the head!
Learn everything there is to know about knock-knock jokes, from their history and types to crafting your own knock-out punchlines.
Packed full of tips, easy-to-follow exercises and 100+ hilarious examples, this book gives you know-how to knock together thousands of your own jokes.
Craft classic knock-knock jokes, like this one:
Knock, knock...
Who's there?
Ewan
Ewan who?
Ewan me need to talk.
Or Unrestricted knock-knock jokes:
Knock, knock...
Who's there?
Waiter
Waiter who?
Waiter minute, I think I'm at the wrong house!
And have a go at making your own sound-play jokes:
Knock, knock...
Who's there?
Howie
Howie who?
I'm fine, thank you.
And can you break the rules, like this?
Ding-dong!
Who's there?
Isabelle
Isabelle who?
Isabelle not better than a knocker these days?
This comprehensive guide will transform you into a comedic master, so get ready to hear your friends knocking at your door for more jokes!
Das E-Book können Sie in Legimi-Apps oder einer beliebigen App lesen, die das folgende Format unterstützen:
Seitenzahl: 84
Ähnliche
You're Joking: Create your own Knock-Knock Jokes
Tom E. Moffatt
Copyright
Published in 2021 by Write Laugh Books
Rotorua, New Zealand
Text © Tom E. Moffatt, 2021
Illustrations © Paul Beavis, 2021
www.TomEMoffatt.com
ISBN: 978-0-473-59981-2 (print)
ISBN: 978-0-473-59982-9 (e-book)
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of New Zealand.
Cover design and illustrations: Paul Beavis
Developmental and copy editing: Anna Bowles
Initial proofreading: Marj Griffiths, Rainbow Resolutions
Final proofreading: Vicki Arnott, Story Polisher
Print book and e-book design: Write Laugh Books
Dedication
For Matilda,
Who can turn anything into a knock-knock joke.
Contents
1.
Introduction
2.
What is a Knock-Knock Joke?
3.
The History of Knock-Knock Jokes
4.
Types of Knock-Knock Joke
5.
What Makes It Funny?
6.
Things to Include
7.
Classic Knock-Knock Jokes
8.
Unrestricted
9.
Reverse Engineering
10.
Sound-Play
11.
Breaking the Rules
12.
Developing Your Skills
13.
When, Where, Who, How
14.
The Beginning
Also by Tom E. Moffatt
About the Author
Resources
Introduction
Unless you’ve been living alone in a cave for your entire life, you’ll have heard a knock-knock joke. You’ll probably have told a few to friends and family. You might even have tried to make up your own.
But did people laugh?
The aim of a joke is to make people laugh. This is where many knock-knock jokes fall short. The problem is that provided you stick to the prescribed pattern, you can say absolutely anything you like and it is technically a knock-knock joke. In the same way, if you cover something with wrapping paper and give it to someone, it is technically a gift. Whether that person wants a smelly sock or a life-size plastic giraffe is another matter.
In order to give someone a gift that they truly want, you should carefully consider their tastes and current mood. You should search diligently for the perfect item, looking in as many places as necessary. Only when you’re certain you’ve found something they’ll love should you wrap it up and give it to them.
It’s exactly the same with knock-knock jokes.
If you take the first thing that comes into your head and squeeze it into the knock-knock structure, it won’t make anyone laugh. At least, not for the right reasons. To create knock-knock jokes that your audience finds funny, you first need to understand exactly how they work. You’ll then need to come up with multiple possibilities, examining them and tweaking them, sifting through the silt for that one gold nugget.
Even then, when you have a handful of shiny knock-knock jokes, they won’t all succeed. Some will be like fool’s gold, met with groans and eye-rolls. But the more jokes you tell, the better you’ll understand what works and what doesn’t. You’ll also figure out who is likely to laugh and who isn’t.
Join me on this journey, this deep dive into the world of knock-knock jokes. We’ll discover where they came from, we’ll analyse the different kinds and we’ll create our very own knock-knock jokes to share. But most importantly, we’ll have fun. Because joke-telling should be fun, even if the joke isn’t funny.
What is a Knock-Knock Joke?
This might sound like an obvious question. It’s a joke, right? It says so in the name.
True. But a knock-knock joke is a specific style of joke. One that follows a set structure and requires audience participation. Here’s how it works:
The joke-teller starts by saying knock-knock, as though they are knocking on an imaginary door.
The person responding to the joke – the audience – pretends they are inside the imaginary house and don’t know who’s at the door.
Next, the joke-teller gives the name of a person or an object that is at the door. This sets up the joke.
The person responding still doesn’t know who it is. They say (name/object) who?
Finally, the joke-teller delivers their punchline, containing the word(s) from the setup, often in a funny or unexpected way.
Here's an example:
We can break it down even further into a template:
(Joke-teller/Audience)
Knock, knock…
Who’s there?
(name/object)
(name/object) who?
Hilarious punchline that includes (name/object).
Here’s an example laid out as a script:
Joke-teller: Knock, knock...
Audience: Who’s there?
Joke-teller: Waiter
Audience: Waiter who?
Joke-teller: Waiter minute... I think I’m at the wrong house.
However, just knowing the structure of a knock-knock joke is not enough. My middle daughter mastered this by the age of three, but the ‘jokes’ she comes up with are pretty far from funny, even now that she’s six. Here’s one she told recently:
Knock, knock…
Who’s there?
Apple…
Apple who?
Apples are delicious
As you can see, there’s more to a funny knock-knock joke than the structure. Your setup must lead to a relevant but surprising punchline, which is what we will learn to do in this book. But before that, let’s step inside the next chapter and explore the origin of the knock-knock joke.
The History of Knock-Knock Jokes
No one really knows where knock-knock jokes came from. The only thing known for sure is that they were conceived somewhere between the invention of the door and the widespread use of the doorbell.
Some people think that Shakespeare wrote the first ever knock-knock joke in 1606 – over 400 years ago. His play, Macbeth, contains a scene where a porter is awoken by someone knocking at Macbeth’s door.
“Knock, knock, knock! Who’s there, i’ th’ name of Beelzebub? Here’s a farmer that hanged himself on the expectation of plenty. Come in time, have napkins enough about you, here you’ll sweat for ’t.”
William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Act 2, Scene 3
That doesn’t sound very funny to me, but perhaps people in the 1600s were more easily amused. After all, whoopee cushions hadn’t been invented yet.
Others believe they developed from a game in the early 1900s where people would ask each other, “Do you know…?”
Such as:
Do you know Frank?
Frank who?
Frankfurter!
Can you imagine someone cracking a smile at that today? I don’t think they’d even look up from their phone.
Something that looks a bit like a modern-day knock-knock joke was published in 1929 in a book called The Games of Children: Their Origin and History, by Henry Betts:
Knock, knock!
Who’s there?
Buff.
What says Buff?
Buff says Buff to all his men, And I say Buff to you again.
However, rather than a joke, this was described as a playground chant, like Ring-a-Ring-a-Roses or Oranges and Lemons.
The knock-knock joke as we know it appeared in the USA in the mid-1930s. American newspapers started reporting a new craze passing through society like nits around a kindergarten. Strangers were exchanging knock-knock jokes in the street. There were knock-knock clubs and contests. And orchestras even performed knock-knock jokes in concerts or on the radio.
By the 1950s, the whole world had nits – I mean, knock-knock jokes. Each country gave the joke its own flavour. In some countries the jokes had to rhyme. In others, the punchline had to refer to a song title. And of course, knock-knock was translated into many different languages. In Spanish, it’s toc-toc; in German, it’s klopf klopf; and in Japanese, ton ton.
Knock-knock jokes were told on TV in the 1960s, and by the 80s they had made their way into most joke books. For me, Christmas wasn’t complete without a tall, skinny joke book in my stocking. I’d then spend the rest of the holiday annoying my family by reading out all the ones I could understand, many of which were knock-knock jokes.
Nowadays, knock-knock jokes are as common as doorbells. You only have to Google ‘knock-knock jokes’ and you’ll be up to your eyeballs in gazillions of jokes, varying in quality from downright terrible and not-too-bad, all the way up to actually quite good. You can even buy entire books of themed knock-knock jokes, such as Halloween or animal jokes.
Having survived so long, you can be fairly certain that the knock-knock joke is here to stay. And now that you are armed with this book, you’ll be able to create your own hilarious knock-knock jokes that will live long into the future. But before we start writing them down, let’s take a look at all the different types.
Types of Knock-Knock Joke
While all knock-knock jokes use (or break) the same structure, they can be divided into different categories. I have identified four different types of knock-knock jokes. These are:
1. The classic knock-knock joke, which always uses a person’s name.
2. The unrestricted knock-knock joke, which uses anything other than a name.
3. Sound-play knock-knock jokes, in which the ‘who?’ is used to make a word or sound.
4. The rule-breakers, those knock-knock jokes that use the call-and-responsepattern to catch the audience out.
Let’s look at examples from each category.
The Classic Knock-Knock Joke
In these classic versions, we pretend there is an actual person knocking at the door, so all these jokes use a name:
Knock, knock…
Who’s there?
Willy…
Willy who?
Willy let me in or won’t he?
Knock, knock…
Who’s there?
Theresa…
Theresa who?
Theresa falling down around me. Let me in!
Knock, knock…
Who’s there?
Luke…
Luke who?
Luke for yourself! Can’t you see who it is?
Knock, knock…
Who’s there?
Anita…
Anita who?
Anita use your bathroom.
The Unrestricted Knock-Knock Joke
Anything goes in these unrestricted knock-knock jokes:
Knock, knock…
Who’s there?
Dew…
Dew who?
Dew wanna let me in or what?
Knock, knock…
Who’s there?
Wire…
Wire who?
Wire you taking so long?
Knock, knock…
Who’s there?
Car…
