Knock-knock joke

The knock-knock joke is an audience-participation joke cycle; a knock-knock joke is primarily a child's joke, though there are exceptions.

Knock-knock joke

A person knocking on a door
Alternative name	Knock-knock
Type of joke	Pun Call-and-response
Language	English

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.

Structure

Knock-knock jokes are a type of word play joke, which derive their humor from the conflation of homonyms. A standard knock-knock joke has five lines of dialogue. The speaker begins with "knock-knock", and the listener responds with "who's there?". For the third line, the speaker says a word or phrase. The listener repeats the word or phrase, appending it with "who?". The final line is the punch line, delivered by the speaker. The punch line of a knock-knock joke will either use the phrase as a starting point of a pun, or it will provide a response to what it sounded like the listener said in the fourth line.^[2]

In the first line, the speaker plays the role of someone knocking at the listener's front door.^[3] The phrase "knock-knock" is often spoken with a stylized fall, a type of stylized intonation where the second syllable is said in a lower pitch than the first.^[4] The listener's response of "who's there" has them play the role of someone inside their own home.^[3]

The third line is the speaker introducing themselves. The line is traditionally a given name, but any phrase can be used. The fourth line is the listener asking for the surname of the speaker. For the punch line, instead of giving a surname, the speaker delivers a word play joke based on the phonetic sound of the response they gave in the third line. The content of the third line is spoken quickly to blend its sound into the rest of the phrase.^[3]

History

Dialogue resembling a knock-knock joke appears in the play The Case is Altered by Ben Jonson, written c. 1597, in which the character Juniper says he is not Rachel's father but is willing to become a father with her.^[5]

JUNIPER: No, I'll knock. We'll not stand upon horizons and tricks but fall roundly to the matter. [He knocks.]
ONION: Well said, sweet Juniper. Horizons? Hang 'em! Knock, knock!
RACHEL: [Within] Who's there? Father?
JUNIPER: Father? No, and yet a father, if you please to be a mother.

The origin of the knock-knock joke, or the first appearance of the phrase "knock knock, who's there", is sometimes attributed to William Shakespeare for his 1606 play Macbeth. In Act 2, Scene 3, the character of the porter gives a soliloquy about a porter accepting people into hell.^[5]

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.

The modern knock-knock joke first appeared in the United States in the early 20th century, although the exact origin is unknown. 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] He compared it to a joke that emerged in the flapper community around 1920 where a woman would ask "Have you ever heard of Hiawatha?", and upon being asked "Hiawatha who?", she would respond with "Hiawatha a good girl ... till I met you."^[1]

A variation of the format in the form of a children's game was described in 1929.^[6] 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.

Knock-knock jokes were popular in the United States by the 1930s, and knock-knock clubs formed in the Midwestern United States. They became a fad in 1936. The Edgmont Cash & Carry, a grocery store in Chester, Pennsylvania, used knock-knock jokes in its advertisements and hosted a contest for the best knock-knock jokes. The WKBO radio station in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, helped popularize the format by making frequent jokes using the name of Frank Knox, the Republican vice presidential candidate in the 1936 United States presidential election.^[1] The same year, Bob Dunn authored the book Knock Knock: Featuring Enoch Knox, and he is regarded by some as having invented the modern knock-knock joke.^[7]

In 1936, the standard knock-knock joke format was used in a newspaper advertisement.^[8] 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.^[9] 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."^[10] 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."^[11]

After peaking in 1936, knock-knock jokes received greater push-back from critics who saw them as unfunny, pseudo-intellectual, or pathological. Despite this, they remained a popularly known joke format.^[1]

Popular culture

Swing orchestra performer Vincent Lopez wrote the novelty song "Knock-Knock Song", which incorporated audience call-and-response.^[1]

"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.^[12] 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.^[12]

An example of a non-standard knock-knock joke is: Knock knock. Who's there? Death. Death wh-gkh (gagging sound of sudden fatal choking).

Being familiar with the back-and-forth pattern of the joke is crucial. In an episode of the TV detective series Monk, Adrian Monk is feeling sad. His assistant, Natalie, tries to cheer him up. She says she has thought of something funny, and asks if he wants to hear it. "Yes," he answers. She begins, using the standard formula, "Knock knock." Adrian pauses, obviously thinking about this, but puzzled. Then he dismisses it, saying, "That's not funny." The joke, this time, is that he is not familiar with knock-knock jokes.