These Hilarious Classic Jokes Originated In The Strangest Places

“Something which has never occurred since time immemorial; a young woman did not fart in her husband's lap.”

In 2008 the University of Wolverhampton’s Dr. Paul McDonald conducted a study to find the oldest joke in recorded history. He found it in Ancient Sumeria, in the year 1900 B.C. — and it was a fart joke! To be honest, this actually fills us with joy, because it’s heartening to know that human beings have always been immature and always found bodily functions funny!

“A dog, having entered an inn, did not see anything — and so he said 'Shall I open this [door]?’”

or

“A dog entered into a tavern and said, ‘I cannot see anything. I shall open this,’ or ‘this one.’”

The Ancient Sumerians were also responsible for the world’s first “guy walks into a bar” joke — only their version involved a dog! There’s been some debate over exactly how to translate the gag, which was etched on a couple of tablets way back in 1700 B.C. The first version is from Edmund I. Gordon in 1958; the second came from Seraina Nett in 2022. To be honest, we’d argue the joke is painfully unfunny either way!

“A woman who was blind in one eye has been married to a man for 20 years. When he found another woman he said to her, ‘I shall divorce you, because you are said to be blind in one eye.’ And she answered him, ‘Have you just discovered that after 20 years of marriage?’”

How many jokes have their basis in the various foibles and indignities of marriage? The answer — a ton. Hell, we’d imagine most comedians have at least one hilariously relatable wife or husband bit in every set. This is the first marriage joke — from 1,100 B.C. — and, while it could use some work, it’s pretty on the money about just how little attention husbands often pay to their wives!

“Odysseus tells the Cyclops that his real name is ‘nobody.’ When Odysseus instructs his men to attack the Cyclops, the Cyclops shouts, ‘Help, nobody is attacking me!’ No one comes to help.”

About 2,800 years ago, Homer wrote his epic poem The Odyssey. Far from being an impenetrable piece of Ancient Greek storytelling that feels totally foreign to modern audiences, the poem is still read and enjoyed today. Maybe that’s because it includes flashes of humor, such as this delicious trick Odysseus plays on the villainous Cyclops. Get it? Nobody! Wordplay, man. It still gets us.

Question: “What animal walks on four feet in the morning, two at noon and three at evening?”

Answer: “Man. He goes on all fours as a baby, on two feet as a man and uses a cane in old age.”

Oedipus Tyrannus, a 429 B.C. play by Sophocles, features the above exchange. It’s really more of a riddle than a joke, but it definitely raises a smile when you read it. Even back then, we knew the ravages of age could be terrifying — yet also amusing if framed in the right way. So, if you ever find yourself in Gotham City and you need a new riddle to vex the Dark Knight, maybe try Sophocles’ little gem!

"The Emperor Augustus was touring the empire, when he noticed a man in the crowd who bore a striking resemblance to himself. Intrigued he asked, ‘Was your mother at one time in service at the palace?’”

“‘No, your highness,’ he replied, ‘but my father was.’”

This gag, dating from Rome some time between 63 B.C. and 14 A.D., is proof that people have always loved an innuendo. Seriously, there are few things more guaranteed to raise a laugh than a joke that hints at something dirty — especially if the punchline is one that may fly over the head of some audience members. It makes those in on the joke smile knowingly — right before they’re asked to explain the gag!

“Wishing to teach his donkey not to eat, a pedant did not offer him any food. When the donkey died of hunger, he said, ‘I've had a great loss! Just when he had learned not to eat, he died.’”

This gag — a great example that black humor has always been viable — is from the world’s very first joke book! The Philogelos — which translates as “Laughter Lover” — was put together in the 4th century by Philagrius and Hierocles. We wonder if the Greeks were offended by the notion of people starving their donkeys? Maybe they indulged in one of those, “Oh, I shouldn’t laugh at that” chuckles instead!

“Asked by the court barber how he wanted his hair cut, the king replied, ‘In silence.’”

This is another rib-tickler from the Philogelos, and we like it much better than the donkey gag! Why? Because it’s from thousands of years ago, yet is still completely relatable today. Sometimes you just don’t want to make small talk with the hairdresser — you just want to sit in silent contemplation. This Greek king gets that, and we salute him for it!

“A student dunce went swimming and almost drowned. So now he swears he’ll never get into water until he’s really learned to swim.”

Spare a thought, if you would, for the dim-witted people of the world. They’re often the butt of jokes — even going back to 300 — 400 B.C., when the Philogelos was poking fun at them! This gag, about a “student dunce” — presumably some kind of idiot in training — isn’t exactly the height of comedy, though. We expect better of you, Hierocles and Philagrius!

“A young egghead sold his books when short of money. He then wrote to his father, 'Congratulate me, father. I am already making money from my studies!’”

How many classic comedy characters think they’re super-smart, but in reality are actually bumbling blowhards with little self-awareness? Will Ferrell has played a ton of them over the years, with Anchorman’s Ron Burgundy obviously being his magnum opus. This kind of humor appeared long, long ago in the Philogelos, though, with these smart-but-actually-dumb characters branded “eggheads!” How deliciously ironic.

“A student dunce goes to the doctor and says, ‘Doctor, when I wake up, I’m all dizzy, then after half an hour I’m okay.’

“‘Well,’ advises the doctor, ‘wait a half-hour before waking up.’”

We love a good “Doctor, doctor!” joke. They’re usually cheesy, harmless fun, and can cause milk to shoot out of the nose of kids and adults alike. Take the modern example, “Doctor, doctor! Everyone thinks I am a liar,” followed by the response, “I find that hard to believe.” Ha! Amazingly, the world’s first joke of this variety dates back to the Philogelos — as you can see, it’s pretty darn good.

“Consulting a hot-headed doctor, a fellow says, ‘Professor, I'm unable to lie down or stand up. I can't even sit down.’ The doctor responds, ‘I guess the only thing left is to hang yourself.’”

For our money, the king of dark one-liners was Rodney Dangerfield. Take this pitch-black gem for example, “I could tell that my parents hated me. My bath toys were a toaster and a radio!” This type of humor started in the Philogelos, though, as the above doctor joke proves. It’s the sort of gag that gives you a jolt of surprise, before making you laugh in semi-discomfort!

“A wife-hater is attending the burial of his wife, who has just died. When someone asks, ‘Who is it who rests in peace here?’, he answers, ‘Me, now that I'm rid of her!’”

Henry Youngman was the king of wife jokes, throwing out such classics as, “My wife said to me, ‘For our anniversary I want to go somewhere I've never been before.’ I said, ‘Try the kitchen!’” These days, this brand of joke isn’t as popular, as it undeniably has undercurrents of misogyny. In truth, though, Youngman was adopting a joke format that started way back in the Philogelos — and, in reality, he and wife Sadie reportedly had a wonderful marriage.

"Two lazy bones are fast asleep. A thief comes in, pulls the blanket from the bed, and makes off with it. One of them is aware of what happened and says to the other, ‘Get up! Go after the guy who stole our blanket!’ The other responds, ‘Forget it. When he comes back to take the mattress, let's grab him then.’”

Mark Twain once said, “I was born lazy. I am no lazier now than I was 40 years ago, but that is because I reached the limit forty years ago. You can’t go beyond possibility.” This is a customarily brilliant quote. But it also makes us believe Twain would have appreciated the above Philogelos joke. Turns out, even back in Ancient Greece, people were just as lackadaisical as they are now!

“An envious landlord sees how happy his tenants are. So, he evicts them all.”

In modern times, the relationship between a landlord and a tenant can be — how should we say this — strained. Matter of fact, we reckon you’d struggle to find many people with anything nice to say about their landlord — whether that’s fair or not. But you know what? According to the Philogelos, people felt their landlords were joy-hating, miserly sadists in Ancient Greece too! Who knew?

“A monk comforts an ill man, saying that God inflicts misfortune on those he loves. The patient responds, ‘I am not surprised that God has so few friends. If He treats them in this manner, He will have even fewer.’”

In 1484 the Liber Facetiarum — which translates as “Book of Humor” — was published in Italy. It was written by Gian Francesco Poggio Bracciolini and featured gags filled with existential dread like the one above. We think you’ll agree, though, that it’s — ahem — not very funny. The punchline could use some work, for one thing. Not one for your next dinner party, we’d wager!

Clown: “Are these, I pray you, wind instruments?”

Musician: “Ay marry are they, sir.”

Clown: “O, thereby hangs a tail.”

Musician: “Whereby hangs a tail, sir?”

Clown: “Marry, sir, by many a wind instrument that I know.”

In modern times, because he is studied all over the world, and the language used in his plays is so far from our modern tongue, we tend to think of Shakespeare’s work as a paragon of high culture. But he actually wrote for the masses, and his plays are full of violence, sex, ghosts, and even toilet humor. Yes, that’s right — the Bard loved a good fart joke! Check out the example above, which is from Othello.

“A famous teacher of Arithmetick had long been married without being able to get his wife with child. One said to her, ‘Madam, your husband is an excellent Arithmetician.’”

 “’Yes,’ replies she, ‘only he can't multiply.’”

This gag — which is still funny-ish today — came from a 1739 collection called Joe Miller’s jests: or, the wits vade-mecum. Snappy title, huh? The description of the book is actually funnier to a modern audience than some of the jokes. It reads, “Being a collection of the most brilliant jests; the politest repartees; the most elegant bons mots, and most pleasant short stories in the English language.” Those Georgian rascals!

Question: “Why do blondes tiptoe past medicine cabinets?”

Answer: “So they don’t wake up the sleeping pills!”

Dumb blonde jokes have fallen out of fashion in recent years — mostly because of the inherent misogyny. You see, by and large these gags were aimed at women, and people have realized that it’s offensive and lazy to perpetuate the stereotype. It’s believed the joke first started back in the 1700s with Rosalie Duthé, a French mistress who was teased for her habit of pausing for lengthy periods before speaking.

“There are ‘quips and quillets’ which seem actual conundrums, but yet are none. Of such is this, ‘Why does a chicken cross the street?’ Are you ‘out of town?’ Do you ‘give it up?’ Well, then, ‘Because it wants to get on the other side!’”

We’d wager that the first joke most people tell as a child is, “Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the other side!” Cue nice parents reacting like their kid is some kind of comedic genius, and not-so-nice parents responding with rolled eyes and an exasperated sigh. The gag has been a staple since it was first published in a magazine called The Knickerbocker in 1847.

“What a totally amazing, excellent discovery — not!”

These days the “Not!” joke tends to conjure the image of loveable metalheads Wayne and Garth from Wayne’s World. Well, Mike Myers and Dana Carvey’s wonderful comic creations may have popularized it in the early ‘90s, but Myers once indicated to website Vulture that the joke’s origin may go back to 16th-century scholar Sir Thomas Bodley! He said, “One of the best pieces of fan mail I ever got was from a mathematician who said it was Bodleian. He sent me the formula for ‘not.’”

“Knock, knock!”

“Who's there?”

“Rufus.”

“Rufus who?”

“Rufus the most important part of your house!”

The first time the modern format of the “Knock, knock!” joke appeared in print was in an Iowan newspaper in 1936. Yet that same year, Bob Dunn wrote a book called Knock Knock: Featuring Enoch Knox, and similar jokes known as “Do you know?” gags had existed from the early 1900s. Heck, even Shakespeare included “Knock, knock! Who’s there?” at the start of a stanza in Macbeth! So your guess is as good as ours as to where it really originated!

“Why is six afraid of seven? It’s not. Numbers aren’t sentient and are therefore incapable of feeling fear.”

The above is the Platonic ideal of anti-humor, in which an audience hears a set-up, expects a hilarious punchline, but is then met with something intentionally anti-climactic. The subversion of expectations is therefore funny, but not the joke itself. Experts believe this kind of gag has its origin in the shaggy-dog story — a long-winded, labyrinthine anecdote that purposefully doesn’t amount to anything meaningful in the end.

“What’s black and white and red all over? A newspaper, of course!”

Everybody surely heard this joke as a kid, as well as several dirty variations of it as they got older. But where did it come from? Well, according to Mac E. Barrick in a 1974 edition of The Journal of American Folklore, it’s “the most common example of a folk riddle collected in the United States in the 20th century. It appeared in 15 collections of riddles compiled between 1917 and 1939.” There you have it!

“Waiter, there's a fly in my soup.”

“Don't worry. How much soup can a fly drink?”

The origin of waiter jokes such as this can be traced back to one specific New York City restaurant! You see, the staff at Lindy’s — which opened in 1921 — were so famously rude to customers that it was actually a selling-point. It was kind of like being roasted, only instead of you being affectionately teased by your famous friends, you paid to be insulted by a waiter with a rapier-like wit!

“Yo’ mama so stupid, she cooks with Old Spice!”

The “Yo’ mama” joke, as we know it today, began life back in the ‘60s as part of a game known as “the dozens” played by inner-city black youths. The idea was to insult someone’s family in order to test how emotionally strong they were. Yet the basic components of the joke may go all the way back to the slave trade, according to Mona Lisa Saloy’s study, titled Still Laughing to Keep From Crying.

“A man walks into a bar and orders a very, very dry martini, telling the bartender to make it at a ratio of 25 to one. Somewhat startled by the request, the bartender precisely measures and pours the drink into the correct glass and proceeds to ask the man if he’d like a twist of lemon peel with his martini. To which the man pounds his fist on the bar and yells, “If I wanted a damn lemonade, I’d ask for one!”

According to author Scott McNeely, this is the first modern “guy walks into a bar” joke, and it was published in a 1952 article in newspaper The New York Times. The creator of the gag was C.B. Palmer, and the article was entitled “The Consummately Dry Martini.” As McNeely put it, “Palmer’s original bar joke isn’t very funny. But as with the Romans, modern bar humor owes Mr. Palmer a round on the house.”

“Welcome to the Academy Awards, or, as it’s known at my house, Passover.”

Bob Hope was the legendarily quick-witted comedian who hosted the Oscars a mind-boggling 19 times. Despite this ubiquity, the poor guy never actually won an Academy Award, and he poked fun at this in his opening monologue at the 1968 ceremony. So, any time you’re watching an awards show and a celebrity self-deprecatingly jokes about not winning, you’ll think of Hope!

“I get no respect. I played hide and seek — they wouldn’t even look for me!”

Rodney Dangerfield’s comedic persona was the put-upon guy who couldn’t get any respect — whether it was from his wife, his kids, his parents, his doctor, or even people on the street! Amazingly, the inspiration for his career-making joke format was something very serious and prestigious — The Godfather! He once told The New York Times, “All I heard was the word ‘respect.’ I thought to myself: it sounds like a funny image — a guy who gets no respect.”

Rumack: “Can you fly this plane, and land it?”

Ted: “Surely you can’t be serious!”

Rumack: “I am serious...and don’t call me Shirley.”

This piece of sublimely stupid wordplay from 1980’s Airplane! spawned a thousand imitators over the years, but few have been able to match its wonderful deadpan simplicity. As Vulture writer Jesse David Fox put it, “It’s funny, I can say from experience, to both a small child and a professional comedy critic.” This kind of gag — with universal appeal to all ages — isn’t easy to create, and to make it look so effortless is a slice of genius.