Today’s DOTD - Drink Of The Day - is a Joker Cocktail inspired by National Tell An Old Joke Day. (Seriously, there is a day for everything.)
National Tell An Old Joke Day, celebrated every July 24, is a great reminder to dust off your favorite classic jokes, and take ‘em out for a spin. Old jokes often tap into universal human experiences, simple wordplay, or familiar scenarios, making them relatable across generations. Their simplicity and predictability offer a comforting form of humor that never goes out of style.
Tell An Old Joke Day Hero
Milton Berle
Milton Berle (1908-2002), also known as ‘Uncle Miltie,’ was an American actor, comedian, and television pioneer. Known for hosting ‘Texaco Star Theater’ he became one of America’s first major comedic TV stars. Berle was famous for his vast collection of jokes, often borrowing and adapting old gags, making him a fitting figure for a day celebrating timeless humor.
A Brief History Of Humor, Jokes, & Jokebooks
Scientists believe that millions of years ago, before the punchlines and dad jokes, humor evolved as a social survival mechanism. In the wild, survival often depended not just on physical strength, but on the ability to form alliances, defuse tension, and communicate quickly.
Anthropologists also note that laughter, shared among a group of people, is a bonding mechanism, much like grooming is among primates. An environment where people can laugh openly & fully allows people to bond more easily with one another, communicates safety and friendliness, engenders trust, and helps groups grow larger without falling apart. The scientists also believed as societies became more complex, so did their sense of humor.
Of course, scientists have been wrong before, and they’re somewhat wrong on this one too.
After all, the world’s oldest joke, from Sumeria, around 1900 BCE, is a fart joke - seriously. Here it is:
“Something which has never occurred since time immemorial; a young woman did not fart in her husband’s lap.”
Not much complexity to that, though humans have gained complexity in how we’ve kept track of our jokes over the millennia.
The Greek writer and archivist Athenaeus of Naucratis wrote around 200 CE (AD) that King Philip II of Macedon commissioned a joke book around 350 BCE from a social club of witty men in Athens, often referred to as the “Group of Sixty, to write down their jokes and quips for him. While that book did not survive, it’s one of the first known joke books in Western history.
The oldest surviving joke book in Western history, also from Greece, is titled “The Philogelos” or “Laughter-Lover.” While initially attributed to two otherwise unknown authors, Hierocles and Philagrius, modern scholars consider that attribution highly questionable, rendering the compilation effectively anonymous. The book contains 265 jokes & riddles, clearly gathered from other sources, and includes multiple postings of some jokes, some of which appear in slightly different versions. Likely compiled in the 4th or 5th century CE, the text is organized according to the stereotypical characters who serve as the target of the punchlines in the jokes.
One of these jokes involves a king and his barber…
Asked by the court barber how he wanted his hair cut, the king replied dryly, “In silence.”
The Ancient Romans also had their ‘jestbooks.’ The playwright Titus Maccius Plautus often referenced these in his plays, while the Roman historian Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus mentions a professor of the Emperor Augustus, who compiled more than 150 joke anthologies.
The early Renaissance brought about another major joke book in history, compiled by the Italian Renaissance scholar Poggio Bracciolini. Secretary to eight Popes, Bracciolini was an Italian humanist and a passionate bibliophile, traveling throughout Europe in search of lost books & other historically important written works. His contribution to the history of joke books is The Facetiae, a famous 15th-century collection of 273 jokes, jests, puns, and humorous anecdotes. First printed around 1470, it’s historically recognized as the first printed joke book in Western history.
Tell An Old Joke Day timeline
How To Celebrate Tell An Old Joke Day
Tell everyone your favorite old jokes
The one about the chicken crossing the road. Any knock-knock joke ever made. ‘Your mom’ jokes. There are plenty of memorable old jokes that any person would know. If you can’t remember some hilarious ones, the internet can help you. There are plenty of free websites with loads of old jokes for you to try out. You can also go old school, in keeping with our ‘old jokes’ theme, and pick up an old joke book at the library.
Watch someone else tell funny old jokes
If you have some free time, why not spend it watching your favorite comedians tell their old jokes? You could even plan a family TV night with a special marathon of your favorite comedians telling old jokes. Whatever you choose, take a break, and enjoy some old jokes today.
Read about the history of old jokes
You could start by looking up the historical joke books we mentioned above. or you could try the book “Stop Me If You’ve Heard This: A History and Philosophy of Jokes.” In this book, author Jim Holt deep-dives into the history of jokes. You could even read some of the oldest jokes in history, as Business Insider published in 2023. You could even ask for more recommendations from your favorite local librarian.
Of course, after all those jokes, you’ll likely be thirsty. So let’s make today’s Drink Of The Day, a Joker Cocktail.
Ingredients
Here’s what you’re going to need for this drink:
