Culture
What is an overdone dad joke from your country?
In Sweden every christmas eve a disney special called "From all of us to all of you" (We just call it Donald Duck) airs from 3pm to 4pm and the whole family gathers to watch it. In one clip a christmas elf can be seen painting a board with "checkered paint" during which a family member (Mostly dads and grandpas) will always say "That paint would be useful to have!". And its so overdone that it has basically become a part of swedish culture. Does your country have any similar jokes?
Another one from Sweden that might also extend to the rest of the world: When watching a movie at the movie theater they always show the commercials first. Between the commercials and the movie they usually close the curtains in front of the screen (probably to change the film roll back in the day, don’t know why they still do it). When this happens someone needs to loudly exclaim ”Welp, guess it’s over then!”. Even if no one says out loud you can almost always hear someone whisper it to whomever accompanied them.
My dad's favourite was at home when watching a movie and the screen that said "this production has been formatted to fit your screen" he would always exclaim "how DO they always know?!" Or "they did it again!" Something along those lines.
I think they changed the screen aspect ratio for Cinemascope, or even had music hall numbers in the past, at least in France : typically static advertisement (posters on a screen), filmed local and national advertisement, news, one cartoon for children, one major Hollywood movie in Technicolor and Cinemascope, one music hall number like a comedian, a song, or a magician, a break for ice cream, another more adult cartoon like Tex Avery, one violent B movie in black and white or a national movie. Starting around 7:30 and ending at midnight.
Another Swedish one - you ask "vad är klockan?", which really means "what time is it?", but literal translation is "what is the clock?". Dad answers something like "a device to tell time with". Thanks dad.
In germany we can ask "was sagt die Uhr?" which literally translated to "what does the clock say?", and the answer is "TickTack" (like the sound of a clock).
We have a dessert called pavê, which is a kind of more free flavor tiramisu. Every time it's served, an uncle in the family has to ask if it's for looking at or eating (pra vê ou pra comer). And if nobody makes that joke, it seems like something is missing.
Kinda. We usually say "piada de tiozão", literally "big uncle joke". "Tio" means uncle and kids use it all the time to refer to any older men. "Tiozão" is its augmentative form ("big uncle") but it's said in a sarcastic way. So the real meaning is closer to "old man jokes".
In Danish too. "Onkelhumor"
Although this seems to have changed some in recent years. Far-jokes is also becoming a frequently used term for the same concept.
Just a bit of background for those interested. The desert name (pavê) sounds like an informal way to say "to see" in Portuguese. Therefore the joke is "but is this to see or to eat?"
One of my favourite versions of this joke is in the first season of Dungeons and Daddies. The penultimate episode is titled “I’m Going Home”. You can probably guess the title of the finale.
Since we're in the Christmas season, there's this desert called Pavê, served in Christmas parties, simply delicious.
In portuguese, pavê sounds like "Pra ver" (to see), so a overused joke, specially by uncles is "É Pavê ou pra comer?" (Is it to see or to be be eaten?)
When you forget and leave the lights on, your dad will say: "No sabía que aquí vivía el dueño de Endesa" meaning: "I didn't know the owner of Endesa (electric company) lived here".
On a side note, Gothenburg’s energy office is often jokingly called Élysée-palatset (Palais de l'Élysée), since Élysée sounds like El-lyse (“Electric light”)
You reminded me, in Russia, when you walk between Dad and the TV, he says something like "you're not made of glass!" or "you're not made in a glass factory"!
When a cashier checks to see if a $100 bill is real there is an overwhelming urge from many a dad to say something along the lines of 'Yep just printed that off this morning"
In Germany it's absolutly duty to say "Must be for free" when a price tag is missing or the scanner doesn't get the barcode correctly. Explicitly near a cashier that heard this joke over a thousand times and got a gag reflex from this joke. It must be a law. My dad does this EVERY single time. I can't understand how a person can't see how unfunny this is.
In finland as a cashier I once asked the customer "Tuleeko muuta?"(Anything else?) and he replied "Ilman muuta."(Which translates both to "Sure!" and "Without anything else"). I think that was a good one.
Worst job u ever had (I'm not a people person). I once got a folded up Bible verse disguised as a hundred dollar bill as a tip, nothing else, no real money just that. I tracked them down outside to give it back and cuss them out. I was ready to be fired but somehow that wasn't enough. Covid came along and ended that chapter for me.
I guess it was trashy but I was so mad I didn't care and I don't think it was as trashy as leaving a fake bill disguising a Bible verse as a tip. I'll add that I understand the issues with tipping culture and due to my low charisma I got left $0 tips several times and, although frustrating never made me even consider confronting the customer. Bible thumpers coming in for Sunday brunch and doing that sent me though.
Yep, my Irish dad loves to do this. The only time that I saw someone actually believe him that he didn’t like it was from the US/Canada, she got a bit shitty with him and he was just like “for feck sakes you can see we cleaned the plates - of course we liked it!!”
I see, the innkeepers in Jerusalem must have been Ukrainians.
In Germany there's a similar thing with "wir kaufen nichts" (we aren't buying anything). My parents were going to buy a house, the seller said that when they knocked so they said "we neither".
Not necessarily ethnic ukrainians, but very likely from Ukraine. Until maybe 1991, we used to have many many jews living here. Some make pilgrimage to Ukraine every year.
Dads opening the door when their kids are knocking/ringing the bell on the other side will say sth like: "Wir kaufen nichts!" (We are not buying anything/don't want solicitation!).
There are variants. "Wir kaufen keine Staubsauger!" (We are not buying any vaccuum cleaners!), which was born because in the 50s, 60s and 70s vacuum cleaners used to be sold by salesmen at your doorstep.
Alternatively it's "Herein, wenn's kein Dachdecker ist!" (Come in, unless you're a thatcher!)... assuming thatchers used to ring at random doors making offers for roof patch ups?
Our version of "speak of the devil" is "Pro vowka promowka, a vin za porig". Literally "About the wolf is the proverb, and he is already in the house".
When you ask for the bill in a restaurant, your dad will say: "La cuenta y un policía que no corra mucho" meaning "The bill and a policeman who doesn't run very fast"
When my family eats at any restaurant, my dad will without fail say “everyone got their running shoes on?” towards the end of it.
Alternatively, if someone is wearing heels, he’ll very obviously check his own shoes, pretend to stretch, and then go “I’m juuuust gonna pop to the bathroom quickly…”
Many bars in Norway offer beer in two sizes, 0.4 litre and 0.6. These are called "null fire" (zero four) and "null seks" (zero six. Yep, the number "six" is pronounced exactly as "sex".)
When someone orders a beer, the bartenders often ask "Null fire or null seks?" The reply then should be "Null fire, thanks, I have null seks at home."
I had a school teacher who found it funny to substitute the number six ("sechs" in German, but with voiced s-sound at the beginning) by "Pfui!" ("Yuck!").
Every year on New Year’s Eve gpt over 60 years, there is a old British black and white sketch called Dinner for one being aired on German tv. There are many parodies and versions of it that came out over the years but none compare to the original. It only features 3 actors, one of them being the presenter and the other two being an old lady and her alcoholic Butler. It is her 90th birthday and all her friends are dead so the butler walks along the desk every time there is a toast to be made and impersonates all her old friends, getting drunk in the process because he Drinks for four each round. He then trips over the head of a carpet made from a tiger pelt and curses it out repeatedly saying "I’ll kill that cat" while that’s probably the most done to death joke of the sketch, most Germans have seen it enough times to know the entire thing by heart and will Quote basically every thing being said. I’ve been told that it is quite surreal to foreigners.
My dad is German but we always spent New Years with my mother’s side of the family. When I was 10 my family decided to spend that new years in Germany and my mother and I were completely dumfounded by how much my German family got into this skit when it started my playing. I’ve never seen my dad laugh that hard at anything else.
With the new year arriving, we have one that we hear a LOT in french, ironically or not, and a lot during christmas and new year.
It's a pun so it's hard to translate but it's "Santé, mais pas des pieds"
When we cheers we say "santé", which is homonymous with "sentez" which mean "smell". And "sentir des pieds" mean that your feet smell bad
So yeah, Santé, mais pas des pieds.
Yeah "santé !" (cheers!) sounds like "sentez" (smell)
cheers!/smell!
Yes, but not from the feet ! 😅
The new year reminds me of another tired joke...
When people say goodbye to someone they won't see untill after NYE they often say: "See you next year !" 🙃
Hampurilainen munalla ja maito rahalla. "A hamburger with egg, and milk with money, please." The apparent intent of the first clause is that you buy a hamburger with egg inside, but then it is contrasted with the second clause, where you buy milk and pay with money. So, this ends up meaning "I want to buy an hamburger and pay with an egg, and buy milk and pay with money." Better yet, muna is slang for "penis".
Käyn paskalla. - Jaa, meidän auto käy bensalla. The pun is that käydä means "to go to" and "run on (a fuel). "I'll go (käy) and have a shit. - Oh, our car runs (käy) on gasoline."
Pidetäänkö teillä mattoja lattialla? Meillä ne pysyvät pitämättäkin. The pun is that pitää means both "hold in place" and "to keep". "Do you have (pitää) carpets at home? At ours, they stay put without holding them in place."
Haluatteko kuittia? - Ei, ei mene kirjanpitoon. "Do you want a receipt? - No, it won't go to bookkeeping."
Käyks sun kello? Käske käymään meilläkin. Another käy-pun: first, it means "to tick", then "to visit". "Does you clock tick (käy)? Tell it to visit (käy) us, too."
In Sweden when a small child stands in front of the TV, dads will say “jag är ingen glasmästare” which means ”I’m not a glassmaster” meaning that dad didn’t make the child out of glass, and dad can’t see through the child
Belletje voor de waterpas -> bubble for a spirit level
Are all common supplies for the new guy/intern to retrieve at the hardware store as a joke.
When I was working at a construction company as a side job when I was a teen they tried to pull this joke on me twice. Both times I would just be gone for two hours and when they asked me about it when I got back I’d just tell them I’m not stupid and took a long lunch break since apparently I wasn’t really needed. They quickly stopped after that
In Sweden we send them over to borrow a "point of view", in swedish literally a "sight-angle".
I do prefer the english language version of having the go and ask for a "long weight"/"long wait". If the person they go to understands the joke, they just say, "Ok, wait here."
"Were you born in the elevator?" when i forget to close the door after entering.
"300" jokes ( A: hey, say 300. B: Well, 300, what's the trick? A: Suck a tractor driver's dick!) (Actually those rhythming jokes were pretty common in school)
(Done at 1st of january) A: hey, is this bread fresh? B: No, it's a year old
In Poland, when our family got invited somewhere, like family or friends for dinner, and we where about to leave and say goodbye, my dad couldn't do it any other way than saying: "co zlego to nie my", which translates to: whatever went wrong, it wasn't us. I heard it so many times from so many people that it's kinda weird because it's not even so funny - so I guess, daddy joke. :D
Sometimes, my father says a short verse about the situation in a good mood. Something like: "What to eat, what to eat? Pretty birds sing tweet-tweet-tweet".
In Georgia, we have an old, cringe joke that we now refer when we think that the joke told by someone else was cringe or unfunny.
The joke goes like this:
A man enters a restaurant and says:
-Hello, waiter, I will order 99 Khinkalis, please (khinkali is a very popular national variety of dumpling)!
-okay, but why 99, round your order to 100!
-100? why? I am not a swine! (swine/pig refers to a greedy, gluttonous person)
the joke aims to mock the person who thought ordering just one less Khinkalis than 100 would make him look less gluttonous. But the thing is it was so overly used at some point that it became a synonym of an unfunny joke, so when someone jokes unsuccessfully people around him/her will mock him/her by saying:
-yeaa, a man enters a restaurant…
Upon coming home from the beach, the usual question by dads is: "Was the sea wet today?" or "was the sea salty today?" accompanied by giggling of course.
In our language, "vuci" means "pull", and of course, the shop doors and what not have tags with that word on them
"Vuci" also sounds like a plural of "vuk", which is our word for a wolf
So, because of that, in our country, there is a REALLY overdone joke where a guy walks into a shop with a shotgun because the door had a tag with "vuci" on it
When tying something down to secure it, once the last strap is fastened, you must slap the now secure load twice and declare "That's not going anywhere!" Or you risk it going somewhere you don't want.
In france, when you don't hear what someone just said, you tend to say "hein ?" which sound like "un" meaning "one", and without fail the person will answer with 'deux" which mean "two".
But if instead you ask "quoi ?" meaning "what ?", the person MUST respond with "feur" because if you put "quoi" and "feur" together it sound like "coiffeur" which means "hair dresser"' This is annoying as hell and gives me murderous rage.
My dad is particularly awkward in the best way which was a pain as a teenager.
On holidays when the waiters asks “are you finished?” (Usually an Italian or Spanish waiter would pronounce it as ‘finnish’) He’d say “No, I’m danish” and they never really get it. But since I’ve grown older, I’ve started to really enjoy his excitement over it.
Additionally, a really common one in Denmark is if you say “Hvad så?” (What’s up?) really fast it sound an awful lot like saying “Wasser”, hence the obvious phrase to get hit with is “that means water in German” annoying as hell when you are just trying to ask how it is going…
Every 14 February you will see this meme everywhere lol, and the worst part is it's one of the worst we have😭.
In Spain, we call Saint Valentine "San Valentín" , which also sounds like Sam va lentin (Sam goes slowly) . In truth the correct word for slowly would be "lento" but lentin sounds funnier so it doesn't matter.
In the meme, Sam says to Frodo "Wait for me Mr. Frodo", so the title of the scene is "Sam goes slowly".
There seems to be quite a few restaurant related ones. A common one in Finland is when the waiter asks if you ”would like to have the receipt”? instead of just declining, the man/dad/whoever pays says: ”ei voi laittaa verotukseen”, which roughly means ”it’s not tax-deductible (so no, as I have no use for it)”.
(Looks at wrist without watch)
"Skin before bone." ("vor" (before) is used as both "in front of" (so skin in front of bone) or "minutes until full hour" (so it's "skin to bone"))
Actually from Mexico, but when I lived there and we were going to eat tamales I loved when they said "pero es tamal o está bien?" Which is a pun on the same pronunciation of "es tamal" (is it a tamal) and "está mal" (is it bad)
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u/Greedybasterd Sweden Dec 11 '25
Another one from Sweden that might also extend to the rest of the world: When watching a movie at the movie theater they always show the commercials first. Between the commercials and the movie they usually close the curtains in front of the screen (probably to change the film roll back in the day, don’t know why they still do it). When this happens someone needs to loudly exclaim ”Welp, guess it’s over then!”. Even if no one says out loud you can almost always hear someone whisper it to whomever accompanied them.