The History of the Knock-Knock Joke

How long has the ubiquitious knock-knock joke been around? For most of us, these types of jokes seem like timeless entities that have simply always existed. But they had to start somewhere didn't they? And someone has to know where they started, right? But a search through the usual founts of online knowledge (the infallible duo: Google and Wikipedia) gives up little more than the basic structure of a knock-knock joke:

Knock-Knock

Who's There?

<Some sort of name or word>

<Some sort of name or word> who?

<Some sort of name or word> with a punnish ending! POW!

But as for the basic origins of the joke itself, little is offered. Maybe they came from an exchange between characters in Shakespeare's MacBeth ("Knock-knock" "Who goest there?"), maybe Buddhist monks told them to each other during their meditation breaks ("Knock-Knock" "Who's there?" "It is yourself, for we are all one..."), or maybe they cropped up in rural school districts in the 1900s ("Knock-Knock" "Who the hell is that at my door?").

Wherever they came from, they've been around so long now that unless you're a child or a devoted punster you're unlikely to find the genre funny (there are genres of jokes right?).

There don't appear to be any books on the subject of joke origins, though there's probably a joke historian at some college with the joke credentials to answer this question - though to get into his office you have to knock on his door, and who knows how long that exchange could go on?

Maybe there is no answer. Maybe this question is like the chicken and the egg conundrum. Which came first, the knock-knock joke or surfaces that separated people and required them to knock on them? Actually I guess that's a pretty straightforward question. You can't have a joke about something that doesn't exist. So, we've succeeded in narrowing our question down at least that much: knock-knock jokes can only be as old as doors themselves. So, that just leaves us with a few millenia to comb through.

By the way, Orange you glad I didn't say Banana?

For a massive collection of knock-knock jokes, check out www.Knock-Knock-Jokes.com