Category: Jokes and Humor

Artist creating street art during COVID-19 pandemic.

COVID Recollections: “Walls Speak and People Need to Listen” – An Interview with Dr. Heather Shirey and Dr. Todd Lawrence about the COVID-19 Street Art Archive

March 17, 2025

In this COVID Recollections post, we continue to commemorate the 5th anniversary of COVID-19 being declared a pandemic by highlighting the COVID-19 Street Art Archive—an online, archival collection of street art related to the COVID-19 pandemic. This post features an interview with Dr. Heather Shirey (Professor of Art History, University of St. Thomas) and Dr. Todd Lawrence (Associate Professor of English, University of St. Thomas), who created the COVID-19 Street Art archive. Shirey and Lawrence discuss their inspiration for the archive, their favorite items in the collection, and their thoughts on archiving art that is intended to be temporary. The COVID-19 Street Art Archive is just one of many collections available on the American Folklife Center's COVID-19 Research Guide. Find more at https://guides.loc.gov/covid-19-folklife.

Posted in: Archival Practice, COVID-19 American History Project, COVID-19 pandemic, Folk Art, Jokes and Humor, Material Culture

Two portraits, A half-length portrait of the seventeenth century playwright, Ben Jonson. and

Knock Knock! Who’s There? Metafolklore, Jokes, and Shakespeare

April 20, 2024

Posted by: Stephen Winick

In this post, we discuss the frequently repeated claim that William Shakespeare originated the knock knock joke. The claim is an example of metafolklore, in that it’s a traditional story, or creation myth, told about a kind of joke. The story is based on a passage from “Macbeth” in which a porter declaims a monologue which includes the phrase “knock knock. Who’s there?” After we look at this fun passage from the perspective of the knock knock joke, we present new evidence: an earlier (and funnier) joking use of “knock knock. Who’s there?” in a play by Shakespeare’s friend Ben Jonson. While it’s possible to conclude that Jonson originated the knock knock joke, we also point out that both Jonson and Shakespeare were drawing on a deep well of folk culture, which included all kinds of jokes, including set dialogue routines. It's eminently plausible that among those routines was the "knock knock, who's there" opening that eventually evolved into modern knock knock jokes.

Posted in: Jokes and Humor, Metafolklore (Folklore about Folklore), Shakespeare