So why are dads across generations and countries so invested in this corny kind of humor? Comedy critic and dad Jason Zinoman has an explanation. “The demise of a dad’s sense of humor begins in early parenthood while workshopping jokes in front of babies, tiny philistines who think peekaboo is a hilarious bit of misdirection,” he writes.

When kids grow into toddlers, they fixate on trivial things, making it easy to amuse them with silly remarks. “Like so many lazy comics, we parents pander. If jokes work, they stay in the set. Gradually, we become hooked on cheap laughs.”

As children become older, dads are reluctant to let go of the jokes they’ve come to love. “When their humor matures, they mock ours and, in their search for a critical language to express their contempt, the dad joke was born.”