Knock Knock! The Definitive List of Shakespeare Knock Knock Jokes (Guest Post)

From time to time, Bardfilm and Shakespeare Geek have tried putting a Shakespearean spin on some of the classic genres of humor. They’ve previously tackled light bulb jokes and dealt with why the chicken crossed the road. Finally, the great challenge of the Knock knock joke proved irresistible. Here are some Shakespearean knock-knock jokes that you can use to entertain or torment your friends, colleagues, and children.  No, you don’t need advanced Shakespeare knowledge to get all of them – but it certainly helps sometimes!

Knock, Knock.
Who’s there?
Oberon.
Oberon who?
Oberon the other bank you might try to catch some fish.

Knock, Knock.
Who’s there?
Noah.
Noah who?
Noah’s the winter of our discontent.

Knock, Knock.
Who’s there?
Dogberry.
Dogberry who?
Dog bury a bone in my petunias again, dog get sent to the pound.

Knock, Knock.
Who’s there?
Julius Caesar.
Julius Caesar who?
Julius, seize her! She’s the one who stole my wallet!

Knock, Knock.
Who’s there?
The Earl of Oxford.
The Earl of Oxford who?
Exactly.

Knock, Knock.
Who’s there?
Wherefore means.
Wherefore means who?
No, “wherefore” means “why.” How many times do we have to go over this?

Knock, Knock.
Who’s there?
Nay, answer me!  Stand and unfold yourself.
Long live the king?

Knock, Knock.
Who’s there?
Laertes.
Laertes who?
Layer Ts and sweaters to stay dry and comfortable on the ski slopes.

Knock, Knock.
Who’s there?
The Nightingale.
The Nightingale who?
Ha! Fooled you! It’s really the Lark.

Knock, Knock.
Who’s there?
Orlando.
Orlando who?
Or Lando or Leia or Luke or Chewbacca will pilot the Millennium Falcon.

Knock, Knock, Knock, Knock, Knock, Knock.
Who’s there?
Tom.
Tom who?
Tom R. O. and Tom R. O. and Tom R. O.  We creep in this petty pace from day to day.

Knock, Knock.
Who’s there?
Shelly.
Shelly who?
Shelly compare thee to a summer’s day?

Knock, Knock.
Who’s there?
Hal.
Hal who?
Hal long until Henry IV dies and I can become king?

Knock, Knock.
Who’s there?
Gracie Zar.
Gracie Zar who?
Gracie Zar’s Ghost!

Knock, Knock.
Who’s there?
Et.
Et who?
Et tu, Brute? Then fall, Caesar!

Knock, Knock.
Who’s there?
Utah.
Utah who?
Utah me language, and my profit on it is I know how to curse!

Knock, Knock.
Who’s there?
The cause, my soul.
The cause, my soul who?
Let me not name it to you!

Knock, Knock.
Who’s there?
Leon.
Leon who?
Leon Macduff.

Knock, Knock.
Who’s there?
Rosencrantz.  No, wait, Guildenstern! *sigh*—let me get back to you.

Knock, Knock.
Who’s there?
Ferris.
Ferris who?
Ferris foul and foul is fair.

Knock, Knock.
Who’s there?
Lysander.
Lysander who?
Lie, Sander, and you’ll get in trouble, Sander.

Knock, Knock.
Who’s there?
Cordelia.
Cordelia who?
Oh, that’s real nice, Daddy. I come all the way from France with an army to rescue you and that’s the welcome I get.

Knock, Knock.
Who’s there?
Falstaff.
Falstaff who?
[Excessively Loud Belch]

Knock, Knock.
Who’s there?
Will Shakespeare.
Will Shakespeare who?
Will Shakespeare or just stand there holding one as long as I get to be on stage.

Knock, Knock.
Who’s there?
Desdemona.
Desdemona who?
Nobody.  I myself.  Farewell.

Knock, Knock.
Who’s there?
Riese.
Riese who?
Riese and not the need.

Knock, Knock.
Who’s there?
The Porter from Macbeth.
The Porter from Macbeth who?
The Porter from Macbeth, who wants to know how you like it! Knock, Knock. Knock, Knock. Knock, Knock. Knock, Knock. Knock, Knock. Knock, Knock. Knock, Knock. Knock, Knock.

Knock, Knock.
Who’s there?
Interrupting Chorus.
Interrupting . . .
O FOR A MUSE OF FIRE!

Knock, Knock.
Who’s there?
Demetrius.
Demetrius who?
Just try to Demetri us before we Demetri you!

Knock, Knock.
Who’s there?
Hamlet.
Hamlet who?
Ham let Ophee fall in love with him.

Knock, Knock.
Who’s there?
Hamlet.
Hamlet who?
Hamlet the dogs out!  (woof, woof woof woof…)

Knock, Knock.
Who’s there?
Helena.
Helena who?
Helena handbasket is where this world seems to be going.

Knock, Knock.
Who’s there?
Pericles.
Pericles who?
Well, I know it’s not Hamlet, but it’s not that unknown.

Knock, Knock.
Who’s there?
Rosaline.
Rosaline who?
Yeah, that’s what Romeo said as soon as he saw Juliet.

Knock, Knock.
Who’s there?
Lloyd.
Lloyd who?
Lloyd, what fools these moytals be.

Knock, Knock.
Who’s there?
Mary.
Mary who?
Mary, your manhood mew.

Knock, Knock.
Who’s there?
William Shakespeare.
William Shakespeare who?
William Shakespeare cans so they explode when you open them.

Knock, Knock.
Who’s there?
Interrupting Richard the Third.
Interrupting Richard the . . .
HORSE!

Knock, Knock.
Who’s there?
Amos.
Amos who?
Amos shapen knave; his mother was a witch, and one so strong that could control the moon!

Knock, Knock.
Who’s there?
Otis.
Otis who?
Otis too, too solid flesh! I wish it would melt, thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!

Or . . .

Otis too true! How smart a lash that speech doth give my conscience.


Knock knock.
Who’s there?
Mike.
Mike who?
Mike Ingdom for a horse.

Knock knock.
Who’s there?
Arthur.
Arthur who?
Arthur world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.

Knock knock.
Who’s there?
Toby.
Toby who?
Wait—sorry. Not Toby.
Make up your mind! Who’s there?
Toby or not Toby, that is the question.

Shakespearean Knock Knock JokesWe thank kj, the author of Bardfilm, for this guest post. Bardfilm is a blog that comments on films, plays, and other matters related to Shakespeare.

Best of “Shakespearean First Drafts”

I got into work this morning to a note from Bardfilm that he’d started a new game on Twitter that he called, “Shakespearean First Drafts”.  As has become our new policy, here’s a best-of post for posterity:
  • “We are all made of dream stuff.”
  •  “Hey look, it’s Juliet up in the balcony. Hi, Juliet!”
  •  “Brutus is a cool dude.  All these dudes, are cool dudes.”
  • “For aught that ever I could read, / The course of true love never was a walk i’ th’ park.”
  • “Alas, poor Yorick. I knew him, Horatio. Crummy clown, bad material.”
  • “Wanted: 1 horse. 10 bucks. Willing to negotiate. Call Rick ASAP.”
  • “Anyone got a horse? Cause I really need one, like right now.”
  • Claudius: How is’t the clouds still hang on you? Hamlet: You suck! You’re not my real dad!
  • “Holy crap, it’s Yorick! Yorick died? When the frick did that happen?”
  • “And you, also, are among these conspirators? Oh, Brutus. Really?”
  • “My mistress’ eyes are almost like the sun. Something like? Nearly like? Partly?”
  • “By the tickling of my nose, something evil this way blows.”
  • “To be or not – I’m kinda leaning one way, but I’m a bit on the fence, you know?”
  • “Two loves I have, of comfort and despair, / And darned if I know what to do with either one.”
  • “The game’s a toe!”
  • “Darn it, Goneril just said what I was gonna say.”
  • “There’s something a bit off in the state of Denmark.”

What If Shakespeare Wasn’t Public Domain?

A few years back, i had a coworker that ran a Hemingway site. He was, other than the difference in authors, a lot like many of us. He had no special academic background in the subject, he was just a rabid fan. Read what he could. Collected books. New opportunities to discuss new ideas? Jumped all over them. Hosted a forum where he posted his ideas to get discussion going, answered questions when he knew the answers, and so on.

Big, big difference? Hemingway is not public domain. Imagine all the things about Shakespeare that we take for granted – how often we freely cut and paste as many pieces of text, as long as we want, whenever we need to make a point. Need video? There’s almost always a YouTube clip of somebody reciting the sonnet or performing the scene that you need. He had none of that. He dreamed of the sort of concordances and textual analyses that we take for granted with Shakespeare. How many different words did Hemingway use? How did his vocabulary change during his career? Can’t do it.

So I wonder … how would your life be different if Shakespeare were not public domain? Let’s say that, like Winnie the Pooh, somebody along the line *had* the rights to Shakespeare’s works, and sold them. And that the entity who now owns them has aggressively marketed them, and rigorously defended their copyright. How would your life be different?

I’m pretty sure this blog wouldn’t exist. I can go out and buy a book on Shakespeare like anybody else, but what I really needed was the forum where we could talk about it. I’m not a theatre person or an academic, so I am not normally surrounded with Shakespearean resources (be they scripts or people). So if you suddenly took away my ability to make my point in text by preventing me from cutting and pasting a portion of a scene from a play? Or, worse, hung the spectre of the takedown notice over my head so that whenever I did cite text I could potentially receive such a scary lawyer letter? I can’t see how it would ever get off the ground.

UPDATED: If you’re coming in from Twitter, don’t be shy!  How do you think the world would be different if Shakespeare were not public domain?

A professor on Twitter wanted to make sure that everybody knew that not every *edition* of Shakespeare is public domain, and that her notes and emendations were copyrighted!  I pointed out that, if Shakespeare were not public domain to begin with, she wouldn’t have had anything to write notes on 🙂  No response.

The Shakespeare Tavern said that their budget would go up, which is certainly true since now they’d have to pay for rights to produce the plays :).  But, I wonder, if Shakespeare wasn’t so universal, would there even be a market anymore for full-time Shakespeare houses?

What Can Shakespeare Teach Me About IT?

If there’s a pet peeve I have about Shakespeare, it’s that connection between “Shakespeare is hard and useless, therefore why learn it?”  This morning out on a coffee run for the wife I heard a radio commercial for some sort of vocational school that used that exact line, presumably in reference to not wanting to get a real education at a real school:  “What can Shakespeare teach me about IT?”  (IT, for those not familiar, is information technology.  In other words, computer stuff.)

Well.  As a lifelong computer geek (been coding for 28 out of 38 years, thankyouverymuch) with a love a Shakespeare, I think I’d like to comment on that.  Let’s talk about what Shakespeare can teach you about IT.

  1. Shakespeare appreciation is self-directed.  If all you know about Shakespeare is what the teacher makes you memorize for the test, you will fall very very short of what you can accomplish.  At best, school provides that glimmer of something that makes you say “Wow, I love this” and then do whatever you can to seek out more information.
    Computer science is the same way.  If you love it, then you will go over and above what school teaches you.  If all you’re doing is walking through classes in order to get the grade and the diploma, then you’re not getting much out of life.
  2. Shakespeare wrote in a different language, with its own tokens and syntax.  Computer software is very much a game of speaking new languages (Java, Ruby, Erlang, take your pick).  You have to understand the context.  You have to know when you’ve seen an old word in a new context, and be able to make the leap of understanding about what that means.  Reading Shakespeare offers similar challenges. Most of the words he used as still in use today (as a matter of fact he invented many of them).  But he often used them in different ways than we do.  There’s a certain amount of deciphering that has to go on.
  3. “Reverse engineering”, for the non-IT crowd, refers to taking an existing piece of technology and taking it apart in an effort to figure out what the creator meant when he did certain things.  There’s almost so much parallel to Shakespeare there that it’s not worth mentioning.  Was he Catholic or Protestant?  Did he even write the plays?  Reverse engineering Shakespeare’s works has kept scholars busy for hundreds of years.
  4. Shakespeare is a memorization game.  I’m convinced that Google kills memory cells.  Most programmers I interview these days will say that they don’t need books anymore, they just google for the answer.  I think the better response is that they have the memory capacity to remember the answer in the first place!  No, of course not everything, but surely there are things you run into so frequently that you shouldn’t be running for your search engine every day.  Same goes for Shakespeare.  When I’m speaking to someone on the subject and trying to make a point, if I have to stop and go “Oh, hell, what’s that thing that Antony said in Julius Caesar about when people die?  Damnit, oh hang on a second let me google it….”  I’d look pretty weak and foolish.
  5. Shakespeare is Open Source.  Like the source material?  Take it.  Use it.  Put your own twist on it.  He did the same thing, after all.  What is Romeo and Juliet but a specific implementation of the “unrequited love” idea that already existed before Shakespeare got hold of it?

I’m tempted to do more, but I’ve got some code to write.

Romeo and Juliet : How old is Romeo?

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There’s a simple question. How old is Romeo? Sure, we all know that Juliet is 13, the Nurse comes right out and tells us. And often I think that we then make the leap and assume that Romeo is 13 as well.

But that’s hardly true, is it? Would that imply that Mercutio, Tybalt and Paris are also all about 13? Surely it was the case that men simply chose younger wives (Capulet is much older than his wife, is he not?), and actually we can assume that Romeo and the others are what, maybe late teens, early 20’s?

It wouldn’t stage well these days to point out that age difference, of course. I can just imagine R&J being closed down because it promotes pedophilia or something. But honestly I’m cool with it (the age difference, not the pedophilia!)  The more I read the play, the more I appreciate that Juliet is the most mature person in it. That she’s 13, surrounded by people generations older than her, is quite impressive. I don’t need to make her older to justify anything, and I don’t need to make Romeo younger to get it to balance out.

Romeo can be older and still be rash and impetuous. Juliet can be young and be the smart one. Better than trying to imagine 13yr old Tybalt saying, “I hate the word as I hate Hell….”

Update!

While looking at the trivia for Luhrman’s movie, I learned something interesting. Apparently Natalie Portman auditioned for the role of Juliet. But because of her small frame, in her words, “Leonardo looked like he was molesting me.”  The director said the same thing I said above, only backwards — “Leonardo was 21, but could look 18 – and she made him look 21.” In other words he looked too old, not that she looked too young.  So that certainly backs up the idea that you have to cast R&J of roughly equivalent ages to avoid squicking out your audience.