"Why did the chicken cross the road?" is a common

riddle joke A riddle joke, joke riddle, pseudo-joke or conundrum is a riddle that does not expect the asked person to know the answer, but rather constitutes a set-up to the humorous punch line of the joke.Mac E. Barrick, "Racial Riddles & the Pollack Joke", ' ...

with the answer being, "To get to the other side." It is commonly seen as an example of

anti-humor Anti-humor is a type of indirect and alternative humor that involves the joke-teller's delivering something that is intentionally not funny, or lacking in intrinsic meaning. The practice relies on the expectation on the part of the audience of so ...

, in that the curious setup of the joke leads the listener to expect a traditional punchline, but they are instead given a simple statement of fact. The joke has become iconic as an exemplary generic joke to which most people know the answer, and has been repeated and changed numerous times over the course of history.

History

The riddle appeared in an 1847 edition of ''

The Knickerbocker ''The Knickerbocker'', or ''New-York Monthly Magazine'', was a literary magazine of New York City, founded by Charles Fenno Hoffman in 1833, and published until 1865. Its long-term editor and publisher was Lewis Gaylord Clark, whose "Editor's Ta ...

'', a New York City monthly magazine:

There are ' quips and
quillet Trivial objections (also referred to as hair-splitting, nothing but objections, barrage of objections and banal objections) is an informal logical fallacy where irrelevant and sometimes frivolous objections are made to divert the attention away fro ...
s' which ''seem'' actual conundrums, but yet are none. Of such is this: 'Why does a chicken cross the street? Are you 'out of town?' Do you 'give it up?' Well, then: 'Because it wants to get on the other side!'

According to music critic

Gary Giddins Gary Giddins is an American jazz critic and author. He wrote for ''The Village Voice'' from 1973; his "Weather Bird" column ended in 2003. In 1986 Gary Giddins and John Lewis created the American Jazz Orchestra which presented concerts using a j ...

in the

Ken Burns Kenneth Lauren Burns (born July 29, 1953) is an American filmmaker known for his documentary film, documentary films and television series, many of which chronicle United States, American History of the United States, history and Culture of the ...

documentary ''Jazz'', the joke was spread through the United States by

minstrel shows The minstrel show, also called minstrelsy, was an American form of racist theatrical entertainment developed in the early 19th century. Each show consisted of comic skits, variety acts, dancing, and music performances that depicted people spe ...

beginning in the 1840s as one of the first national jokes. In the 1890s, a

pun A pun, also known as paronomasia, is a form of word play that exploits multiple meanings of a term, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. These ambiguities can arise from the intentional use of homophoni ...

variant version appeared in the magazine ''Potter's American Monthly'':''Potter's American Monthly'' (1892), p. 319.

Why should not a chicken cross the road? It would be a
fowl Fowl are birds belonging to one of two biological orders, namely the gamefowl or landfowl (Galliformes) and the waterfowl (Anseriformes). Anatomical and molecular similarities suggest these two groups are close evolutionary relatives; together ...
proceeding.

Variations

There are many riddles that assume a familiarity with this well-known riddle and its answer. For example, an alternate punchline can be used for the riddle, such as "it was too far to walk around". One class of variations enlists a creature other than the chicken to cross the road, in order to refer back to the original riddle. For example, a duck (or turkey) crosses "because it was the chicken's day off," and a dinosaur crosses "because chickens didn't exist yet." Some variants are both puns and references to the original, such as "Why did the duck cross the road?" "To prove he's no

chicken The chicken (''Gallus gallus domesticus'') is a domesticated junglefowl species, with attributes of wild species such as the grey and the Ceylon junglefowl that are originally from Southeastern Asia. Rooster or cock is a term for an adult m ...

". Other variations replace side with another word often to form a pun. Some examples are:

"Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the idiot's house. ... Knock-knock." ("Who's there?") "The chicken." "Why did the chicken cross the playground? To get to the other slide." "Why did the
chewing gum Chewing gum is a soft, cohesive substance designed to be chewed without being swallowed. Modern chewing gum is composed of gum base, sweeteners, softeners/plasticizers, flavors, colors, and, typically, a hard or powdered polyol coating. Its te ...
cross the road? It was stuck to the chicken's foot." "Why did the whale cross the ocean? To get to the other tide." "Why did the dinosaur cross the road? Chickens didn't exist yet." A mathematical version asks, "Why did the chicken cross the
Möbius strip In mathematics, a Möbius strip, Möbius band, or Möbius loop is a surface that can be formed by attaching the ends of a strip of paper together with a half-twist. As a mathematical object, it was discovered by Johann Benedict Listing and Augu ...
? To get to the same side."

As with the

lightbulb joke A lightbulb joke is a joke cycle that asks how many people of a certain group are needed to change, replace, or screw in a light bulb. Generally, the punch line answer highlights a stereotype of the target group. There are numerous versions of th ...

, variants on these themes are widespread.

History

Variations

References

Further reading