by David Mckellar

Created on: April 17, 2008

"Why did the chicken cross the road?" is one of the oldest and most famous riddles still in use in the English language. The most common answer to this riddle is "To get to the other side." Where did this chicken joke originate from?

"I don't know where did the chicken joke originate from?"

Well according to Wikipedia, this joke was first seen in print in 1847 in the New York monthly magazine "The Knickerbocker. But I am sure the chicken joke was around long before 1847. I would like to put forward a theory. As we all know the chicken

joke is as old as the hills and the hills date back to prehistoric times.

Now you have to remember in those days there was no common language only grunts which meant "How are you?" "I'm fine, how are you?" "Can't complain." "Say, you look very well with the hair on your chest bobbed." "Glad to hear you say that. My wife thinks I look like a dinosaur.""Talking of wives did you hear the one about the wife who caught her husband in the arms of another woman during the Ice Age. After heating them back to consciousness, she said to her husband "Who was that lady I thawed you with last night?"

The earliest men and women, after hard days work hunting for dinosaurs and brontosaurus' used to meet behind a large stone, which undoubtedly explains why their era was known as the Stone Age. Like we do today, they must have sat there with a glass of local home made brew and swapped jokes. I imagine they told such classics as:

"What goes UG UG UG HA HA HA?"
"A caveman laughing at his own joke."

"How many cavemen did it take to light a fire?"
"None, because fire hadn't been invented yet."

"What's a Homo Sapien urn?"
Answer: "About three pieces of rock a week."

"How do you make Neanderthal man cross?"
"Tell him that a Homo Sapien earns two more pieces of rock a week than he does."

They must have also told brontosaurus jokes:

"My brontosaurus has no nose."
"How does he smell?"
"Bloody horrible!"

And they must have told pterodactyl jokes.

Neanderthal man walks into a cave with a pterodactyl on his shoulder.
Neanderthal woman said "Where did you find that?"
And the pterodactyl replied "I won him in a raffle."

And of course they must have told dinosaur jokes.
"What has two heads, eight feet, and a tail?"
"Caveman riding a dinosaur."

"What has four legs and can't walk?"
"A dead dinosaur."

"What do dinosaurs have that no on her prehistoric animal has?"
"Baby dinosaurs."

But how did the chicken crossing the road evolve? Well I think this caveman (Homo Cavus) was sitting behind this large stone outside his cave thinking up jokes when a huge dinosaur roared passed him and shot across the path and disappeared. Homo Cavus' woman (Homo Slavus) came running out of the cave where she had been slaving over a cold stove (fire hadn't been invented yet) and said to her man: "I never seen that before why did the dinosaur cross our path?" Homo Cavus replied quick as a flash "To get to the other side." Well, they both collapsed with laughter. This is when I think the chicken joke was born.

Sixty five million years ago the dinosaur became extinct and the joke did not re-appear until 7000BC (BC stands for before chicken jokes) when chickens were found in India and China and the joke became "Why did the chicken cross he road?" Answer "To get to the other side."

Well that's my theory. And to answer the question is the joke funny today.
I told the joke to a four year old boy and he laughed. So, if someone finds it funny, it's funny and that is the same with any joke. Remember what Homo Sapien said when he first the chicken joke; "UG UG UG" roughly translated means "That's a cracker."

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