Funny Jokes and Riddles
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Half riddle, half joke, all groan. These funny jokes and riddles are built for laughs first and brains second. Tap any answer for a one-line note on the pun behind it, then steal a few for your next family dinner.
Funny riddles land on the word you hear, not the word you read
Almost every card on this page is a pun, and a pun is a riddle that cheats with your ears. The bicycle is two tired, the oyster is shellfish, the mummy listens to wrap music: on paper those answers look misspelled, and out loud they are perfect. So when a setup lands, do not go looking for a fact about elephants or drums. Say the key noun in the question to yourself and listen for a second word hiding in the same sound.
The working habit is to answer with your mouth, not your eyes. Read the question aloud, then try the obvious reply aloud too, and notice where the syllables could be split or swapped. Vest plus gator gives you the investigator, and a janitor in a closet turns the shout everyone expects into a near rhyme about mops. When no sound trick appears, look for a word with two jobs instead, like the contacts a phone loses and an eye doctor replaces.
A few cards are anti-jokes: the boomerang that never comes back is just a stick, and the brown sticky thing is a stick as well. Those punish the solver who is hunting for a pun, which is the opposite of the tricky riddles, where the trap is an assumption rather than a sound. When a card here refuses to be funny, the flattest answer in the room is the right one.
- Riddle 6: most people say A blurry screen. A cracked or blurry screen is the sensible reason a phone needs help, so that guess comes out first. But nobody takes a screen to an eye doctor, they take it to a repair counter. An eye doctor fits lenses called contacts, and a phone stores contacts of its own.
- Riddle 16: most people say A herd of elephants. Elephants own the most famous ears in the animal world, so the guess arrives fast. Then reread cannot hear: elephant ears work, and hundreds of them in one place would be a stampede. Corn keeps its ears on a stalk and hears nothing at all.
- Riddle 33: most people say An orange. Orange is sitting right there in the question, so half the room answers with the fruit. The other half of the question is the test, though: sounds like a parrot. An orange shares no sound with parrot, while one letter turns parrot into the vegetable.
- Riddle 40: most people say A skeleton key. Skeleton keys are the storybook answer for a key that opens anything, so the ear grabs it first. Banana is the word that ends it: a banana has no lock, no keyhole and nothing to turn. The key the question wants is hiding in an animal's name.
Say the question out loud and listen for a second word hiding in the same sound before you answer.
Funny riddles for kids
Clean, silly, and easy to retell at school. The magician named Ian is a guaranteed groan.
Punny jokes and riddles with answers
Cucumbers in a pickle, coaches chasing quarterbacks. If you love a bad pun, you are home.
Jokes for family dinner and road trips
Short setups, fast punchlines. Fire off five in a row and see who breaks first.
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1. What do you call a magician who lost his magic?
Show answer
Ian.
Take magic away from magician and the leftover sound is just Ian.
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2. Why do elephants never use computers?
Show answer
They are afraid of the mouse.
A computer mouse shares its name with the animal elephants supposedly fear.
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3. What do you call a bee that cannot make up its mind?
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A maybe.
Maybe means uncertain, and it also sounds like may-bee, an undecided bee.
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4. Why can't a bicycle stand up on its own?
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Because it is two tired.
Two tired sounds like too tired, so the bike keeps drooping over.
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5. What do you call a lazy kangaroo?
Show answer
A pouch potato.
Pouch potato swaps couch for pouch, the pocket a kangaroo carries.
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6. Why did the smartphone visit the eye doctor?
Most people first say: A blurry screen
Show answer
It lost all its contacts.
Phone contacts are saved names, and contacts are also the lenses eyes need.
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7. Why did the drum go to bed early?
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It was beat.
Beat means both worn out and the sound a drum makes.
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8. What do you call two birds glued together?
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Velcrows.
Velcrows blends Velcro, the sticky fastener, with crows, the birds.
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9. What do you call a can opener that does not work?
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A can't opener.
A broken opener cannot open, so can't opener puns on can opener.
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10. Why do books never get cold?
Show answer
They have jackets.
Book jackets are paper covers, but jackets also keep people warm.
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11. What do you call a snake that builds houses?
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A boa constructor.
Boa constructor puns on boa constrictor, swapping the snake for a builder.
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12. Why did the calendar look so popular?
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It had a lot of dates.
Calendar dates are days, and dates are also romantic outings.
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13. Why do oysters never share their pearls?
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Because they are shellfish.
Shellfish sounds like selfish, and oysters happen to be actual shellfish.
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14. Why don't eggs tell each other jokes?
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They would crack up.
Crack up means laugh hard, but eggs would literally crack open.
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15. What did one raindrop say to the other raindrop?
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Two is company, three is a cloud.
A crowd is a cloud, punning the three's a crowd saying with rain.
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16. What has hundreds of ears but cannot hear a thing?
Most people first say: A herd of elephants
Show answer
A cornfield.
Corn grows in ears, but those ears cannot actually hear.
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17. Why was the basketball court always wet?
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The players kept dribbling.
Dribbling means bouncing the ball and also drooling or dripping water.
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18. What do you call a sheep that loves to dance?
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A baa-llerina.
Baa-llerina adds a sheep's baa sound to the word ballerina.
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19. Why did the tomato turn red?
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It saw the salad dressing.
Two meanings ride on one word here: dressing as the sauce poured over a salad, and dressing as putting clothes on. The tomato blushes at the second.
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20. What kind of music do mummies listen to?
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Wrap music.
Wrap music sounds like rap music, and mummies are wrapped in bandages.
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21. What do you call a cow caught in an earthquake?
Show answer
A milkshake.
An earthquake shakes whatever stands on it, and shake is also the name of a blended dairy drink; the cow supplies the milk half of that name.
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22. Why are ghosts such terrible liars?
Show answer
Because you can see right through them.
Spotting a fib is what seeing through someone usually means; the joke drops that idiom onto a creature that is transparent for real, so the phrase works twice at once.
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23. What did the lemon say when it answered the phone?
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Yellow?
Yellow sounds like hello, and lemons happen to be yellow.
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24. What do you call a bagel that can fly?
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A plain bagel.
A plain bagel is flavorless, but plain also sounds like plane, which flies.
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25. Why did the cucumber call for help?
Show answer
It was in a pickle.
In a pickle means in trouble, and cucumbers become pickles.
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26. How does the moon cut his hair?
Show answer
Eclipse it.
Eclipse it sounds like he'll clip it, clipping the moon's hair.
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27. What do you call a dinosaur with a huge vocabulary?
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A thesaurus.
A thesaurus lists many words, and its ending sounds like a dinosaur.
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28. Why can you never trust atoms?
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They make up everything.
Atoms make up matter, but make up also means to invent lies.
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29. What do you call an alligator wearing a vest?
Show answer
An investigator.
Say the costume out loud, in, vest, and gator, and the three pieces run together into a job title; the pun lives in the mouth, not on the page.
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30. What do you call a cow with only two legs?
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Lean beef.
Lean beef means low fat, and a two legged cow leans over.
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31. Why did the cookie go to the hospital?
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It was feeling crummy.
Two spellings, one sound: crumby with a b means covered in crumbs, while crummy with two m's means feeling unwell. A cookie can honestly claim both.
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32. What is brown and sticky?
Most people first say: Melted chocolate
Show answer
A stick.
The joke hangs on the dullest reading of sticky: not gluey at all, but made of a stick, the way wooden means made of wood. The plainest object in the yard answers it.
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33. What is orange and sounds like a parrot?
Most people first say: An orange
Show answer
A carrot.
Only one sound separates the bird from the snack, and the riddle tells you to listen for it: change the first letter of parrot and a garden vegetable shows up in its place.
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34. Why do ducks make great detectives?
Show answer
They always quack the case.
Quack the case sounds like crack the case, using a duck's quack.
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35. What do you call a boomerang that never comes back?
Show answer
Just a stick.
The question sets you hunting for a clever name, and that hunt is the assumption the joke never made: a boomerang that fails at the one thing that defines it has no special name at all.
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36. Why was six afraid of seven?
Show answer
Because seven eight nine.
Counting past seven aloud is what trips you: the number eight and the past tense of eat are the same noise, so a harmless sequence turns into a story about one digit swallowing another.
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37. What do you call a belt made out of watches?
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A waist of time.
A waist of time sounds like a waste of time, worn at the waist.
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38. What did the triangle say to the circle?
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You are pointless.
Pointless means dull and also having no points, unlike a triangle.
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39. What did the janitor shout when he jumped out of the closet?
Show answer
Supplies!
Jumping out of a closet primes your ear for one shout, and the joke swaps in a near rhyme for it: the word for mops and buckets, which is what a janitor's closet actually holds.
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40. What kind of key can open a banana?
Most people first say: A skeleton key
Show answer
A monkey.
Hidden inside the animal's name is the word key, sitting there as its last syllable: mon plus key. The question asks for a kind of key, and a peeling fruit needs no metal at all.
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41. How do you catch a squirrel?
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Climb a tree and act like a nut.
Squirrels gather nuts, and act like a nut also means act silly.
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42. What did one plate whisper to the other plate?
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Dinner is on me.
Dinner is on me means I will pay and also food sits on a plate.
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43. What is a computer's favorite snack?
Show answer
Microchips.
Microchips are computer parts and also sound like tiny potato chips.
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44. Why did the picture go to jail?
Show answer
It was framed.
Framed means put in a picture frame and also falsely blamed.
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45. What do you call a dog that can do magic tricks?
Show answer
A labracadabrador.
Labracadabrador blends Labrador the dog with abracadabra the magic word.
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46. Why did the belt get arrested?
Show answer
It held up a pair of pants.
Held up means robbed and also holding pants up as a belt does.
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47. What kind of button can you never unbutton?
Most people first say: A push button
Show answer
A belly button.
Unbutton belongs to clothing, which is the misdirection: the button on your stomach only borrows the word for its shape. It is a small dent, with no buttonhole and no thread behind it.
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48. Why did the football coach go to the bank?
Show answer
To get his quarterback.
A quarterback is a football player and also getting a quarter back in change.
Your score
FAQ about Funny Jokes and Riddles
What is the difference between a joke and a riddle?
A riddle expects you to work out the answer from the clues; a joke only expects you to wait for the punchline. Most cards here sit in between: you get a beat to guess, but the answer is a pun you could not have deduced, only heard.
What is a pun?
A pun is wordplay that swaps one word for another that sounds the same or nearly the same. On the sound-alike cards here the note under the answer names both words, such as the shellfish that turns into selfish once you say it aloud.
What makes a riddle funny instead of hard?
A hard riddle hides its answer behind a second meaning you have to find. A funny one hands you the second meaning in the punchline and lets the groan do the work. The best of them make you hear the pun half a second before the reveal.
Once the groans wear off, the Halloween riddles for kids run the same sound-alike trick on witches, ghosts and mummies, and the word brain teasers take the letter games behind the magician named Ian and make you do the work yourself.