Must-Have Guide To Being The King of Dad Jokes: Author Interview
Yes, the rumors were true… For the past 40 years, Anderson Design Group Founder and Creative Director Joel Anderson has been carefully storing away dad jokes, inventing some, spotting others in the wild, and building a collection of these corny one-liners, using them often on his unsuspecting children, wife, fellow artists, and friends.
Now, four decades worth of hilarious jokes are available to you in Joel’s D.I.Y. Guide to Being The King of Dad Jokes! Hot off the presses, just in time for Father’s Day, the book is now available, so place your order today!
This do-it-yourself guide to the best dad jokes is a must-have for every dad. It’s a handy resource for new material (although Joel stands by the belief that there is nothing wrong with annoying family members by repeating certain jokes often enough to get an eye-roll!)
This book is one of the largest collections of dad jokes ever printed, and, unlike other dad jokes, this one comes complete with full-page posters and illustrations designed to fit the theme for that section’s assortment of dad jokes.
Any father can hone his skills with this colorful reference book, becoming the King of Dad Jokes in his own domain. Packed with over 440 knee slappers, this 64-page, full-color goldmine of paternal punnery is guaranteed to become an instant family heirloom and a great conversation starter when left on the coffee table, foyer table, mantle, or kitchen counter. (It’s also great for some light bathroom reading).
The award-winning artists of Anderson Design Group, under the direction of author and studio founder Joel “Pops” Anderson, have created a humorous collection of snarky, retro-cool poster art to accompany the plethora of Pop Culture wisecracks (pun intended). The book is softcover and measures 9” x 12”.
Behind the Scenes of this Must-Have Dad Joke Book by Joel Anderson
Welcome to the exclusive interview with the “PUNisher”! We sat down with Joel to talk about his punneriffic new release:
ADG: What is the elevator pitch for the book? If you had to describe the book in just a minute or two, what would you say about it?
Joel: I’d say it’s my magnum opus. My whole life, I’ve been listening to and laughing at and collecting dad jokes. I’ve got over 400 of my favorites organized into topics. The whole point of a dad joke is to mess with your family. You hope to get an eye roll, a groan, a laugh. And you know a dad joke is a dud if you get no reaction at all. This King of Dad Jokes book is a little bit of everything. An encyclopedia. A reference guide. New material for new dads. You can plague your kids and your wife with dad jokes and a very dad-like sense of humor!
ADG: What gave you the idea to write a book about dad jokes?
Joel: After we did the Dad Jokes Calendars, we had a lot of dad jokes leftover. (More dad joke calendars to come next year!) So I started collecting and organizing the jokes into themes. They’re good bathroom reading. But you can’t easily take the calendar into the bathroom with you, and a book like this you can pick up and put down easily, and it’s just a great joke book to have around. It’s not heavy or serious; it’s light. The more I thought about it, the more I realized we needed to make a book centered around all these jokes! After all, men grow up, but we don’t fully mature. There’s always a little boy inside who likes to pull silly pranks, even as adults. The book helps with that.
ADG: What would you say the theme is? Do the jokes correlate to the art?
Joel: The artwork comes from the different collections we’ve had over the years. A lot of our art already has humorous angles. Very tongue-in-cheek. So it was a natural fit to write a book, and it features some of our favorite posters. The theme of the art then kinda helps go with the jokes. We made some modifications to posters we’d already created to fit with the book. But there are definitely themes to the different sections of the book.
ADG: What would you say the ADG theme is?
Joel: We like to make art that makes people smile. We like for them to smile because of something gorgeous they saw in our art, or smile because of something funny they saw in it. We want the art to evoke a good emotion. To have it draw happiness, fondness, nostalgia, awe, and wonder. We want to pull a good emotion out of somebody. I’d say that if we’re making people smile, then we are doing our job as artists.
ADG: Does the book have an intro section?
Joel: It sure does. I wrote a short letter to the reader, with a bit of humor: a few examples of what makes a dad joke work and a few of my favorites. I also wrote a special thanks section that thanks my wife and children, especially my firstborn son, Nathan, for putting up with my jokes for so long (we’re talking like 3+ decades).
ADG: Where did you get the idea for so many dad jokes?
Joel: I had a couple of little stashes of dad jokes I’ve collected over the years. Some are ones I’ve heard, others I’ve found online, others I’ve read in books, and others I’ve made up over the years. For example, I like to make light of more serious issues, like my Parkinson’s Disease. So when people ask me, “Hey Joel, what’s shaking?” I say, “My whole left side.” It’s usually good for a few laughs.
ADG: Do you have a favorite dad joke?
Joel: I have a few. There’s a vetting process for a dad joke. It has to elicit an emotion. It can elicit a laugh, a wince, a snicker, a groan, an eye roll, etc. So you build the joke with the idea of getting one or more of those results. A few of my favorites are:
“How do you make a Kleenex dance? Put a little boogie in it.”
I also have one I like a lot in the intro to my book. It’s a caption to a poster, the poster is of a seagull, and the caption reads: “Wassup Gull Friend?”
Another one of my favorites is, “Why did the chicken fall into the well? Because he couldn’t see that well.”
The best dad joke payoff is when you can pull one off at the right moment. Just this morning, someone mentioned Rice Krispies. So I made a joke about Snap, Crackle, and Pop being found dead outside the Kellogg's factory, and how, apparently, there was a “cereal” killer on the loose.
I also like the ones you have to think about, like, “‘I see,’ said the blind carpenter as he stepped over his hammer and saw.”
I repeat these and hundreds of other jokes regularly, which is why my whole family calls me “The PUNisher.”
ADG: Have you always been a real jokester? How many kids do you have?
Joel: My four kids have had front-row seats to my jokes for decades (and now my grandkids are getting front-row seats, too), but for me, this joking habit started much earlier, back in Middle School. I think it started from me feeling nervous in class about not having the right answer to the teacher’s question. So I’d make a joke, and the whole classroom would laugh. It added some levity and covered up the fact that I didn’t always know what was going on in the classroom.
ADG: How long have you been working on or thinking about a book like this?
Joel: About three months. Artists really cannot be idle. We finished an upcoming release that we’re extremely excited about, a coffee table book about all of the lesser-known, less-traveled national park sites. We worked on that book for over a year, and once we finished, I felt a little let-down, which is common after an artist completes a major work. So, I turned to my joke collection, and inspiration struck. Now! Now was the time to create my magnum opus!!
ADG: Who do you think will enjoy or benefit most from this book?
Joel: Anyone can enjoy it, but it’s really for dads or dads-to-be. Dads are difficult to buy for, especially dads of adult kids. At that stage of life, they already have everything they need. This book is something they don’t need, but they’ll be glad once they have it. It’s a really swanky gift to receive from a spouse or from adult kids, especially as a present on Father’s Day or on his birthday.
ADG: What’s next for you, as an author, artist, and founder/creative director at ADG?
Joel: The next thing is making a National Parks Junior Adventure Guide Book. We have our best-selling adventure guide; now we want to make a book with more activities, make it intentionally more juvenile and for kids between the ages of seven and ten or twelve or so.
ADG: Any final thoughts?
Joel: I guess I’d close by saying, from a dad’s perspective, their children and spouse might not know it, but every time a dad tells a corny joke, he’s really saying, “I love you.”
ADG: Joel, there’s a ninja somewhere nearby, cutting onions.
Joel: See, now you’re getting it!
About the Author: Long-Time Jokester and Bonafide Funny Dad Joel Anderson
After graduating from Ringling School of Art & Design in 1986, Joel moved to Music City and worked at Carden & Cherry Advertising for 7 years, winning an Emmy Award for his work on a CBS kids’ show. He co-founded Anderson Thomas Design in 1993 and has produced countless award-winning creative projects. In 2007, Joel retooled the firm to specialize in branding, packaging, and poster art.
The Nashville Advertising Foundation named him Art Director of the Year in 2010. Joel launched Anderson Design Group’s critically-acclaimed National Park Poster Series in 2016. A best-selling coffee table book followed the classic poster art, creating a demand for an entire line of coloring books, Adventure Guide Books, stickers, and other National Parks gifts and keepsakes. To date, Joel has published 16 books and over 3,000 posters.
When Joel is not serving a client, studying classic poster design, or producing new pastel art, he enjoys gardening, wood-working, creative folk art, and spending time with his family. As a fan of Indian food, Star Wars, The Simpsons, all things Southern, Tom Petty, French cuisine, classical music, and peanut butter, you could say that Joel has a diverse palette.
How Do You Take Your Dad Jokes? A Delectable Pairing for this Anderson Design Group Dad Joke Coffee Table Book
The book pulls artwork from numerous ADG collections, including Man Cave, Beer and Wine, Kiddy Corner, Literary Classics, ADG’s travel and sports art collections, the national park collections, camping art from the Lake and Lodge collection, and others. If you like the art in the book, you can order it as prints, canvases, metal signs, notecards, or postcards.
ADG also creates fun games that dads can play with the whole family (puzzles, national parks board games, and memory games), as well as solo activities like coloring books and sticker sets. All of these and more are available on our Products page.
How Many Goofy Boxes Does This Book Check?
ADG’s newest contribution to the world’s collection of colorful coffee table books comes with a little extra pizzazz this time. This best dad joke book also qualifies under the “fancy father day gifts” category.
The dad joke book meets the moment in categories like: best Father’s Day gifts, gifts for dads who have everything, gifts for nerdy dads, coffee table books for dads, and first Father’s Day gifts.
Gifts for dads and books for dads can be challenging to get right, but this artfully designed and cleverly worded funny book gift knocks it out of the park as a unique present for the special dad in your life.
It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s a Funny Book! Check The “Best Father’s Day Gifts” Box Off Your To-Do List and Order this Best Dad Joke Book Today!
What do you get when searching for gifts for dads who have everything? Most people come up blank. But this book is sure to be a slam dunk and the best Father’s Day gift in the history of forever. So Happy Joke-Telling! We hope this book helps your dad get all the laughs, groans, tears, and eye-rolls he absolutely deserves.
-Ren Brabenec
Anderson Design Group Staff Writer