12 Truly Terrifying ‘Dad Jokes’ From Maine’s Stephen King

Father’s Day. The time we freely celebrate the phenomenon that is “the dad joke.”

Ah, dad jokes. Do we mean to sound corny? Are we just doing it to embarrass our kids? Is it some combination of the two?

I didn’t need to become a dad to know a thing or two about bad jokes. I started doing standup in New England 20 years ago, experiencing my worst heckle ever at my first paid gig.

For years, I read through hundreds of jokes a day as the Head Monologue Writer at The Tonight Show and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. Usually, a bad joke just doesn’t land. But a truly horrific joke stays with you forever.

Enter the King of Horror himself – Maine’s Stephen King. Despite being famous for crafting dark tales designed to give us nightmares, the author has never been shy about showing off his unsurprisingly warped sense of humor.

He once told Boston native Conan O’Brien a hilarious story about sitting next to Ronald McDonald on an airplane, acknowledging the irony given his own association with a horrific clown.

He joked about the Red Sox making a ridiculous comeback during a Playoff series – words that proved eerie and prophetic just 24 hours later.

He even played a joke on his own fans, writing under a pseudonym to see if his books would still sell (not only did they sell – one became a hit movie).

But King’s scariest humor can be found in one of the world’s most frightening places: Twitter.