Shared pain is half the pain, thank you all for putting in the effort.

Not great, not terrible

Yeah but in practice it's only going to be middle-aged men with kids who would say such a thing.

Source: am middle-aged man with kids who says things.

Yes, but you go ahead and construct a description of that scene where the word "director" and "cut" do not show up twice. The chuckle the reader hopefully has comes from completing the reverse construction they have to do. We can enhance their success rate by starting that reverse construction from a known common base, such as a well known cultural reference.

Yes. I specifically engineered it to be easily digestable while eliciting at least 2 GPT (groans per teenager) if delivered over an average dinner table.

I was lazily scrolling through my Jellyfin library and thought "heh, Director's Cut. Everything that guy does in the kitchen is a Director's Cut." So, while that's certainly not a new thought, it was new to me.

Are you a director? That may be why. You’re not a writer. A writer probably calls it a writer’s strike.

You are very welcome. Cherish the eye-rolling.

I think dad-jokes are by their nature unfortunately limited to the group I have described. Every other kind of person makes them, they're just common bad jokes.

EDIT: ...also I just went upstairs, threw some logs into the stove and stared at the flames for a good five minutes. What is it, that makes some people on feddit take something, strip away everything obviously core about it until some side aspect remains which they then get furiously angry about? Rest assured, I did not get up this morning and spent my morning cuppa devilishly plotting on how to enforce the patriarchy one more day. I do however love the awkward dynamics behind dad-jokes and imagining one requires the one setting I know them in which is one overconfident dad (who is accomplished at his job but refuses to accept, that doesn't make him a master of everything), an arbitrary number of teenaged children and maybe a wife that loves the guy despite his attempts at humour. That's where that thing thrives. If in your head it's better to play the whole thing out with two deeply in love but very differently aged café owners who admire each other secretly across the street but dare not meet each other because, of course, dog person and cat person, you do that, however, I can't quite get it to work for myself with that.

[explaining a joke is like] dissecting a frog

Have you never watched TV and movies?! Only a man can carve a Thanksgiving turkey. Had they not specified middle aged men, I might have thought about a young woman cutting a turkey, and that would be such a ridiculous concept that I would have TOTALLY missed the directors cut punchline! No, no, the joke is FAR more effective when it reinforces a stereotype that pretty much only exists in fiction.

EDIT: Guess the sarcasm wasn't thick enough.

dad to the bone