U.S. - Wives, sons, and daughters all across the nation braced themselves for the one day a year they have to chuckle respectfully at all of dad's jokes.

Experts believe this year could be one of the corniest yet, with jokes ranging from puns to full-blown narratives that go on and on only to end in a pun anyway.

"We will see a huge spike if this is not contained," said one expert, Dr. Joe King. "We recommend all families go into immediate lockdown and quarantine dad from as many people as possible."

Fathers say they have been saving their "very best" jokes for this day.

"Hey, dad, did you get a haircut?" asked teenager Charlie Spencer to his dad this morning.

"No, son, I got 'em all cut!" he replied with a grin. "Get it? Get it? Get it?"

"Oh, father, yes! You made a play on words between the identical sounds of 'a hair cut' and 'a haircut,' pretending that you understood me to ask if you got a single hair cut. The humor derives from the fact that you ignored the obvious and linguistically accepted meaning of the phrase and feigned to misunderstand it to have a much narrower and less likely meaning."

"Good show, father."

The nation's fathers announced they would not let up tomorrow or the day after or ever.