Okay, okay, I know that this one’s old. Like really old. But did you know that the first time “Why did the chicken cross the road?” was printed in 1847? No? See, you’re still learning weird new stuff, and that’s what Unusual Wikipedia Monday is for.

And here’s something else I bet you didn’t know: In Quitman, Georgia there’s an ordinance against chickens crossing roads.
And again something else: There’s even whydidthechickencrosstheroad.com
And if you just don’t get it, here you can have an explanation. Although I know, explained jokes just aren’t that good anymore.

There are many different answers preceeding the obvious one. My favourites are:

Jacques Derrida: Any number of contending discourses may be discovered within the act of the chicken crossing the road, and each interpretation is equally valid as the authorial intent can never be discerned, because structuralism is DEAD, DAMMIT, DEAD!

Thomas de Torquemada: Give me ten minutes with the chicken and I’ll find out.

Timothy Leary: Because that’s the only kind of trip the Establishment would let it take.

Douglas Adams: Forty-two.

Nietzsche: Because if you gaze too long across the Road, the Road gazes also across you.

Salvador Dali: The Fish.

Ernest Hemingway: To die. In the rain.

Werner Heisenberg: We are not sure which side of the road the chicken was on, but it was moving very fast.

The Godfather: I didn’t want its mother to see it like that.

Here are many more.

One thing I still got to mention: Variations.
There are many versions like “Why did the chewing gum cross the road? Because it was stuck to the chicken’s foot.” But I think my favourite of all times is from Penn (from Penn & Teller):

Why did man invent God?
To get to the other side.

And with this piece of wisdom, I’ll leave you to find the rest out for yourself.