*Why did the punk cross the road?

Because he was stapled to the chicken.*

Perhaps you recognise it as also being the joke told to Motley by dungeoneer Martin of Series 3 Team 11. Although many of us would have been introduced to the joke via Knightmare in December 1989, Martin's telling of it would have been filmed in Summer 1989, predating the joke book.

Interestingly, this book was co-written by a certain Dave Morris.

The Fighting Fantasy gamebook Dead of Night, published in 1989, has a cover that reminds me of the Knightmare Series 1-5 intro.

Fighting Fantasy 40.jpg

Dead of Night was the 40th in the series. Perhaps the cover would have been better suited to Fighting Fantasy #25: Beneath Nightmare Castle.

*Enter, stranger, but take heed

Of what awaits the sin of greed,

For those who take, but do not earn,

Must pay most dearly in their turn.

So if you seek beneath our floors

A treasure that was never yours,

Thief, you have been warned, beware

Of finding more than treasure there.*

Did anyone else just read this with Treguard's "dungeon ditty" voice in their head?

*Enter, stranger, but take heed

Of what awaits the sin of greed,

For those who take, but do not earn,

Must pay most dearly in their turn.

So if you seek beneath our floors

A treasure that was never yours,

Thief, you have been warned, beware

Of finding more than treasure there.*

Six books later, Harry and his friends discover what else there is beneath the floors of Gringotts: a dragon, on whose back they end up flying - including over landscapes such as mountains and lakes.