--- title: Carpool Karaoke: John Cena and Shaq Trade Dad Jokes description: The basketball star and famous wrestler buddy up for a new episode of Carpool Karaoke, trading dad jokes and facing off in free throws. canonical: https://time.com/4928155/john-cena-shaq-carpool-karaoke/ author: Raisa Bruner article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-09-05T20:58:02.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:47:01.446Z og:title: John Cena and Shaq Trade Dad Jokes in a New Carpool Karaoke og:description: An unlikely buddy duo hits the road og:url: https://time.com/4928155/john-cena-shaq-carpool-karaoke/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: John Cena and Shaq Trade Dad Jokes in a New Carpool Karaoke twitter:description: An unlikely buddy duo hits the road twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # John Cena and Shaq Trade Dad Jokes in a New Carpool Karaoke > Sponsored content. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=8f635b56-8144-4ab6-82fe-e6d6446c80f6&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1)  by [Raisa Bruner](https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/)  ## Raisa Bruner Sep 5, 2017 8:58 PM UTC  by [Raisa Bruner](https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/)  ## Raisa Bruner Sep 5, 2017 8:58 PM UTC Black Hercules. The Big Aristotle. Extra Tall-ems. Empire Strikes Shaq. Those are just a few of the nicknames that WWE wrestler and actor [John Cena](http://time.com/4392727/john-cena-patriotism-ad-we-are-america/) bestows upon his carpool pal and basketball legend [Shaquille O’Neal](http://time.com/4724217/jimmy-fallon-lip-sync-battle-shaq/) within the first thirty seconds of an advance clip of [_Carpool Karaoke: The Series._](http://time.com/4920599/miley-cyrus-carpool-karaoke/) The new episode starring the two famous athletes might not be heavy on music: Cena readily admits that he isn’t much of a singer. (Shaq tells him he’s no “Cena Turner.”) But it does feature plenty of back-and-forth between the two guys, who readily trade dad jokes and punny nicknames. “The general perception was that you weren’t really that good at the free throw line,” Cena muses at one point. “Fifty percent. That’s make one, miss one. My motto is, I hit ’em when I need to hit ’em,” Shaq shrugs. But Cena wants to put Shaq’s free throw prowess to the test. “Of course. You’re John Cena, I’ll do whatever you like,” Shaq graciously acquiesces. With one caveat: “Loser has to do something humiliating.” Unfortunately, we’ll have to wait to find out what, exactly, that loser ends up doing. The full episode airs Tuesday night on Apple Music, along with a second episode featuring _Good Morning America_ host [Michael Strahan](http://time.com/4502735/michael-strahan-kelly-ripa-bad-guy/) and NASCAR racer Jeff Gordon. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4928155/john-cena-shaq-carpool-karaoke/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4928155/john-cena-shaq-carpool-karaoke/"},"headline":"John Cena and Shaq Trade Dad Jokes in a New Carpool Karaoke","datePublished":"2017-09-05T20:58:02.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:47:01.446Z","description":"The basketball star and famous wrestler buddy up for a new episode of Carpool Karaoke, trading dad jokes and facing off in free throws.","url":"https://time.com/4928155/john-cena-shaq-carpool-karaoke/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Television","viral","carpool karaoke"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Raisa Bruner","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4928155/john-cena-shaq-carpool-karaoke/","name":"John Cena and Shaq Trade Dad Jokes in a New Carpool Karaoke"}}]}] ```