What Makes Something Funny?

[Skeptical Greg]

The recent controversy about the appropriateness of posting jokes in R & P, and when is a joke 'just a joke', got me to thinking about this...

Someone once pointed out, that it is very difficult, as adults, to find something that makes us laugh that does not in someway degrade or ridcule another person ... ( or oneself )...

While childhood seems to have a higher share of spontaneous laughter, the cruel things that make us laugh, get an early kick off with the misfortunes of bungling and mangled cartoon characters..


So, this is a challenge for you to present to us a situation, in which you have found yourself laughing, that could not be tied to the real or imagined misfortune of someone else...


As an example of how this concept can seem to hide it's true nature; someone might quickly point out:

" Clowns make me laugh .. What's cruel or demeaning about clowns ? "

But a little thought, will reveal what a challenge it is to give us an example of a clown, or their performance, that is not a caricature of a disfigured; or a physically or mentally handicapped person...

I know this cruelty or ridicule is not in our ( most of us ) hearts, or conscious thoughts, when we find ourselves laughing; but I thought I would bring up for discussion, the idea that what we usually find funny, is at the expense of someone else's real or imagined misfortune..

 

[Wrath of the Swarm]

Good question. No one has ever figured out the purpose of humor.

 

[Ossai]

Humor = Tragedy + Time *

Think of it as a coping mechanism.

You may have a small chuckle over an odd situation but laughter invariably involves tragedy.
As to your clown example, this is from memory, there are a variety of clown types.
The most basic is one that exemplifies a person or small group's deficiencies (deficiencies as viewed from the larger groups perspective) - a tramp clown or the like. Quiet a few clown acts deal with tragedies or tragic.
For a brief rundown of clowns start at the Clown Ministry.

Ossai

* I know this is a quote but I don't know from whom.
(edited for *)

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

I've heard many good jokes that don't involve tragedy or much in the way of degradation, either.

Maybe laughing just evolved as a way of saying "I like what you just did." Or perhaps it's a way of releasing the tension of the cognitive dissonance caused by the joke.

~~ Paul

 

[Skeptical Greg]

I've heard many good jokes that don't involve tragedy or much in the way of degradation, either.



~~ Paul

I hinted at a challenge to provide counter examples.. Care to share?

 

[Beleth]

So, this is a challenge for you to present to us a situation, in which you have found yourself laughing, that could not be tied to the real or imagined misfortune of someone else...

The best definition of humor that I've heard is "a safe shock."

A situation comes up that should have a disastrous or predictable outcome, but then doesn't. Squirting someone with seltzer or throwing a pie in their face isn't funny itself; the non-violent reaction of the person targeted is what makes it funny. If the target responded to the squirting by pulling out a gun and killing the squirter, well then there'd be nothing funny about the squirting.

Same with clowns. You see someone that looks grotesque or downtrodden like a clown does, but then you realize that that person really isn't like that, and it's funny. That's also why people like High-Pitched Eric and Beetlejuice on Howard Stern really aren't funny - because they really are that way.

What's funny is imagined misfortune. Why tragedies become funny over time is the realization that the misfortune, to you, is imagined. Helen Keller jokes are funny because you aren't Helen Keller.

This is also why explaining a joke ruins it - if it's not a safe shock to begin with, no amount of explaining will go back in time and make it shocking.

 

[Skeptical Greg]

Beleth, thanks for the insight..

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

One of the absolutely most funniest jokes of all time:

http://www.funnyjoke.net/joke/j3361j7.html

It's even better when told by my friend Charles.

~~ Paul

 

[Wrath of the Swarm]

Plays upon the expectation that men desire sex more than anything else.

Nah, it degrades men. That's why it's funny.

 

[roger]

A puppy or kitten playing with a ball.

 

[Wrath of the Swarm]

We're laughing at its clumsiness and lack of effective behavior.

Degrades the competence of little animals.

 

[roger]

nonsense.

Another one - a little kid jumping up and down clapping their hands at their excitement at a birthday party (or similar).

more - just about any pun (yes, I know a lot of people hate puns).

witty expressions, such as "If horses were vicious, rides would go begging" (Oscar Wilde)

The scene in Woody Allen's movie where one character (the woman), while talking to her therapist, answer's his question about the frequency of sex, replies "All the time. We're always doing it. In the bedroom. In the kitchen. We must do it 3, 4 times a week." Cut to woody in same situation: "Never. We never do it. My god. Probably no more than 3, 4 times a week". (quotes made up from memory by me)

 

[Wrath of the Swarm]

Children generally aren't funny, unless we're laughing at their lack of knowledge or sophistication.

Puns are highly unpleasant. They certainly don't help your case.

Again, making fun of the idea that men are sex-crazed fools who desire sexual stimulation constantly. Also plays off the idea that women hate sex.

See? All funny is pain.

 

[roger]

I suppose so, if you twist things that way.

I'll choose not too, thanks.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Wrath said:
Plays upon the expectation that men desire sex more than anything else.

Nah, it degrades men. That's why it's funny.

Huh? The guy is clever enough to get his house painted for $20. Mere expectation is not degradation.

Well, maybe it is. But he showed them!

~~ Paul

 

[Wrath of the Swarm]

Ah, but we're lead to expect the guy is going to get his tuba polished (if you'll excuse the crudity) for only $20.

The idea that there's something he'd want even more than that is what makes the joke funny.

All funny is pain; yours, or someone else's.

 

[Yahweh]

All funny is pain; yours, or someone else's.

I dont know, some of George Carlin's Short Takes are a gray area:

Test of metal:
* Will of iron
* Nerves of steel
* Heart of gold
* Balls of brass


Kilometers are shorter than miles. Save gas, take your next trip in kilometers


If you mail a letter to the post office, who delivers it?


"On the fritz" is a useful expression only if you're talking about a home appliance. You wouldn't say, "The Space Shuttle is on the fritz." You'd never hear it in a hospital. "Doctor, the heart-lung machine is on the fritz."


Some see the glass as half-empty, some see the glass as half-full. I see the glass as too big.

 

[Mercutio]

All funny is pain; yours, or someone else's.

Those who research humor (and there are a few--a former colleague of mine was one) make a distinction between disparagement humor, which is what most examples in this thread have been, and a humor based on the juxtaposition of unexpected elements (exemplified in Freud's Humor and its relation to the unconscious). A clever play on words need not be unkind to any individual or group in order to be funny.

That said, the vast majority of the actual experimental work on humor has examined disparagement humor, in part because it is much easier to look at. And despite Wrath's assertion that no one has figured out the purpose of humor (an odd requirement, unless he means the selective advantage to it, in which case there are a few theories, the dominant one being that it is a social signal of a dominance hierarchy), we do know a bit about gender differences, status differences, some of the "under what conditions is humor employed?" type of questions that science is better at.

Oh, I forgot...there is also a third line of research in humour, one that looks at the physiological correlates. Here, the measurements are most often EEG or other polygraph measures, although one researcher, Ron Shor, invented what he called the "mirthometer" which used strain guages to measure facial expression as his physiological measure (this, of course, ties humor research with that on general emotional expression, which is a pretty cool area itself). Some of the measures are pretty delicate, and are generated by projecting jokes on a screen while the subject is wired up and grounded...not a very "real life" situation, for such a real-life phenomenon. Oddly enough, the humor researcher Shor...committed suicide, shooting himself in his office (and we know that a bullet in the office is fatal) (note, all the elements of a joke, but not funny in the slightest--to me, anyway).

 

[Atlas]

When I was kid I loved elephant jokes and knock knock jokes.

Images of elephants jumping out of trees or in the fridge leaving footprints in the butter... and the plays on words of the knock knock were smilers if not always laughers.

So absurdity I guess is the term is not always at anyone's expense - But I did like Dr. Strangelove too and they pretty much blew up the world in that one.

 

[Wrath of the Swarm]

Oddly enough, the humor researcher Shor...committed suicide, shooting himself in his office (and we know that a bullet in the office is fatal) (note, all the elements of a joke, but not funny in the slightest--to me, anyway).

That is absolutely hilarious.

Your point about plays on words and puns is well taken, but keep in mind that many people find them mildly unpleasant, even painful. Sometimes the pain in the funny is your own.