Friday, March 24, 2006

Longer article #1.

Why we laugh at the things that make us laugh )

by

Robert Leslie Fielding

This appeared in
'UoB News and Views'
A University of Bahrain Publication
Issue No.58
March-April 2003

Everybody likes a good joke. We like to be made to laugh, it seems, and we like to make others laugh. Since doctors inform us that laughter is good for us, it is fortuitous that we feel this way. However, just why we laugh, and what makes us laugh is difficult to say.
We laugh at visual jokes, which we call 'custard-pie' or 'slapstick humour', and we laugh at jokes that involve language. Hal Roach, the well known director of silent films was a master of what is termed the 'slow-burn', which is the equivalent in humour of suspense in more dramatic genres. With this form of gag, all the conditions for the outcome/punchline are steadily built up for the audience, with the final denouement happening at the most opportune moment, for audience and protagonist and, most important, the maximum amount of mirth.
'Slapstick', visual stuff, usually involves variations on the man slipping on a banana skin, and as long as nobody gets seriously hurt, we find it funny. Laurel and Hardy, Charlie Chaplain and Buster Keaton were all masters of this form of silent humour. What is interesting about it is that it doesn't seem to wear thin with age. People still find Chaplain, and Laurel and Hardy absolutely hilarious, and that despite the fact that their films are often 'silents', and in black and white, and about things that have changed.
Humour based on language however, does seem to date, and we outgrow certain forms of it. For example, the type of joke appearing in a children's comic might not seem very funny to an adult reader. Here are two examples of this type of joke.

1st man: What do you have for your lunch ?
2nd man: I have a pie. If I'm hungry, I cut it into four pieces and I eat all four pieces.
1st man: What do you do if you're not so hungry ?
2nd man: If I'm not very hungry, I only cut it into two pieces.

And:

Good books: The Haunted House by Hugo First
Falling off a cliff by Eileen Dover

Similarly, puns that were once popular often lose their appeal in later life.

1st person: How did you get that black eye ?
2nd person: I walked into a bar."
1st person: "Did you get into a fight or something ?
1st person: No.
2nd person: Then how did you get your black eye ?
1st person: I told you, I walked into a bar.
2nd person: I still don't understand !
1st person: It was an iron bar.
That might not suit everyone's taste as a funny joke, but then that only serves to make my point; some things are just not funny any more. Here you might argue that the reason why they aren't funny is because they are such old jokes, or are what we call 'corny jokes', which seem to fall under the category of jokes that are unsophisticated, and therefore just not funny.
Jokes at other people's expense have come into vogue, or perhaps they never went out of fashion. Try the following.

"I went into a Turkish baths, took off all my clothes and sat on a chair and went to sleep. When the steam cleared a little, I woke up and discovered I was sitting in a busy Fish and Chip shop."

Some jokes are connected with some of the issues of the day.

Woman: When human organs come to be freely available for sale, I think a woman's brain will cost less than a man's brain.
Man: Why do you think that ?
Woman: Because the woman's brain will actually have been used.

Some are at the expense of certain minorities.

A man from Poloonia goes into a shop and asks for a packet of cigarettes. The person behind the counter says: "You are from Poloonia, aren't you ?" The customer says, "How can you tell, is it because I've got a different accent ?" The shop assistant says, "No, I can tell because this is a chemist's."

And:-

On the day buses in Manchester changed and had drivers who collected the fares from passengers, instead of conductors, a bus crashed into the front of a large store in the city centre. The Police came along immediately, and asked the driver how the crash had occurred. The driver replied that he wasn't sure because he had been on the top deck collecting fares at the time of the accident.

While some seem not to target anyone in particular, and have some charm.

The teacher of Class 2A asked her pupils to write a short essay describing their family pet. Robert and Gillian Fielding, twins in Class 2A submitted their descriptions the following day. The teacher said to Robert, "Your essay is exactly the same as your sisters. The words you used are identical to those your sister Gillian used. Can you tell me why ?"
"That's simple," Robert replied, "same cat."

Some are just plainly ridiculous and perhaps touch our funny bone because of that quality.

"A bandit bursts into a Chinese chip shop and demands the money. The Chinese woman looks at him calmly and asks, "To take away ?"

And we laugh despite the ridiculous nature of the proposition in the joke.

The three men lying in the morgue looked very different. One man had a look of pure agony on his face.
"What happened to him ?" asked one of the attendants.
"He was hit by the 2.15pm to London."
The next man also looked as if had died in some pain.
"How did he die ?" asked the attendant.
"He was involved in a car crash," was the reply.
The third man had a nice smile on his face.
"What about him," asked the attendant. "How did he die ?"
"Oh, him," said the other attendant, "he got struck by lightning." The other attendant looked puzzled. "Why is he smiling then ?"
"He thought he was having his photograph taken," replied the other.

Or:

A man went into the doctor's surgery walking with a limp.
"What seems to be the trouble ?" the Doctor asked. The man lifted his hat and showed the doctor a huge lump on his head.
"A bucket full of concrete fell thirty feet and hit me on the head," he said, in some pain.
"What about your foot ?" the Doctor asked.
"I was standing on a nail at the time, Doctor," the patient replied.

The question still remains the same: Why do people laugh at certain verbal conundrums ? And why do we find such jokes in certain formats funny ? Consider the following formulaic jokes.

How many surrealists does it take to change a light-bulb?
Answer: A fish.

How many psychologists does it take to change a light-bulb ?
Answer: Just one, but the light-bulb has really got to want to change.

Knock, knock.
Who's there ?
Felix.
Felix who ?
Felix my ice cream again, I'll get really angry.

Late arrivals: Mr. and Mrs. Butter and their son, Roland.

What do you call a woman who has just dropped her bus-fare ?
Answer: Ingrid.

Here is a news broadcast; A ship carrying red paint has collided with a ship carrying blue paint in the Gulf. Both crews have been marooned.

Did you hear about the man who thought Sheffield Wednesday was a Bank holiday?

Did you hear about the man who thought that Sherlock Holmes was the name of an estate agent's ?
These last two rely on the listener having some specific cultural background, while the one about the ships depends on one word having two meanings.
They strike us as amusing because they force us to change our frame of reference, or force us to think laterally in order to see the funny side. The fact that they are in many ways silly and yet still make us laugh, probably indicates that they appeal to a side of our nature that we so often deny in the world we inhabit; the child in ourselves. Now, the fact that some do not find these types of jokes funny, and would never be heard telling them may testify to the amount of self-alienation they have undergone in the name of 'getting on' in the world, and trying constantly to appear rational, sensible and thoughtful.
Interestingly enough, when an adult gets the chance to play with a train set, they often find it easier to excuse their behaviour if it is their own son's toy. Most adult males would probably never own up to enjoy playing with a toy train set, but would play endlessly with their own children's set, justifying it to themselves as showing their kids how to use it.
Humour, particularly the unsophisticated type illustrated above, probably illustrates a similar trait. They are the type of jokes we find hilarious with close friends and relatives, but nothing like as funny when we find ourselves with those with which we wish to create a certain impression.
Some jokes are peculiar to the male of the species. Among these are those jokes we call 'dirty jokes', and while laughing uproariously at them in male company in a public house, we certainly would not find them amusing were they to be told in mixed company.
Likewise, we may laugh till we cry at the type of humour that is made at the expense of a certain minority, and yet be totally embarrassed if that same joke were to be told in the presence of a member of that minority.
The type favoured by me are those that are not made at anyone's expense, but rather depend for their power to amuse on the unusual nature of their endings. A pun, a play on words, a formulaic joke, all fall into this category, and all have one very useful quality. They can be funny or not, but this depends as much on the listener's sense of humour as it does on the humour displayed in the joke. They invite the listener to participate. In the shared act of creating amusement, both find something in common.
Robert L Fielding
1,691 words

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