1
00:00:00,160 --> 00:00:05,280
Speaker 1: My Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of

2
00:00:05,360 --> 00:00:14,160
Speaker 1: My Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow

3
00:00:14,200 --> 00:00:17,360
Speaker 1: your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick.

4
00:00:17,400 --> 00:00:20,400
Speaker 1: And today we're gonna be talking dad jokes? Now, Robert,

5
00:00:20,480 --> 00:00:23,119
Speaker 1: how did we end up here? So? I was just

6
00:00:23,160 --> 00:00:27,280
Speaker 1: thinking about it over the weekend. Basically, I was I,

7
00:00:28,120 --> 00:00:30,800
Speaker 1: you know, dad jokes are I think a familiar concept

8
00:00:30,920 --> 00:00:33,159
Speaker 1: for most of us. Um. I don't remember being a

9
00:00:33,280 --> 00:00:34,960
Speaker 1: named thing when I was growing up, but at some

10
00:00:35,040 --> 00:00:38,440
Speaker 1: point in my pre parenthood life it became a thing.

11
00:00:38,520 --> 00:00:40,720
Speaker 1: And even non dad's would get called out for dad

12
00:00:40,840 --> 00:00:44,440
Speaker 1: jokes at times. And uh now as a as a parent,

13
00:00:44,760 --> 00:00:47,479
Speaker 1: it's it's like a frequent call out, you know, not

14
00:00:47,520 --> 00:00:50,199
Speaker 1: only in this house, but but I hear it with

15
00:00:50,520 --> 00:00:53,199
Speaker 1: with my friends who are who are parents, uh and

16
00:00:53,280 --> 00:00:56,840
Speaker 1: also among again friends who are not parents. It's often

17
00:00:57,000 --> 00:00:59,920
Speaker 1: a critique of someone else's joke, often from a child,

18
00:01:00,480 --> 00:01:03,840
Speaker 1: more from a spouse, but sometimes it's a self commentary

19
00:01:03,880 --> 00:01:07,680
Speaker 1: on one's own joke. And I guess I hadn't thought

20
00:01:07,720 --> 00:01:10,000
Speaker 1: too much about it. I didn't like, I wasn't too

21
00:01:10,000 --> 00:01:14,600
Speaker 1: self reflective on the concept until until very recently My

22
00:01:14,600 --> 00:01:18,040
Speaker 1: my son is is eight going on nine, and he's

23
00:01:18,040 --> 00:01:22,000
Speaker 1: definitely at the point where he is capable of sarcastic

24
00:01:22,080 --> 00:01:26,560
Speaker 1: laughter for particularly punny jokes, particularly you know, any kind

25
00:01:26,560 --> 00:01:30,640
Speaker 1: of like uh, perhaps too lame of an attempted humor.

26
00:01:31,080 --> 00:01:34,480
Speaker 1: He is liable to respond with sarcasm. And while he

27
00:01:34,520 --> 00:01:37,720
Speaker 1: won't say, oh, that's a dad joke, like, clearly we

28
00:01:37,800 --> 00:01:41,319
Speaker 1: are in dad joke territory. And so I just started pondering, like,

29
00:01:41,520 --> 00:01:44,039
Speaker 1: what does this mean? What is the dad joke? Is

30
00:01:44,040 --> 00:01:46,640
Speaker 1: the dad joke a thing? Uh? And if it is, like,

31
00:01:46,720 --> 00:01:50,920
Speaker 1: how might we um quantify it? And what does it

32
00:01:51,000 --> 00:01:55,560
Speaker 1: reveal about things like childhood development or humor itself? So

33
00:01:55,600 --> 00:01:58,280
Speaker 1: in your experience, what is the age where where the

34
00:01:58,360 --> 00:02:02,480
Speaker 1: child stops rewarding you for criminally weak puns and and

35
00:02:02,520 --> 00:02:06,000
Speaker 1: starts punishing you for them. Um, I guess we're kind

36
00:02:06,000 --> 00:02:09,280
Speaker 1: of in that territory right now. Like it's not I

37
00:02:09,320 --> 00:02:12,200
Speaker 1: still get get lots of laughs, I'm still pretty good,

38
00:02:12,440 --> 00:02:16,079
Speaker 1: I know my audience pretty well, but I'm I'm rolling

39
00:02:16,080 --> 00:02:20,080
Speaker 1: out more and more jokes that that he is liable

40
00:02:20,120 --> 00:02:24,239
Speaker 1: to either half laugh at or enjoy the awfulness of

41
00:02:24,240 --> 00:02:27,600
Speaker 1: the pun. Uh. And part of that I guess is

42
00:02:27,800 --> 00:02:30,359
Speaker 1: him picking up on my delivery as well, Like, if

43
00:02:30,400 --> 00:02:33,840
Speaker 1: I know that it's a particularly lame joke, I'm probably

44
00:02:33,880 --> 00:02:37,280
Speaker 1: going to lean into that delivery, you know. Yeah, well,

45
00:02:37,320 --> 00:02:39,000
Speaker 1: I mean it was definitely a thing you'd see with

46
00:02:39,040 --> 00:02:42,200
Speaker 1: like Dad's on TV the when you were a kid

47
00:02:42,240 --> 00:02:46,000
Speaker 1: that like that. Yes, they embarrass their teenager adolescent kids

48
00:02:46,000 --> 00:02:48,960
Speaker 1: by telling grown worthy jokes and then get punished with

49
00:02:49,000 --> 00:02:53,960
Speaker 1: the dad. Yeah. You know. This actually came up in

50
00:02:53,960 --> 00:02:56,080
Speaker 1: one of the sources I ended up looking at for this,

51
00:02:56,120 --> 00:02:58,200
Speaker 1: because because after I was thinking about it, I was like,

52
00:02:58,280 --> 00:03:00,359
Speaker 1: surely I'm not the only one kind of lighting this,

53
00:03:00,480 --> 00:03:04,640
Speaker 1: and I'm certainly not. But I looked at this one article, uh,

54
00:03:04,720 --> 00:03:07,640
Speaker 1: this one post title please stop calling My humor dad

55
00:03:07,720 --> 00:03:11,560
Speaker 1: Jokes by Andrew Bougon. Uh. This was from twenty nineteen

56
00:03:11,600 --> 00:03:15,240
Speaker 1: published in The Washington I in and um, they basically

57
00:03:15,280 --> 00:03:18,360
Speaker 1: made two two points. And I have to stress that

58
00:03:18,400 --> 00:03:21,200
Speaker 1: this wasn't like a super serious article like he was.

59
00:03:21,560 --> 00:03:24,520
Speaker 1: The authors very much engaging and you know, the humorous

60
00:03:24,639 --> 00:03:27,600
Speaker 1: nature and the low stakes aspect of the topic. But

61
00:03:27,639 --> 00:03:29,920
Speaker 1: they did bring up the idea of ages um and

62
00:03:30,000 --> 00:03:33,960
Speaker 1: dad jokes, but also the idea that they tend to

63
00:03:34,000 --> 00:03:37,160
Speaker 1: depend uh, some interpretations of them tend to depend on

64
00:03:37,280 --> 00:03:40,839
Speaker 1: outdated gender roles in the household, in which the mom

65
00:03:40,920 --> 00:03:43,600
Speaker 1: handles all the whole hard work around the house and

66
00:03:43,680 --> 00:03:45,840
Speaker 1: dad just kind of wanders into the room from time

67
00:03:45,840 --> 00:03:48,080
Speaker 1: to time to score an easy laugh with the kids.

68
00:03:48,480 --> 00:03:50,840
Speaker 1: And I feel like that's the kind of thing reflected

69
00:03:50,880 --> 00:03:55,160
Speaker 1: in this sitcom model that you're you're discussing here, With

70
00:03:55,200 --> 00:03:58,000
Speaker 1: a lot of American sitcoms like it, it fell upon

71
00:03:58,120 --> 00:04:00,720
Speaker 1: the mom character to be the respond constable one in

72
00:04:00,760 --> 00:04:03,040
Speaker 1: the family, and the dad got to be the goofball,

73
00:04:03,120 --> 00:04:06,440
Speaker 1: you know, the Homer Simpson right, right. Um. So, I

74
00:04:06,440 --> 00:04:08,160
Speaker 1: mean not to say there wasn't truth to the trope,

75
00:04:08,280 --> 00:04:11,040
Speaker 1: but it's probably a situation too where having this trope

76
00:04:11,520 --> 00:04:15,280
Speaker 1: so readily occur in our sitcom culture, it kind of,

77
00:04:15,680 --> 00:04:18,680
Speaker 1: you know, echoes back on us. You know, it reverberates

78
00:04:18,720 --> 00:04:21,719
Speaker 1: back on the culture itself, and we lean into it

79
00:04:21,760 --> 00:04:24,919
Speaker 1: even more, you know. Okay, So I assume at this

80
00:04:24,960 --> 00:04:28,120
Speaker 1: point most people are familiar with what a dad joke is,

81
00:04:28,200 --> 00:04:30,520
Speaker 1: But then again, I don't know. I often feel disconnected

82
00:04:30,520 --> 00:04:33,160
Speaker 1: from terms that people use in this Internet age, especially

83
00:04:33,440 --> 00:04:35,480
Speaker 1: since I'm like trying not to look at the social

84
00:04:35,480 --> 00:04:38,280
Speaker 1: media's and all that. So like for people who are

85
00:04:38,320 --> 00:04:40,920
Speaker 1: not so familiar, what makes a dad joke a dad

86
00:04:41,000 --> 00:04:44,000
Speaker 1: joke in the parlance of our times, all right, in

87
00:04:44,080 --> 00:04:47,240
Speaker 1: the parlance of our times, Dude, they are they're they're

88
00:04:47,279 --> 00:04:49,479
Speaker 1: jokes that are a bit on the lane side in

89
00:04:49,560 --> 00:04:52,640
Speaker 1: some estimates. They're often punny, and that they use puns,

90
00:04:53,120 --> 00:04:57,800
Speaker 1: and they're generally family friendly. Uh. And the punchline, I

91
00:04:57,839 --> 00:04:59,919
Speaker 1: was trying to figure out how the best phrase. I'

92
00:05:00,040 --> 00:05:03,080
Speaker 1: like the punchline hits like a crashing clown car. And

93
00:05:03,160 --> 00:05:06,760
Speaker 1: your intended audience, like the ideal audience that is actually

94
00:05:06,760 --> 00:05:09,640
Speaker 1: going to laugh at this joke is five to seven

95
00:05:09,720 --> 00:05:12,800
Speaker 1: year olds. You know they're abouts, um, but that is

96
00:05:12,880 --> 00:05:16,120
Speaker 1: in this is key regardless of the current age ages

97
00:05:16,160 --> 00:05:19,800
Speaker 1: of those presents. So you might be in the you

98
00:05:19,880 --> 00:05:22,679
Speaker 1: might be in the room with say a forty something

99
00:05:22,920 --> 00:05:26,760
Speaker 1: and a teenager, but you're still firing out jokes like

100
00:05:26,839 --> 00:05:28,760
Speaker 1: you have a whole room full of five to seven

101
00:05:28,800 --> 00:05:31,320
Speaker 1: year olds. Now, you mentioned that these jokes are often

102
00:05:31,440 --> 00:05:34,400
Speaker 1: puns and that they're often family friendly. Of course, dad

103
00:05:34,480 --> 00:05:39,120
Speaker 1: jokes do tend towards very much like uh, simple word play,

104
00:05:39,160 --> 00:05:42,360
Speaker 1: and what might be called clean comedy. But another tendency

105
00:05:42,360 --> 00:05:45,760
Speaker 1: I've noticed in dad jokes is, I don't even know

106
00:05:45,800 --> 00:05:48,520
Speaker 1: what you'd call this, the tendency to make a joke

107
00:05:49,040 --> 00:05:53,760
Speaker 1: that is, uh, that is edgy to a really tame extent.

108
00:05:54,320 --> 00:05:57,520
Speaker 1: And so this might involve, say, references to people's butts

109
00:05:57,920 --> 00:06:02,320
Speaker 1: or extremely minor crude language. So one example cited in

110
00:06:02,360 --> 00:06:05,040
Speaker 1: a New York Times article that we're about to talk about, uh,

111
00:06:05,120 --> 00:06:07,960
Speaker 1: the author mentions the joke, what has two butts and

112
00:06:08,040 --> 00:06:13,080
Speaker 1: kills people an assassin? Uh? Okay, Yeah, that that is

113
00:06:13,080 --> 00:06:15,839
Speaker 1: a little edgy for the for the young crowd. But yeah,

114
00:06:15,920 --> 00:06:18,720
Speaker 1: I mean not to me. That's very much in the

115
00:06:18,880 --> 00:06:21,360
Speaker 1: in what is understood to be the dad joke zone,

116
00:06:21,520 --> 00:06:25,800
Speaker 1: because it is a joke that simultaneously violates some kind

117
00:06:25,839 --> 00:06:28,080
Speaker 1: of taboo with the use of the word ass but

118
00:06:28,160 --> 00:06:32,080
Speaker 1: it is an extremely minor taboo. Yeah, I mean, for instance,

119
00:06:32,120 --> 00:06:36,080
Speaker 1: Bart Simpson would love that joke. Uh. So it's it

120
00:06:36,200 --> 00:06:39,240
Speaker 1: is it is aimed appropriately, and yeah, there there is

121
00:06:39,279 --> 00:06:43,279
Speaker 1: this tendency oftentimes for the jokes to take on this

122
00:06:43,279 --> 00:06:47,840
Speaker 1: this child's uh scatological zone. You know that. So it's

123
00:06:47,880 --> 00:06:51,600
Speaker 1: gonna involve butts and maybe it's gonna involve poop. There'll

124
00:06:51,600 --> 00:06:54,120
Speaker 1: be more of a tendency for poop jokes because this

125
00:06:54,160 --> 00:06:57,640
Speaker 1: is something that the young folks enjoy. We can we

126
00:06:57,680 --> 00:06:59,520
Speaker 1: can again think of it as kind of the rude

127
00:07:00,080 --> 00:07:03,360
Speaker 1: Bart Simpson territory of of of joke craft. Yeah, and

128
00:07:03,360 --> 00:07:06,279
Speaker 1: and lots of lots of Dad jokes are completely clean,

129
00:07:06,360 --> 00:07:08,320
Speaker 1: but they've got a special purchase on this place that

130
00:07:08,360 --> 00:07:12,760
Speaker 1: we might call the edgy side of tame. Yeah. Yeah, now, Um,

131
00:07:12,800 --> 00:07:14,240
Speaker 1: One of one other thing I want to touch on

132
00:07:14,280 --> 00:07:17,720
Speaker 1: here is that, Um, obviously the terminology we're using here

133
00:07:17,720 --> 00:07:22,200
Speaker 1: is is largely gendered, but I think I tend to

134
00:07:22,440 --> 00:07:26,240
Speaker 1: reject the idea that it's distinctly gendered phenomenon we were

135
00:07:26,280 --> 00:07:28,200
Speaker 1: talking about, Um, you know, it doesn't seem to be

136
00:07:28,320 --> 00:07:32,040
Speaker 1: especially tied to masculine ideas. And I'm willing to bet

137
00:07:32,080 --> 00:07:35,280
Speaker 1: anything that their appearance of all identities out there that

138
00:07:35,480 --> 00:07:38,760
Speaker 1: make what can be classified as dad jokes, oh of course. Yeah,

139
00:07:38,800 --> 00:07:41,720
Speaker 1: obviously this is something that transcends dad Dum. I do

140
00:07:41,800 --> 00:07:44,920
Speaker 1: think there must be some kind of observation of at

141
00:07:45,000 --> 00:07:48,360
Speaker 1: least a slight trend towards these kinds of jokes among

142
00:07:48,480 --> 00:07:51,080
Speaker 1: Dad's in particular, but yeah, all kinds of people tell

143
00:07:51,160 --> 00:07:54,440
Speaker 1: dad jokes. In fact, the first dad joke that came

144
00:07:54,480 --> 00:07:57,480
Speaker 1: to my mind, um, when when I was thinking about this,

145
00:07:57,520 --> 00:08:00,160
Speaker 1: when you said you wanted to do this topic was, uh,

146
00:08:00,240 --> 00:08:02,360
Speaker 1: it's it's not a legend in my in law's family.

147
00:08:02,400 --> 00:08:04,440
Speaker 1: But it wasn't a joke told by a dad, but

148
00:08:04,480 --> 00:08:08,200
Speaker 1: a joke told to a dad. And it was in

149
00:08:08,240 --> 00:08:10,480
Speaker 1: fact told to a dad by a daughter. It was

150
00:08:10,560 --> 00:08:13,000
Speaker 1: something Rachel said to her dad when they were posing

151
00:08:13,000 --> 00:08:15,080
Speaker 1: for a family photo and they were trying to get

152
00:08:15,120 --> 00:08:18,000
Speaker 1: everybody to smile, and she told the joke. You've probably

153
00:08:18,040 --> 00:08:20,920
Speaker 1: heard this one before, but I'll see where did George

154
00:08:20,920 --> 00:08:24,320
Speaker 1: Washington keep his armies? I don't know where George Washington

155
00:08:24,400 --> 00:08:31,080
Speaker 1: keep his armies in his sleevies like his And the

156
00:08:31,160 --> 00:08:34,280
Speaker 1: legend goes that that My father in law like just

157
00:08:34,679 --> 00:08:39,640
Speaker 1: laughed so hard at this that his head nearly exploded. Yeah.

158
00:08:39,880 --> 00:08:42,800
Speaker 1: I mean there's something about a pun like that, um,

159
00:08:42,920 --> 00:08:44,640
Speaker 1: which is hard. It's hard to classify what was that

160
00:08:44,679 --> 00:08:46,959
Speaker 1: a really good pun or a really bad one? Uh,

161
00:08:47,000 --> 00:08:48,600
Speaker 1: you know, because you kind of you can kind of

162
00:08:48,640 --> 00:08:51,400
Speaker 1: trip over it trying to figure out what the connection is,

163
00:08:51,840 --> 00:08:55,160
Speaker 1: Like you're trying to like you're visualizing it. Uh, you're

164
00:08:55,240 --> 00:08:58,040
Speaker 1: you're thinking about history, and it has nothing to do

165
00:08:58,080 --> 00:08:59,800
Speaker 1: with any of those. It's just you know that these

166
00:09:00,000 --> 00:09:03,680
Speaker 1: association between various words, It is just making a silly

167
00:09:03,720 --> 00:09:06,240
Speaker 1: sound at the end of a word. Yes, that's the connection.

168
00:09:06,600 --> 00:09:09,520
Speaker 1: So you kind of feel tricked by it. Uh, But

169
00:09:10,080 --> 00:09:13,600
Speaker 1: you have to admire the ingenuity of the trap as well, Like,

170
00:09:13,679 --> 00:09:15,240
Speaker 1: you know, it's I can laugh all day at this

171
00:09:15,280 --> 00:09:17,080
Speaker 1: bear trap of my legs stuck in it, So I

172
00:09:17,080 --> 00:09:19,840
Speaker 1: guess it's pretty good. So I would not be surprised

173
00:09:19,880 --> 00:09:22,800
Speaker 1: if research were defined. I do not think such research exists.

174
00:09:22,880 --> 00:09:25,640
Speaker 1: I would not be surprised to find that dads are

175
00:09:25,960 --> 00:09:29,920
Speaker 1: especially prone to telling dad jokes. But it is undeniable

176
00:09:29,920 --> 00:09:34,360
Speaker 1: that dad jokes transcend the dad category. Everybody tells dad jokes, Yeah,

177
00:09:34,480 --> 00:09:38,199
Speaker 1: I would agree. Yeah, parents, nonparents, people of all ages,

178
00:09:38,240 --> 00:09:41,280
Speaker 1: people of all genders. Um. But this seems to be

179
00:09:41,320 --> 00:09:46,040
Speaker 1: a way that we are as a culture classifying them today.

180
00:09:46,120 --> 00:09:48,480
Speaker 1: So I again, I was thinking about this over the weekend,

181
00:09:48,600 --> 00:09:50,960
Speaker 1: trying to figure out like what what it meant, And

182
00:09:51,679 --> 00:09:55,400
Speaker 1: my main observation has to do with identity, importance and

183
00:09:55,520 --> 00:09:59,920
Speaker 1: enthusiasm of the audience. So becoming a parent, in my

184
00:10:00,040 --> 00:10:02,360
Speaker 1: opinion is is pretty much the best worst thing you

185
00:10:02,360 --> 00:10:04,880
Speaker 1: can do. It's it's not for everyone and for many

186
00:10:04,920 --> 00:10:07,920
Speaker 1: great reasons, but I can say from experience that it

187
00:10:08,000 --> 00:10:10,560
Speaker 1: will at the very least totally change the shape of

188
00:10:10,600 --> 00:10:14,760
Speaker 1: whatever your life was prior to the arrival of tiny

189
00:10:15,000 --> 00:10:18,600
Speaker 1: humans or a tiny human in your life. Nothing will

190
00:10:18,600 --> 00:10:21,719
Speaker 1: be the same again, including your humor. And a lot

191
00:10:21,720 --> 00:10:23,320
Speaker 1: of this just have to have has to do with,

192
00:10:23,400 --> 00:10:26,960
Speaker 1: like very basic realities about there being a growing human

193
00:10:27,080 --> 00:10:29,880
Speaker 1: in your house. So the larval human develops, it grows,

194
00:10:29,920 --> 00:10:33,200
Speaker 1: it learns, it develops language and thinking skills, and so

195
00:10:33,240 --> 00:10:35,800
Speaker 1: of course it picks up on humor. It begins experimenting

196
00:10:35,800 --> 00:10:39,800
Speaker 1: with its own humor. It's uh, this is a process

197
00:10:39,880 --> 00:10:43,720
Speaker 1: that is at times delightful, at times arduous. Uh. But

198
00:10:43,920 --> 00:10:46,640
Speaker 1: there's a lot of laughter, and you help to cultivate it.

199
00:10:47,080 --> 00:10:49,520
Speaker 1: And by the way, speaking of when, the sort of

200
00:10:49,640 --> 00:10:52,320
Speaker 1: loose time frame from this, though it varies a bit,

201
00:10:52,760 --> 00:10:56,480
Speaker 1: is babies typically start laughing between two and four months. Now.

202
00:10:56,520 --> 00:10:59,280
Speaker 1: I was thinking about this because there are obviously several

203
00:10:59,400 --> 00:11:02,360
Speaker 1: different ways that having a child in the household will

204
00:11:02,880 --> 00:11:07,520
Speaker 1: change the household's humor profile because on one hand, babies

205
00:11:07,520 --> 00:11:11,320
Speaker 1: and young children are often humorous, like they can be

206
00:11:11,480 --> 00:11:14,920
Speaker 1: the thing that is funny. Then at a certain point,

207
00:11:15,000 --> 00:11:17,320
Speaker 1: you might say it like two to four months, they

208
00:11:17,320 --> 00:11:21,400
Speaker 1: start becoming the audience for humor. They think things are funny.

209
00:11:21,440 --> 00:11:26,280
Speaker 1: But then also they change essentially what people are thinking

210
00:11:26,280 --> 00:11:28,680
Speaker 1: about in the household, and most humor is based on

211
00:11:28,800 --> 00:11:31,120
Speaker 1: whatever is on your mind at the time, so they

212
00:11:31,120 --> 00:11:33,680
Speaker 1: will also become even if it's not like referring to

213
00:11:33,720 --> 00:11:36,560
Speaker 1: something they just did or reacting to something they just did,

214
00:11:37,120 --> 00:11:40,680
Speaker 1: baby and child humor will sort of occupy the mind

215
00:11:40,679 --> 00:11:43,760
Speaker 1: to become the subject of a lot of humor. Yeah, yeah,

216
00:11:43,760 --> 00:11:45,960
Speaker 1: there's there's there's a lot that ends up going on there,

217
00:11:45,960 --> 00:11:48,160
Speaker 1: you know. And you know it's like they say, you know,

218
00:11:48,240 --> 00:11:50,560
Speaker 1: little little pictures have big ears. They pick up on

219
00:11:50,640 --> 00:11:53,199
Speaker 1: so much and they end up, uh, you know, mimicking

220
00:11:53,240 --> 00:11:57,439
Speaker 1: and trying to understand the humor that you're using. For instance,

221
00:11:57,440 --> 00:12:00,719
Speaker 1: when you're you're talking to a non child. Um. So

222
00:12:00,760 --> 00:12:04,040
Speaker 1: it's it's really in half the time you're not even

223
00:12:04,160 --> 00:12:07,400
Speaker 1: really aware of what's going on, but you're kind of

224
00:12:08,000 --> 00:12:12,720
Speaker 1: all in this uh, this this complex learning process together. Um.

225
00:12:12,760 --> 00:12:15,560
Speaker 1: But yeah, it does. I feel like it does definitely

226
00:12:15,640 --> 00:12:19,960
Speaker 1: change the way you you calibrate your jokes because for me,

227
00:12:20,040 --> 00:12:23,120
Speaker 1: example an example, um, and I'd like to think that

228
00:12:23,160 --> 00:12:25,920
Speaker 1: I'm a reasonably funny person, and uh, I enjoy it

229
00:12:25,960 --> 00:12:28,520
Speaker 1: when I can genuinely make a person laugh, though, like

230
00:12:28,559 --> 00:12:31,120
Speaker 1: all of us, will also settle for some polite laughter

231
00:12:31,960 --> 00:12:35,360
Speaker 1: from someone else. I feel like I probably had a

232
00:12:35,360 --> 00:12:38,800
Speaker 1: pretty good success rate with my humor prior to my

233
00:12:38,840 --> 00:12:42,520
Speaker 1: son coming into my life, but with with him once

234
00:12:42,520 --> 00:12:45,040
Speaker 1: he reached the point where he was because obviously a three,

235
00:12:45,120 --> 00:12:48,000
Speaker 1: you know, super young child is not really going to

236
00:12:48,040 --> 00:12:50,000
Speaker 1: be able to understand jokes. You could go up to

237
00:12:50,000 --> 00:12:52,360
Speaker 1: a baby in a stroller on the street, you could

238
00:12:52,360 --> 00:12:54,920
Speaker 1: tell it a joke and maybe you'll get a laugh

239
00:12:54,920 --> 00:12:56,640
Speaker 1: out of him if you're making a goofy enough face.

240
00:12:56,840 --> 00:12:58,120
Speaker 1: But they're not really going to pick up on the

241
00:12:58,200 --> 00:13:00,640
Speaker 1: nuances of your punchline. Right If you want to make

242
00:13:00,720 --> 00:13:03,360
Speaker 1: that that like two to four month old baby laugh,

243
00:13:03,400 --> 00:13:07,040
Speaker 1: you're you're more in the prop comedy realm at that point. Yeah, yeah,

244
00:13:07,040 --> 00:13:09,880
Speaker 1: you're in the peak abooth stage. So I guess that's

245
00:13:09,880 --> 00:13:11,280
Speaker 1: another thing to get to keep in mind. It's like

246
00:13:11,280 --> 00:13:15,760
Speaker 1: the barrier to humor starts, uh, you know, in a

247
00:13:15,800 --> 00:13:17,760
Speaker 1: weird place, in a very low place. Then you work

248
00:13:17,840 --> 00:13:20,520
Speaker 1: up from there. But but I would say that from

249
00:13:20,559 --> 00:13:23,840
Speaker 1: the point on at which I could actually make my

250
00:13:23,840 --> 00:13:27,640
Speaker 1: my son laugh, I suddenly had just an insanely good

251
00:13:27,679 --> 00:13:31,680
Speaker 1: success rate with this audience of one. Um, generating laughter

252
00:13:31,760 --> 00:13:36,600
Speaker 1: with almost every joke was just guaranteyed. And the big

253
00:13:36,679 --> 00:13:40,520
Speaker 1: kicker was it was authentic laughter every time because he's

254
00:13:40,600 --> 00:13:44,400
Speaker 1: for the longest he simply wasn't capable of faking laughter

255
00:13:44,559 --> 00:13:46,360
Speaker 1: like it was. You knew that if he was laughing

256
00:13:46,360 --> 00:13:49,839
Speaker 1: at a joke, he genuinely found it funny or or

257
00:13:49,880 --> 00:13:53,120
Speaker 1: certainly that is that was the impression. Right. Very young

258
00:13:53,200 --> 00:13:57,839
Speaker 1: children are not They haven't learned politests yet, right. Um.

259
00:13:57,880 --> 00:13:59,480
Speaker 1: But one of the reasons I was reflecting on this

260
00:13:59,520 --> 00:14:02,000
Speaker 1: is because I've now reach the point where the boy

261
00:14:02,080 --> 00:14:05,520
Speaker 1: is perfectly capable of doing a sarcastic ha ha at

262
00:14:05,559 --> 00:14:08,960
Speaker 1: my lamber jokes. Um. But I would say that period

263
00:14:09,080 --> 00:14:12,320
Speaker 1: from five to seven years of age, even on up

264
00:14:12,320 --> 00:14:16,120
Speaker 1: into year eight here this was probably the most fruitful

265
00:14:16,160 --> 00:14:19,240
Speaker 1: comedic period of my life. And and here's the kicker,

266
00:14:19,280 --> 00:14:21,960
Speaker 1: I'll never have this rate of success again. I'll never

267
00:14:22,040 --> 00:14:26,200
Speaker 1: make another human being laugh this much and laugh this

268
00:14:26,360 --> 00:14:29,880
Speaker 1: consistently at my humor. Well, in a way, like having

269
00:14:29,920 --> 00:14:32,920
Speaker 1: spent that long trying to get laughs out of a

270
00:14:32,920 --> 00:14:35,720
Speaker 1: young child, you've sort of to some degree. I mean,

271
00:14:35,840 --> 00:14:38,080
Speaker 1: I'm not saying you can never change Robert, but a

272
00:14:38,120 --> 00:14:40,840
Speaker 1: person at this point has cemented a large part of

273
00:14:40,880 --> 00:14:44,880
Speaker 1: their adult brain in that mindset, right, right, And yeah,

274
00:14:44,920 --> 00:14:47,800
Speaker 1: and neurologically there are reasons you can't go back. But

275
00:14:47,880 --> 00:14:50,400
Speaker 1: also it's just like, if I've been going for that

276
00:14:50,480 --> 00:14:53,320
Speaker 1: low hanging fruit dad joke for so long and I've

277
00:14:53,320 --> 00:14:55,560
Speaker 1: had such a great success rate with it, why would

278
00:14:55,560 --> 00:14:57,040
Speaker 1: I ever give it up? You know, It's like if

279
00:14:57,080 --> 00:14:59,920
Speaker 1: you're a bear and you found an incredible food cat

280
00:15:00,320 --> 00:15:02,800
Speaker 1: in a prius once and now you're just gonna forever

281
00:15:02,920 --> 00:15:05,680
Speaker 1: target prius is. Even though most prius is that you

282
00:15:05,720 --> 00:15:08,040
Speaker 1: break into are not going to be filled with groceries,

283
00:15:08,320 --> 00:15:10,680
Speaker 1: you you still broke into a prius once that had

284
00:15:10,720 --> 00:15:13,280
Speaker 1: plenty of groceries, and you're never going to forget that.

285
00:15:13,920 --> 00:15:18,320
Speaker 1: So even when the sarcastic ha has come with more um,

286
00:15:18,800 --> 00:15:22,000
Speaker 1: you're gonna come more often. I'm probably still going to

287
00:15:22,080 --> 00:15:24,920
Speaker 1: make the same jokes. And this seems to be a

288
00:15:24,960 --> 00:15:27,080
Speaker 1: big part of what's going on with dad jokes. Like

289
00:15:27,440 --> 00:15:30,800
Speaker 1: you go through that that period of success, and then

290
00:15:31,200 --> 00:15:34,920
Speaker 1: you change, like you just got such positive rewards from

291
00:15:34,920 --> 00:15:38,560
Speaker 1: this style of humor, you don't evolve beyond it. Yeah.

292
00:15:38,640 --> 00:15:40,720
Speaker 1: The the young child is a kind of a skinner

293
00:15:40,760 --> 00:15:43,760
Speaker 1: box and you're the rat inside it, and it's repeatedly

294
00:15:43,840 --> 00:15:47,080
Speaker 1: rewarding you for years on end for for doing the

295
00:15:47,200 --> 00:15:50,000
Speaker 1: low hanging fruit joke, and then when that doesn't work

296
00:15:50,080 --> 00:15:52,560
Speaker 1: quite so well anymore, Like at that point, can you

297
00:15:52,560 --> 00:15:58,000
Speaker 1: really stop? I mean you are conditioned? Ye? So um.

298
00:15:58,040 --> 00:16:01,040
Speaker 1: Thinking about the sarcasm aspect of this, I I looked,

299
00:16:01,600 --> 00:16:04,040
Speaker 1: I looked into this a little bit, and uh. In

300
00:16:04,080 --> 00:16:06,680
Speaker 1: the literature that the idea seems to be that children

301
00:16:06,720 --> 00:16:11,400
Speaker 1: begin to develop the ability to comprehend ironic utterances around

302
00:16:11,400 --> 00:16:13,720
Speaker 1: five to six years of age. So it's a relatively

303
00:16:13,800 --> 00:16:17,440
Speaker 1: late developing skill. Though this this varies a fair amount

304
00:16:18,000 --> 00:16:20,720
Speaker 1: as far as individual kids go. And I was reading

305
00:16:21,040 --> 00:16:24,560
Speaker 1: this paper from this from n by Capellia at All

306
00:16:24,760 --> 00:16:28,280
Speaker 1: titled how Children understand Sarcasm, and this is pretty interesting.

307
00:16:28,320 --> 00:16:31,479
Speaker 1: They point out that for an adult to catch sarcasm,

308
00:16:31,720 --> 00:16:35,400
Speaker 1: they depend on two different cues. There's context, and then

309
00:16:35,440 --> 00:16:40,120
Speaker 1: there's the speakers uh intonation. So you know, I think

310
00:16:40,120 --> 00:16:42,920
Speaker 1: we can all imagine like the context situation where I

311
00:16:42,920 --> 00:16:46,800
Speaker 1: could say something that is meant to be picked up

312
00:16:46,840 --> 00:16:49,520
Speaker 1: as ironic, but I could do so in a very flat,

313
00:16:49,560 --> 00:16:53,520
Speaker 1: believable tone, you know. Um. And if you you were

314
00:16:53,560 --> 00:16:56,440
Speaker 1: able to compare what I'm saying with the situation and

315
00:16:56,440 --> 00:16:58,480
Speaker 1: and or you know me, you can you know what

316
00:16:58,520 --> 00:17:01,400
Speaker 1: I'm I'm getting at. Uh um. But the study found

317
00:17:01,400 --> 00:17:05,560
Speaker 1: that the children initially depend more heavily on intonation uh

318
00:17:05,560 --> 00:17:11,439
Speaker 1: than on context and recognizing sarcasm. So that sarcastic voice

319
00:17:11,800 --> 00:17:15,719
Speaker 1: that you use, uh, that's key for these younger children

320
00:17:16,280 --> 00:17:18,000
Speaker 1: to being able to pick up on it. And I

321
00:17:18,280 --> 00:17:20,000
Speaker 1: feel like I found this in my own life. If

322
00:17:20,000 --> 00:17:23,679
Speaker 1: I'm going too dry with my humor, uh, it'll often

323
00:17:23,800 --> 00:17:27,000
Speaker 1: like steamroll right past the boy. But if I'm making

324
00:17:27,000 --> 00:17:29,959
Speaker 1: the sarcastic voice, he's he he'll get it. And if

325
00:17:30,000 --> 00:17:33,280
Speaker 1: he's being sarcastic, oh boy, he will totally lean into

326
00:17:33,320 --> 00:17:35,520
Speaker 1: a sarcastic voice. And I feel like I've encountered that

327
00:17:35,560 --> 00:17:38,359
Speaker 1: with other kids as well, like they will really really

328
00:17:38,400 --> 00:17:41,000
Speaker 1: lay it on thick. Well, I think this ties into

329
00:17:41,040 --> 00:17:43,679
Speaker 1: the way that irony and sarcasms so often fail in

330
00:17:43,760 --> 00:17:47,320
Speaker 1: writing in written media. You know that, well, I don't know.

331
00:17:47,520 --> 00:17:49,600
Speaker 1: I guess it depends on what you call fail. But

332
00:17:49,680 --> 00:17:54,240
Speaker 1: like they sometimes people fail to detect irony and sarcasm

333
00:17:54,400 --> 00:17:57,159
Speaker 1: in written media. Uh. And this is one of the

334
00:17:57,240 --> 00:17:59,240
Speaker 1: reasons that I was actually just reading about this a

335
00:17:59,240 --> 00:18:01,240
Speaker 1: while ago, thinking that it might be worth doing an

336
00:18:01,280 --> 00:18:05,359
Speaker 1: episode on the idea of ironic punctuation. You know, in

337
00:18:05,359 --> 00:18:08,600
Speaker 1: in some writing conventions, there's a way of marking a

338
00:18:08,640 --> 00:18:11,880
Speaker 1: sentence to say, like, I don't really mean what I'm

339
00:18:11,920 --> 00:18:14,840
Speaker 1: saying in this sentence, I'm saying it for humorous effect,

340
00:18:15,160 --> 00:18:17,520
Speaker 1: with like a special you know, a special like upside

341
00:18:17,520 --> 00:18:20,200
Speaker 1: down exclamation point or something like that at the beginning

342
00:18:20,200 --> 00:18:22,800
Speaker 1: of the sentence. And it's weird because I was thinking

343
00:18:22,840 --> 00:18:24,560
Speaker 1: about that, and I was thinking, well, on one hand,

344
00:18:24,600 --> 00:18:28,320
Speaker 1: that would help clear up a lot of confusion, because

345
00:18:28,359 --> 00:18:30,879
Speaker 1: it just seems inevitable, especially if you're writing for an

346
00:18:30,920 --> 00:18:34,320
Speaker 1: audience of multiple people, that you will at some point

347
00:18:34,480 --> 00:18:37,840
Speaker 1: make a joke saying something that's the opposite of what

348
00:18:37,920 --> 00:18:41,000
Speaker 1: you really think in writing, and people while they might

349
00:18:41,080 --> 00:18:43,200
Speaker 1: get it if you said it out loud, will will

350
00:18:43,240 --> 00:18:45,960
Speaker 1: not understand you in writing, and they'll be like, how

351
00:18:46,000 --> 00:18:48,240
Speaker 1: could you say that? I don't understand you know why?

352
00:18:48,840 --> 00:18:51,800
Speaker 1: And so irony punctuation would help clear that up. But

353
00:18:51,840 --> 00:18:54,879
Speaker 1: I think it would also make those statements less funny,

354
00:18:55,000 --> 00:18:57,199
Speaker 1: Like if you mark them as a joke at the

355
00:18:57,240 --> 00:18:59,840
Speaker 1: beginning of the sentence, then is that is it actually

356
00:19:00,000 --> 00:19:02,600
Speaker 1: earth making the joke? Like will most of the audience

357
00:19:02,600 --> 00:19:05,639
Speaker 1: would normally laugh at it actually find it funny? I'm

358
00:19:05,680 --> 00:19:07,960
Speaker 1: not sure. Yeah, it's kind of like announcing I shall

359
00:19:08,000 --> 00:19:12,040
Speaker 1: now make a pun before proceeding. Um. But then again,

360
00:19:12,080 --> 00:19:15,239
Speaker 1: I mean some languages use this, so it you know,

361
00:19:15,320 --> 00:19:17,600
Speaker 1: if it is used, it must work to some extent.

362
00:19:17,720 --> 00:19:21,000
Speaker 1: I can't judge it too much. Well, writers, remember what

363
00:19:21,040 --> 00:19:23,399
Speaker 1: you're supposed to do. If you have a character in

364
00:19:23,440 --> 00:19:27,320
Speaker 1: the third person and they're being sarcastic, you're supposed to say, um,

365
00:19:27,400 --> 00:19:31,040
Speaker 1: he said sarcastically, and then the reader will know that

366
00:19:31,160 --> 00:19:36,920
Speaker 1: this character is being sarcastic or she said ironically. That's

367
00:19:36,920 --> 00:19:42,040
Speaker 1: just good writing and being sarcastic. Um, let's say um.

368
00:19:42,119 --> 00:19:44,640
Speaker 1: Well brings me back to this paper you mentioned from.

369
00:19:45,680 --> 00:19:47,680
Speaker 1: Was that the year I think it was. If this

370
00:19:47,760 --> 00:19:50,160
Speaker 1: is correct, that there are two major cues that people

371
00:19:50,280 --> 00:19:53,600
Speaker 1: used to detect irony or sarcasm in a statement. One

372
00:19:53,680 --> 00:19:56,800
Speaker 1: is context and the other is intonation. If you're in

373
00:19:56,840 --> 00:20:00,119
Speaker 1: a written context, you can't use intonation unless you have

374
00:20:00,240 --> 00:20:02,680
Speaker 1: some kind of special punctuation or something like that to

375
00:20:03,080 --> 00:20:05,719
Speaker 1: give a you know, a visual version of intonation. So

376
00:20:05,760 --> 00:20:08,720
Speaker 1: you're down to only context. Basically you're losing half of

377
00:20:08,760 --> 00:20:11,640
Speaker 1: your tool kit for detection. Yeah. And then of course

378
00:20:11,640 --> 00:20:16,840
Speaker 1: in the written form, context can vanish as well. Uh so, Uh,

379
00:20:16,880 --> 00:20:19,479
Speaker 1: I can see where one might lean on having some

380
00:20:19,520 --> 00:20:23,040
Speaker 1: sort of strange punctuation choice that would like forever branded

381
00:20:23,400 --> 00:20:27,960
Speaker 1: as ironic, course sarcastic. Yeah, it might be a good idea. Yeah, whoever,

382
00:20:28,000 --> 00:20:31,800
Speaker 1: whoever is in charge of English, you know, get on that. Yes,

383
00:20:31,920 --> 00:20:40,840
Speaker 1: present this to the Board of of English. So, like

384
00:20:40,880 --> 00:20:42,920
Speaker 1: I said, I was thinking about this, and then I

385
00:20:42,920 --> 00:20:45,040
Speaker 1: I looked around to see who else had written about it,

386
00:20:45,080 --> 00:20:48,199
Speaker 1: and I found an excellent article from just back in

387
00:20:48,240 --> 00:20:51,560
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen in the New York Times titled A Dad

388
00:20:51,600 --> 00:20:56,359
Speaker 1: Defends Dad Jokes by author and critic Jason Zinoman. And

389
00:20:57,240 --> 00:20:59,160
Speaker 1: this seems like a decent person to lean on because

390
00:20:59,160 --> 00:21:01,600
Speaker 1: I looked, I looked them up there about my age. Uh.

391
00:21:01,640 --> 00:21:04,320
Speaker 1: They've written a book on horror films called shock Value.

392
00:21:04,400 --> 00:21:06,720
Speaker 1: So I figured, you know, this might be my people,

393
00:21:07,119 --> 00:21:10,080
Speaker 1: and uh and yeah, Ultimately I found that a lot

394
00:21:10,119 --> 00:21:11,560
Speaker 1: of what he broke down was kind of like what

395
00:21:11,640 --> 00:21:13,840
Speaker 1: I was I was thinking about, you know, with some

396
00:21:13,880 --> 00:21:17,680
Speaker 1: additional layers as well. So I want to just roll

397
00:21:17,720 --> 00:21:21,000
Speaker 1: through some of of his key observations from this article.

398
00:21:21,400 --> 00:21:25,680
Speaker 1: So he observed that quote procreating turns men into miserable comics. Uh.

399
00:21:26,040 --> 00:21:28,960
Speaker 1: I think he's you know, he's he's joking a bit there. Um,

400
00:21:29,119 --> 00:21:31,200
Speaker 1: though I think we also have to stress that a

401
00:21:31,240 --> 00:21:34,520
Speaker 1: lot of parents were probably not particularly funny to begin with. Uh.

402
00:21:34,800 --> 00:21:38,080
Speaker 1: So it's it's not necessarily a situation where something great

403
00:21:38,200 --> 00:21:42,600
Speaker 1: is lost. Um. He points to a dad joke. Only

404
00:21:42,680 --> 00:21:44,480
Speaker 1: because this is this is interesting because I didn't really

405
00:21:44,480 --> 00:21:46,199
Speaker 1: have a good idea of what the time frame was.

406
00:21:46,280 --> 00:21:48,159
Speaker 1: I figured I didn't hear about it when I was

407
00:21:48,160 --> 00:21:51,880
Speaker 1: growing up, but I didn't know exactly how old it was, uh,

408
00:21:51,880 --> 00:21:54,359
Speaker 1: he said. He points out that this term only really

409
00:21:54,359 --> 00:21:58,000
Speaker 1: comes into usage over the past decade and then becomes

410
00:21:58,080 --> 00:22:01,720
Speaker 1: ubiquitous online in very re some years. He writes, quote,

411
00:22:01,720 --> 00:22:04,359
Speaker 1: I'm a comedy critic, So being a dad can seem

412
00:22:04,400 --> 00:22:08,000
Speaker 1: like an occupational hazard. It may be professional suicide to admit,

413
00:22:08,080 --> 00:22:10,920
Speaker 1: but since having children, I often find myself making lame

414
00:22:11,080 --> 00:22:13,960
Speaker 1: puns as well as poop jokes. So this is where

415
00:22:14,000 --> 00:22:17,240
Speaker 1: he brings up the poop jokes, And um, I was

416
00:22:17,240 --> 00:22:19,879
Speaker 1: thinking about myself. I probably make more poop jokes now

417
00:22:20,000 --> 00:22:22,840
Speaker 1: than previously because again this is the material that really

418
00:22:22,920 --> 00:22:26,320
Speaker 1: zings with kids. Now, what show me the anatomy of

419
00:22:26,359 --> 00:22:29,880
Speaker 1: a poop joke is? Is it just uh invoking the

420
00:22:29,960 --> 00:22:33,000
Speaker 1: concept of poop? But does it need to be poop

421
00:22:33,040 --> 00:22:36,840
Speaker 1: are referred to like out of its regular context? What

422
00:22:37,040 --> 00:22:40,640
Speaker 1: makes a good crackling poop joke? Well, most poop jokes

423
00:22:40,640 --> 00:22:43,360
Speaker 1: are not good. I find that it has to be

424
00:22:43,560 --> 00:22:46,680
Speaker 1: this perfect crossover like a poop joke, that you are

425
00:22:46,720 --> 00:22:49,720
Speaker 1: not too ashamed of yourself and that the child will

426
00:22:49,800 --> 00:22:52,600
Speaker 1: laugh out. The child will laugh at anything up to

427
00:22:52,680 --> 00:22:54,960
Speaker 1: a certain point just because it has the word poop

428
00:22:54,960 --> 00:22:59,119
Speaker 1: in it, like poop is inherently funny. Um, probably in general,

429
00:22:59,160 --> 00:23:03,280
Speaker 1: but especially to the children. So for from my point,

430
00:23:03,280 --> 00:23:05,480
Speaker 1: it's like it can it isn't. It isn't an elequent

431
00:23:05,640 --> 00:23:09,080
Speaker 1: enough poop joke that you feel okay telling it and

432
00:23:09,160 --> 00:23:11,080
Speaker 1: being the teller of this joke. You know, I was

433
00:23:11,119 --> 00:23:13,520
Speaker 1: asking because I was just thinking about a rather poopy

434
00:23:13,680 --> 00:23:16,520
Speaker 1: concept to perhaps cover on the show in the near future.

435
00:23:16,600 --> 00:23:19,679
Speaker 1: And it was it was the discovery of an ancient

436
00:23:19,800 --> 00:23:23,479
Speaker 1: manuscript of a commentary on Homer that had clearly been

437
00:23:23,600 --> 00:23:26,080
Speaker 1: used as toilet paper in the ancient world. And it

438
00:23:26,160 --> 00:23:29,800
Speaker 1: was found that an ancient garbage dump in Egypt, but

439
00:23:29,880 --> 00:23:33,359
Speaker 1: it had poop on it, And I don't know, yeah,

440
00:23:33,160 --> 00:23:35,200
Speaker 1: I mean maybe, So we did the episode on the

441
00:23:35,200 --> 00:23:39,000
Speaker 1: far dnomicon, so I don't think anything it's sacred anymore. Um,

442
00:23:39,000 --> 00:23:41,200
Speaker 1: but maybe see that's not a joke, that's just like, well,

443
00:23:41,240 --> 00:23:43,480
Speaker 1: here's an ancient document that was pooped on. So I

444
00:23:43,520 --> 00:23:45,480
Speaker 1: don't know if that would fly with kids, or maybe

445
00:23:45,480 --> 00:23:47,600
Speaker 1: it would. Would you say, here's a here's an ancient

446
00:23:47,640 --> 00:23:49,720
Speaker 1: document and somebody wiped their butt with it. Would that

447
00:23:49,760 --> 00:23:53,600
Speaker 1: be funny enough? I mean at a certain age probably yeah.

448
00:23:53,640 --> 00:23:55,399
Speaker 1: But then again, are the kids going to pick up

449
00:23:55,440 --> 00:23:57,399
Speaker 1: on the weight of if you're talking about like the

450
00:23:57,440 --> 00:24:02,800
Speaker 1: works of Homer and stuff? So uh yeah, I'm not sure. Uh,

451
00:24:02,880 --> 00:24:06,399
Speaker 1: that's a whole probably a whole domain of humor theory

452
00:24:06,600 --> 00:24:09,800
Speaker 1: just regarding poop jokes. Now, I did think that the

453
00:24:09,840 --> 00:24:11,600
Speaker 1: author here has in him and really nailed it with

454
00:24:11,640 --> 00:24:15,040
Speaker 1: this line. He says, quote, like so many lazy comics,

455
00:24:15,560 --> 00:24:18,480
Speaker 1: we parents pander. If jokes work, then they stay set.

456
00:24:18,920 --> 00:24:21,800
Speaker 1: Gradually we become hooked on cheap laughs some of us,

457
00:24:21,920 --> 00:24:24,280
Speaker 1: some of us even delude ourselves into thinking we are

458
00:24:24,320 --> 00:24:27,679
Speaker 1: actually funny. And he points out that once this setting

459
00:24:27,760 --> 00:24:31,800
Speaker 1: is obtained, it does not evolve, but the children, of course,

460
00:24:31,880 --> 00:24:35,040
Speaker 1: do evolve. And uh, yeah, this totally rings true with

461
00:24:35,040 --> 00:24:38,560
Speaker 1: what I'm beginning to experience now, like uh, and it

462
00:24:38,600 --> 00:24:40,760
Speaker 1: goes beyond joke telling because I think of all the

463
00:24:40,840 --> 00:24:44,399
Speaker 1: various references that my wife and I make in you know,

464
00:24:44,440 --> 00:24:47,960
Speaker 1: regarding things that my son once said or once observed

465
00:24:48,320 --> 00:24:52,000
Speaker 1: or once did. Um, And they're almost all things that

466
00:24:52,080 --> 00:24:54,719
Speaker 1: he does not say anymore, or does not do anymore,

467
00:24:54,760 --> 00:24:57,359
Speaker 1: in many cases, does not remember, so he can't even

468
00:24:57,480 --> 00:25:00,320
Speaker 1: pick up on the reference, you know, except has heard

469
00:25:00,400 --> 00:25:02,600
Speaker 1: us talk about it. But they were like they were

470
00:25:02,640 --> 00:25:05,679
Speaker 1: so near and dear to our hearts. Um. And sometimes

471
00:25:05,720 --> 00:25:09,640
Speaker 1: they sum up an idea really well, at least for us. Uh.

472
00:25:09,680 --> 00:25:12,359
Speaker 1: And I imagine I'm gonna probably keep making these references

473
00:25:12,440 --> 00:25:15,080
Speaker 1: for the rest of my life. Like, uh, for example,

474
00:25:15,160 --> 00:25:17,880
Speaker 1: he used to say things like so is me instead

475
00:25:17,920 --> 00:25:20,680
Speaker 1: of so am I? You know which is? It's kids.

476
00:25:20,680 --> 00:25:22,320
Speaker 1: There's a lot of stuff with kids like that, Right,

477
00:25:22,359 --> 00:25:25,560
Speaker 1: they say something wrong and it's adorable, it's funny. It's

478
00:25:25,720 --> 00:25:29,480
Speaker 1: at least as long as you're connected to them. Um or.

479
00:25:29,840 --> 00:25:33,280
Speaker 1: Another example was he used to talk about, uh, if

480
00:25:33,280 --> 00:25:35,240
Speaker 1: he was describing the temperature, he might say it was

481
00:25:35,280 --> 00:25:37,960
Speaker 1: super a little bit hot, or if it was dark

482
00:25:38,000 --> 00:25:40,840
Speaker 1: outside of super a little bit dark. Or he would

483
00:25:40,880 --> 00:25:44,280
Speaker 1: overuse and misuse the word crazed. And so these are

484
00:25:44,320 --> 00:25:46,120
Speaker 1: just a few examples of things that I can't let

485
00:25:46,160 --> 00:25:48,760
Speaker 1: go and I'm probably gonna keep referencing them, even though

486
00:25:48,800 --> 00:25:51,320
Speaker 1: they have no connection even to who he is right now,

487
00:25:51,400 --> 00:25:53,760
Speaker 1: much less who he will become. Oh, I love super

488
00:25:53,800 --> 00:25:56,399
Speaker 1: a little bit hot. That's like, uh, when when a

489
00:25:56,520 --> 00:25:59,800
Speaker 1: kid at any point saying they're hungry, they're saying I'm

490
00:25:59,800 --> 00:26:02,439
Speaker 1: a little bit starving. Yeah, yeah, that's sort of thing

491
00:26:02,520 --> 00:26:04,240
Speaker 1: like that's that's the very sort of thing that a

492
00:26:04,359 --> 00:26:07,720
Speaker 1: kid would say, and and you end up lashing onto it.

493
00:26:07,960 --> 00:26:12,320
Speaker 1: Um So uh, yeah, I feel like Zenoman totally totally

494
00:26:12,359 --> 00:26:15,480
Speaker 1: gets it right there, But it sounds like Zenoman is saying,

495
00:26:15,480 --> 00:26:18,240
Speaker 1: and to some extent, you're also saying, the issue is that,

496
00:26:18,359 --> 00:26:21,840
Speaker 1: like the child gets older in their sense of humor evolves,

497
00:26:21,960 --> 00:26:25,200
Speaker 1: but the parent is inherently kind of stuck in this

498
00:26:25,280 --> 00:26:28,600
Speaker 1: older mode of what has worked before. And and this

499
00:26:29,000 --> 00:26:31,520
Speaker 1: mirrors other things that happened of course in like parent

500
00:26:31,600 --> 00:26:33,800
Speaker 1: child relationships. Like you know, I know a lot of

501
00:26:33,800 --> 00:26:37,160
Speaker 1: tension as kids get into like adolescent and teenage years,

502
00:26:37,240 --> 00:26:41,719
Speaker 1: is like parents exercising a level of sort of management

503
00:26:41,800 --> 00:26:44,680
Speaker 1: and protectiveness that would have been more appropriate to a

504
00:26:44,800 --> 00:26:47,240
Speaker 1: child at a younger age, or so the teenager thinks.

505
00:26:47,800 --> 00:26:50,199
Speaker 1: And you know, a teenager that thinks like that, you know,

506
00:26:50,520 --> 00:26:52,879
Speaker 1: you are still treating me as if I'm younger and

507
00:26:52,920 --> 00:26:56,120
Speaker 1: I don't and I rebel against that. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

508
00:26:56,200 --> 00:27:00,200
Speaker 1: I think absolutely. Um there's also and there's him and

509
00:27:00,240 --> 00:27:02,600
Speaker 1: gets into this a bit too. There's you know that

510
00:27:02,720 --> 00:27:07,240
Speaker 1: they're there's certainly uh he discusses the mockery, the mockery thing, um,

511
00:27:07,280 --> 00:27:11,440
Speaker 1: the idea that that we that dad's then continue to

512
00:27:11,520 --> 00:27:14,920
Speaker 1: use dad jokes as a way to kind of, um, uh,

513
00:27:14,920 --> 00:27:16,879
Speaker 1: you know, get a rise out of the child, and

514
00:27:16,920 --> 00:27:19,520
Speaker 1: then the child kind of mocks them for using that humor.

515
00:27:20,160 --> 00:27:24,439
Speaker 1: But he also gets into this idea that um, that

516
00:27:24,560 --> 00:27:26,800
Speaker 1: it's a lot of it's tied up with with nostalgia.

517
00:27:27,119 --> 00:27:29,119
Speaker 1: So first of all, there's of course the nostalgia for

518
00:27:29,359 --> 00:27:32,080
Speaker 1: when your child was younger and they laughed at everything

519
00:27:32,119 --> 00:27:35,000
Speaker 1: you said. Uh, and you're the funniest person on earth.

520
00:27:35,280 --> 00:27:39,879
Speaker 1: But also, um, he says that that basically dad jokes

521
00:27:39,960 --> 00:27:44,000
Speaker 1: give us permission to joke like children again. Uh, you know,

522
00:27:44,080 --> 00:27:46,400
Speaker 1: just to give us permission to make these kind of

523
00:27:46,960 --> 00:27:50,320
Speaker 1: you know, lame short, you know, not too not too

524
00:27:50,359 --> 00:27:54,840
Speaker 1: deep jokes that are that are you know, usually pretty tame. Um.

525
00:27:54,880 --> 00:27:56,639
Speaker 1: And it's I feel like it's part of that larger

526
00:27:56,680 --> 00:27:59,600
Speaker 1: trend in the way that parenthood gives one permission to

527
00:27:59,680 --> 00:28:02,520
Speaker 1: a point to think and dream like a child again,

528
00:28:02,600 --> 00:28:05,000
Speaker 1: because you dream with them, you introduced them to the

529
00:28:05,040 --> 00:28:08,520
Speaker 1: stuff that filled your childhood engage, and you yourself get

530
00:28:08,560 --> 00:28:11,320
Speaker 1: to engage with all of it again. Um. Like I

531
00:28:11,359 --> 00:28:13,760
Speaker 1: mean example for that with with that for me would

532
00:28:13,760 --> 00:28:16,159
Speaker 1: be like Star Wars. I introduced my son to Star Wars.

533
00:28:16,359 --> 00:28:18,560
Speaker 1: He got super into it, and I would say I

534
00:28:18,640 --> 00:28:21,400
Speaker 1: probably got more into it than I had ever been

535
00:28:21,440 --> 00:28:23,360
Speaker 1: in my life, like even more than I was when

536
00:28:23,359 --> 00:28:26,920
Speaker 1: I was a kid, because I am experiencing it through him.

537
00:28:26,960 --> 00:28:30,119
Speaker 1: Now I witnessed this just through you. Like you you

538
00:28:30,160 --> 00:28:34,280
Speaker 1: went through a Star Wars renaissance in the past four years. Yeah, yeah,

539
00:28:34,359 --> 00:28:36,840
Speaker 1: and um and it's I don't think it would have

540
00:28:36,840 --> 00:28:38,720
Speaker 1: taken place without him. I mean maybe it would have.

541
00:28:38,800 --> 00:28:41,960
Speaker 1: You know, people still go on these various nostalgia cycles

542
00:28:42,000 --> 00:28:44,720
Speaker 1: and um, and I certainly do that with things that

543
00:28:44,800 --> 00:28:49,600
Speaker 1: have no connection to my son. Um. But uh, but

544
00:28:49,600 --> 00:28:52,360
Speaker 1: but but I I can definitely see how how parenthood

545
00:28:52,400 --> 00:28:55,160
Speaker 1: plays into it. So so yeah, nostalgia seems to be

546
00:28:55,200 --> 00:28:58,560
Speaker 1: a big point. And then he also points out the puns.

547
00:28:58,960 --> 00:29:01,720
Speaker 1: One thing about puns is that puns are in and

548
00:29:01,760 --> 00:29:05,520
Speaker 1: of themselves pretty great. You don't have to be a

549
00:29:05,600 --> 00:29:08,040
Speaker 1: parent or a dad or what have you to really

550
00:29:08,120 --> 00:29:12,440
Speaker 1: enjoy puns. Uh. Shakespeare made use of puns, and I

551
00:29:12,520 --> 00:29:16,000
Speaker 1: can think of plenty of of of adults, parents and

552
00:29:16,040 --> 00:29:18,720
Speaker 1: non appearance alike who go crazy for a good pun.

553
00:29:19,000 --> 00:29:21,880
Speaker 1: I feel like the adult pun market, though, tends to

554
00:29:21,920 --> 00:29:27,040
Speaker 1: skew more towards uh rewarding puns that violates some taboo

555
00:29:27,120 --> 00:29:30,480
Speaker 1: beyond just the standard understood definition or use of a word,

556
00:29:30,880 --> 00:29:33,400
Speaker 1: like a lot of adult puns are also sort of

557
00:29:33,520 --> 00:29:37,040
Speaker 1: vulgar or edgy in some way. Yeah, and certainly true

558
00:29:37,040 --> 00:29:39,880
Speaker 1: of a lot of Shakespeare puns. Yeah, yeah, in a

559
00:29:39,920 --> 00:29:41,520
Speaker 1: way though. I think that's one of the things that

560
00:29:41,560 --> 00:29:44,880
Speaker 1: makes things like um, where did Washington keep his h

561
00:29:45,360 --> 00:29:48,200
Speaker 1: his his armies? Like? One of the reasons that works

562
00:29:48,240 --> 00:29:50,800
Speaker 1: so well and it sticks with me so well, is

563
00:29:50,840 --> 00:29:55,680
Speaker 1: because most uh comedy aimed at adults by adults, Uh,

564
00:29:55,840 --> 00:29:57,640
Speaker 1: isn't it. You know it's gonna go for those those

565
00:29:57,680 --> 00:30:01,160
Speaker 1: cheaper laughs and those edgy or laughs, and your your

566
00:30:01,160 --> 00:30:03,400
Speaker 1: defenses are down for these sort of weapons. It's kind

567
00:30:03,440 --> 00:30:05,800
Speaker 1: of like in um in Frank Herbert's done, where they

568
00:30:05,800 --> 00:30:09,200
Speaker 1: have the self protective shields and you can't fire a

569
00:30:09,240 --> 00:30:11,880
Speaker 1: bullet through it, and you can't like quickly stabbed through it.

570
00:30:11,920 --> 00:30:14,280
Speaker 1: You have to go slow. It's like that's kind of

571
00:30:14,320 --> 00:30:17,440
Speaker 1: how the the tame humor can be. It's like, I

572
00:30:17,480 --> 00:30:20,480
Speaker 1: had my defenses were not designed for a blade this slow,

573
00:30:20,600 --> 00:30:22,480
Speaker 1: and now you have stabbed me in the heart. The

574
00:30:22,600 --> 00:30:25,760
Speaker 1: dad joke is in a way the weirding module. Yeah,

575
00:30:26,000 --> 00:30:28,480
Speaker 1: it trains you on the slow knife combat of of

576
00:30:28,560 --> 00:30:33,840
Speaker 1: pun humor. Yeah. Um. Now, another thing that the Zenoman

577
00:30:33,840 --> 00:30:35,600
Speaker 1: got into that I thought was interesting was touching on

578
00:30:35,640 --> 00:30:37,680
Speaker 1: when you get into this area where a dad or

579
00:30:37,840 --> 00:30:40,280
Speaker 1: you know, a parent is making this dad joke, this

580
00:30:40,280 --> 00:30:43,320
Speaker 1: this kind of lame joke that then it lects size

581
00:30:43,360 --> 00:30:47,320
Speaker 1: and groans from everyone in the room. You're also getting

582
00:30:47,360 --> 00:30:52,160
Speaker 1: into the area of of cringe comedy here, um, which

583
00:30:52,240 --> 00:30:53,680
Speaker 1: which I think is is a good point. Like we

584
00:30:53,680 --> 00:30:58,600
Speaker 1: don't necessarily think of, say The Office as being dad

585
00:30:58,680 --> 00:31:01,040
Speaker 1: jokes and dad humor, but there was a lot of

586
00:31:01,080 --> 00:31:03,840
Speaker 1: that there. I mean, the character of Michael Scott, for example,

587
00:31:03,960 --> 00:31:06,480
Speaker 1: engage in a lot of this making like really bad

588
00:31:07,000 --> 00:31:11,200
Speaker 1: uh jokes, really lame attempts at humor and u and

589
00:31:11,280 --> 00:31:13,440
Speaker 1: it was hilarious. We loved it. Well, yeah, that kind

590
00:31:13,440 --> 00:31:16,440
Speaker 1: of cringe comedy, like the comedy that's based in witnessing

591
00:31:16,520 --> 00:31:21,880
Speaker 1: something somebody do something incredibly embarrassing and like just fail

592
00:31:22,160 --> 00:31:25,040
Speaker 1: in front of an audience. It's a weird kind of

593
00:31:25,520 --> 00:31:28,960
Speaker 1: mixture of humor and it's something that feels like it's

594
00:31:28,960 --> 00:31:32,480
Speaker 1: simultaneously relatively wholesome and doesn't have to get into you know,

595
00:31:32,680 --> 00:31:36,600
Speaker 1: like like raunchy content, but at the same time feels

596
00:31:36,640 --> 00:31:41,200
Speaker 1: absolutely as dangerous as like the most raunchy blue comedy,

597
00:31:41,960 --> 00:31:45,880
Speaker 1: just because it's so like painful, it's like emotionally visceral

598
00:31:46,280 --> 00:31:52,240
Speaker 1: to watch embarrassment based humor. Yeah yeah, um. Now, speaking

599
00:31:52,240 --> 00:31:56,400
Speaker 1: of stand up when when Nyman got into this idea

600
00:31:56,440 --> 00:31:59,080
Speaker 1: as well, that you know that the dad joke is

601
00:31:59,120 --> 00:32:02,080
Speaker 1: generally not only haim, it's also very lean. You know,

602
00:32:02,200 --> 00:32:04,440
Speaker 1: it's it's it doesn't take much time to tell, it's

603
00:32:04,440 --> 00:32:08,520
Speaker 1: not complicated. This reminded me a lot of the stand

604
00:32:08,600 --> 00:32:11,320
Speaker 1: up comedy of the late Mitch Hedberg, but also some

605
00:32:11,400 --> 00:32:12,840
Speaker 1: of the I guess a lot of the comedy of

606
00:32:12,840 --> 00:32:16,160
Speaker 1: Stephen Wright. Uh not to say that those uh, those

607
00:32:16,200 --> 00:32:20,680
Speaker 1: two engaged in and really straightforward dad jokes, but a

608
00:32:20,680 --> 00:32:23,360
Speaker 1: lot of it was very short. Um, a lot of

609
00:32:23,400 --> 00:32:28,160
Speaker 1: it was ultimately very clean, uh, very silly, you know,

610
00:32:28,320 --> 00:32:30,640
Speaker 1: in a in their their own way, I mean, right

611
00:32:30,760 --> 00:32:35,040
Speaker 1: is was certainly very dry. Uh. But whereas like like Hedberg,

612
00:32:35,080 --> 00:32:37,240
Speaker 1: I feel like he he was an interesting case because

613
00:32:37,400 --> 00:32:38,720
Speaker 1: he kind of got away with it because they have

614
00:32:38,800 --> 00:32:42,840
Speaker 1: this cool, stoner persona, but he's essentially in many cases

615
00:32:42,880 --> 00:32:45,080
Speaker 1: just doing like kind of dad jokes. And I guess,

616
00:32:45,200 --> 00:32:47,160
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes it's a little lunear than that. And

617
00:32:47,320 --> 00:32:50,880
Speaker 1: Stephen Wright has this very extremely dry delivery and it's

618
00:32:50,920 --> 00:32:53,400
Speaker 1: based uh uh you know, and it's it's sort of

619
00:32:53,400 --> 00:32:57,560
Speaker 1: a weirdness. Um. But you could look at this dad

620
00:32:57,640 --> 00:32:59,560
Speaker 1: jokes as being just kind of like the latest, most

621
00:32:59,560 --> 00:33:03,160
Speaker 1: popular or way to categorize a kind of style of

622
00:33:03,240 --> 00:33:07,440
Speaker 1: joke telling that maybe isn't, um, you know, the main

623
00:33:07,520 --> 00:33:11,040
Speaker 1: fashion right now, but hasn't been more fashionable in the

624
00:33:11,120 --> 00:33:15,040
Speaker 1: in the past, and is still utilized well by certain

625
00:33:15,080 --> 00:33:19,440
Speaker 1: practitioners of comedy. Yeah, the self contained one liner seems

626
00:33:19,520 --> 00:33:22,600
Speaker 1: important here, though I wonder if some I mean, I

627
00:33:22,640 --> 00:33:24,600
Speaker 1: don't know, maybe I have the wrong sense about this.

628
00:33:25,000 --> 00:33:27,800
Speaker 1: Uh So, a lot of like Mitch Hedberg type jokes,

629
00:33:27,880 --> 00:33:29,880
Speaker 1: a lot of them seem to hinge on a kind

630
00:33:29,960 --> 00:33:33,320
Speaker 1: of absurdity, which I don't know how well it translates

631
00:33:33,360 --> 00:33:35,400
Speaker 1: to kids or not. I think about his joke where

632
00:33:35,440 --> 00:33:38,760
Speaker 1: he says, um, rice is a great food if you

633
00:33:38,800 --> 00:33:42,760
Speaker 1: ever want to eat a thousand of something. I find

634
00:33:42,800 --> 00:33:46,160
Speaker 1: that funny. Is that funny to kids? Maybe? Um, I mean,

635
00:33:46,200 --> 00:33:48,640
Speaker 1: I don't know about that particular joke, but maybe like

636
00:33:48,760 --> 00:33:51,680
Speaker 1: kids have, kids are great at absurdity, Like kids are

637
00:33:51,680 --> 00:33:54,720
Speaker 1: a font of absurdity. Um. I mean, that's one of

638
00:33:54,720 --> 00:33:57,000
Speaker 1: the reasons they can be they can be so amusing

639
00:33:57,040 --> 00:34:01,160
Speaker 1: to be around. Um. So, so it was very possible.

640
00:34:01,280 --> 00:34:03,480
Speaker 1: I mean that one's I mean, I'm not even sure

641
00:34:03,480 --> 00:34:05,200
Speaker 1: if I could put my finger on what it is

642
00:34:05,280 --> 00:34:09,920
Speaker 1: that's funny about that one. I guess it's just imagining

643
00:34:10,000 --> 00:34:13,280
Speaker 1: the possibility of eating a thousand hamburgers or a thousand

644
00:34:13,280 --> 00:34:16,680
Speaker 1: of anything else. Yeah, yeah, I agree, it's just it's

645
00:34:16,760 --> 00:34:20,439
Speaker 1: it's absurd. Um it turns something every day on its

646
00:34:20,440 --> 00:34:23,799
Speaker 1: head and makes you and like makes it weird. Uh.

647
00:34:23,840 --> 00:34:26,479
Speaker 1: So that's I feel like I will have to try

648
00:34:26,520 --> 00:34:29,480
Speaker 1: this one on my son later and report back. I'm

649
00:34:29,480 --> 00:34:31,560
Speaker 1: not gonna let him watch a whole set of Mitch Hedberg,

650
00:34:31,640 --> 00:34:33,520
Speaker 1: but maybe I'll bust out a few Mitch Hedburg and

651
00:34:33,560 --> 00:34:36,520
Speaker 1: a little Steven Right and see see how he reacts,

652
00:34:36,719 --> 00:34:44,960
Speaker 1: see which one he likes. Bet thank you? Okay, Well,

653
00:34:45,000 --> 00:34:47,880
Speaker 1: I thought one way to to try to bring some structure,

654
00:34:48,400 --> 00:34:51,960
Speaker 1: uh to this idea would be to think about theories

655
00:34:52,000 --> 00:34:54,480
Speaker 1: of humor. Now, even this is is still going to

656
00:34:54,520 --> 00:34:57,400
Speaker 1: be a little bit loose, because there's clearly not one

657
00:34:57,600 --> 00:35:02,000
Speaker 1: agreed upon um theory that explains the role of humor

658
00:35:02,120 --> 00:35:05,200
Speaker 1: in biological organisms. We we've talked about this in the past,

659
00:35:05,200 --> 00:35:09,080
Speaker 1: but so there are different attempts that psychologists, UH and

660
00:35:09,200 --> 00:35:13,760
Speaker 1: cognitive scientists have put forward in trying to explain why

661
00:35:13,960 --> 00:35:17,360
Speaker 1: we laugh at things, like what's actually happening in the brain,

662
00:35:17,560 --> 00:35:21,680
Speaker 1: what is humor in a biological sense? And UH, I

663
00:35:21,719 --> 00:35:24,959
Speaker 1: think the place where most recently we went into depth

664
00:35:25,080 --> 00:35:28,160
Speaker 1: on this subject was in our two part series called

665
00:35:28,200 --> 00:35:31,360
Speaker 1: Flat a Sex Makina, which was about why it's funny

666
00:35:31,400 --> 00:35:35,960
Speaker 1: when machines fail, where we talked about neural net generated text,

667
00:35:36,040 --> 00:35:37,759
Speaker 1: which was a lot of fun We talked about like

668
00:35:37,840 --> 00:35:41,120
Speaker 1: D and D characters and spells and stuff created by

669
00:35:42,000 --> 00:35:46,120
Speaker 1: neural networks, but that we also talked about about like

670
00:35:46,320 --> 00:35:49,000
Speaker 1: scenes where like robots fail in movies like ED two

671
00:35:49,000 --> 00:35:53,960
Speaker 1: O nine in RoboCop, which is a stairs yeah. Um.

672
00:35:54,000 --> 00:35:56,920
Speaker 1: But so in that context we were trying to figure out, okay, well, well,

673
00:35:56,960 --> 00:36:00,520
Speaker 1: how does this fit into these mainstream hypothesis is about

674
00:36:00,600 --> 00:36:03,040
Speaker 1: what is going on in the body and the brain

675
00:36:03,560 --> 00:36:07,320
Speaker 1: and our evolutionary history to generate this concept of humor.

676
00:36:07,360 --> 00:36:09,920
Speaker 1: Why are things funny? Why does it feel funny? Why

677
00:36:09,920 --> 00:36:12,040
Speaker 1: do we laugh? And so forth. And so there are

678
00:36:12,040 --> 00:36:13,719
Speaker 1: a bunch of ideas on this. We're not going to

679
00:36:13,800 --> 00:36:16,480
Speaker 1: get into all of them, certainly, not in depth, but

680
00:36:16,600 --> 00:36:18,719
Speaker 1: I just wanted to mention a few One that came up,

681
00:36:18,760 --> 00:36:21,879
Speaker 1: I think from a biologist or zoologist that we were

682
00:36:21,880 --> 00:36:24,960
Speaker 1: reading that time, But it was the idea of laughter

683
00:36:25,400 --> 00:36:28,480
Speaker 1: as a form of play signaling. And I thought that

684
00:36:28,520 --> 00:36:31,279
Speaker 1: this idea had some purchase. It was pretty interesting. So

685
00:36:31,520 --> 00:36:35,279
Speaker 1: the idea here would be that laughing is actually a

686
00:36:35,360 --> 00:36:41,840
Speaker 1: kind of communicative mechanism to distinguish playful aggression from genuine aggression.

687
00:36:41,960 --> 00:36:44,960
Speaker 1: So if you ever watch dogs fighting, they can be

688
00:36:45,040 --> 00:36:49,239
Speaker 1: making all kinds of growling sounds and knocking each other

689
00:36:49,320 --> 00:36:52,080
Speaker 1: over and all that, but you can still pretty easily

690
00:36:52,200 --> 00:36:56,719
Speaker 1: tell fun fighting from real fighting by the dog's posture.

691
00:36:56,800 --> 00:36:59,879
Speaker 1: Like when a dog is having fun, it'll like put

692
00:36:59,880 --> 00:37:01,560
Speaker 1: it's butt up in the air, in the front of

693
00:37:01,560 --> 00:37:04,960
Speaker 1: its body down and wag its tail. And so they

694
00:37:04,960 --> 00:37:07,399
Speaker 1: can be fighting, but you know, we know everybody's having

695
00:37:07,400 --> 00:37:09,839
Speaker 1: a good time. Yeah, you can definitely tell from their

696
00:37:09,840 --> 00:37:12,719
Speaker 1: body language when they're they're dead serious and when it's

697
00:37:12,960 --> 00:37:15,319
Speaker 1: it's play. Yeah, And so the idea would be, well,

698
00:37:15,400 --> 00:37:20,480
Speaker 1: maybe in in primates like us laughter play some kind

699
00:37:20,520 --> 00:37:23,239
Speaker 1: of similar role. It is a it's a mechanism like

700
00:37:23,360 --> 00:37:28,400
Speaker 1: the wagging tail, to signal mutual communication between parties that

701
00:37:28,680 --> 00:37:31,960
Speaker 1: something that's going on that might be interpreted in one way,

702
00:37:32,120 --> 00:37:34,680
Speaker 1: maybe in a dangerous way, is actually just to be

703
00:37:34,719 --> 00:37:37,480
Speaker 1: interpreted in a humorous way, in a fun way, that

704
00:37:37,560 --> 00:37:42,279
Speaker 1: everything's okay. And so it discourages misinterpretation of mock aggression.

705
00:37:42,920 --> 00:37:46,040
Speaker 1: And I can certainly see something to this, because it

706
00:37:46,160 --> 00:37:48,920
Speaker 1: is it is undeniable, like this this natural thing that

707
00:37:49,000 --> 00:37:52,799
Speaker 1: happens that when kids like wrestle for fun or they're

708
00:37:52,800 --> 00:37:55,759
Speaker 1: just playing around, it results in laughter. You know, this

709
00:37:55,840 --> 00:37:58,960
Speaker 1: makes me think about tone and contact with sarcasm again,

710
00:37:59,040 --> 00:38:03,680
Speaker 1: because there I've certainly had this experience where I've I've

711
00:38:03,719 --> 00:38:08,080
Speaker 1: told I've made a dry joke that that is supposed

712
00:38:08,120 --> 00:38:10,760
Speaker 1: to be a joke, but I did it so dryly

713
00:38:11,280 --> 00:38:13,480
Speaker 1: that that my son doesn't catch it at first, and

714
00:38:13,520 --> 00:38:14,920
Speaker 1: then I have to explain to him, no, no no, no,

715
00:38:15,000 --> 00:38:18,000
Speaker 1: I'm not serious, um you know, not that he's upset,

716
00:38:18,040 --> 00:38:20,120
Speaker 1: but he's like, really, that's really gonna happen, Like he

717
00:38:20,200 --> 00:38:22,040
Speaker 1: completely falls for it. And then I feel a little

718
00:38:22,080 --> 00:38:24,920
Speaker 1: bit bad because my main job here is not to

719
00:38:24,960 --> 00:38:28,279
Speaker 1: make jokes. It's it's to raise a child that knows

720
00:38:28,320 --> 00:38:31,560
Speaker 1: how the world works or has some reasonable knowledge of

721
00:38:31,560 --> 00:38:35,080
Speaker 1: how the world works. And so maybe I want I

722
00:38:35,120 --> 00:38:36,880
Speaker 1: wonder this is I have nothing to back this up,

723
00:38:37,000 --> 00:38:41,239
Speaker 1: but maybe parents end up leaning more on tone. They

724
00:38:41,280 --> 00:38:43,719
Speaker 1: pick up on on the fact that they need that

725
00:38:43,760 --> 00:38:46,399
Speaker 1: tone to understand the joke, and so you just lean

726
00:38:46,440 --> 00:38:48,600
Speaker 1: into it more and more, and you keep leaning into

727
00:38:48,640 --> 00:38:53,239
Speaker 1: it until you're just a complete hack. Yeah, that's interesting.

728
00:38:53,280 --> 00:38:55,840
Speaker 1: I didn't think about it like that, but yeah, because

729
00:38:55,960 --> 00:38:59,680
Speaker 1: tone would be so important in in establishing this kind

730
00:38:59,680 --> 00:39:02,160
Speaker 1: of really ship with a kid. Yeah, Like, why does

731
00:39:02,320 --> 00:39:04,960
Speaker 1: why does dad basically put clown makeup on every time

732
00:39:04,960 --> 00:39:07,120
Speaker 1: he makes a joke? Well, because he feels like he

733
00:39:07,160 --> 00:39:09,319
Speaker 1: needs to signal that he is not telling you how

734
00:39:09,360 --> 00:39:11,759
Speaker 1: the world worked, He's just trying to make a joke

735
00:39:11,800 --> 00:39:14,480
Speaker 1: about the world. I nothing to back that up, but

736
00:39:14,520 --> 00:39:19,200
Speaker 1: I'm just just just you know, um brainstorming here. No,

737
00:39:19,400 --> 00:39:21,600
Speaker 1: I think there's something really too that we should keep

738
00:39:21,600 --> 00:39:24,840
Speaker 1: that in mind. Um. Now, on on the other hand,

739
00:39:25,200 --> 00:39:27,640
Speaker 1: as we talked about the last time this came up

740
00:39:27,640 --> 00:39:32,080
Speaker 1: in that Machine Comedy episode, Uh, there are obviously ways

741
00:39:32,080 --> 00:39:35,080
Speaker 1: in which all of these major theories don't seem to

742
00:39:35,080 --> 00:39:38,200
Speaker 1: account for some types of laughter and some types of humor,

743
00:39:38,719 --> 00:39:41,120
Speaker 1: which makes me think, you know, it could very well

744
00:39:41,160 --> 00:39:45,560
Speaker 1: be that multiple theories of humor could simultaneously be partially

745
00:39:45,640 --> 00:39:49,040
Speaker 1: correct and explaining different types of laughter. I mean, we

746
00:39:49,080 --> 00:39:53,719
Speaker 1: can't rule out that laughter could have different biological causes

747
00:39:53,920 --> 00:39:57,560
Speaker 1: converging on the same external behavior, much in the same

748
00:39:57,600 --> 00:40:01,600
Speaker 1: way that like multiple extremely different, you know, biological causes

749
00:40:01,600 --> 00:40:05,120
Speaker 1: can result in an elevated heart rate. Maybe multiple totally

750
00:40:05,120 --> 00:40:09,160
Speaker 1: different biological causes, uh that you know, have different evolutionary

751
00:40:09,200 --> 00:40:12,880
Speaker 1: pathways of development could eventually converge on the same type

752
00:40:12,880 --> 00:40:15,680
Speaker 1: of body response, which is the pleasure of humor in

753
00:40:15,719 --> 00:40:18,760
Speaker 1: the brain and the external behavior of laughing. That that's possible.

754
00:40:18,840 --> 00:40:21,960
Speaker 1: So maybe each of these explanations has some part of

755
00:40:22,000 --> 00:40:24,160
Speaker 1: the truth. But the reason you would need to say

756
00:40:24,160 --> 00:40:26,080
Speaker 1: that is that, like, some of these explanations don't really

757
00:40:26,080 --> 00:40:29,160
Speaker 1: seem like they would cover certain types of humor, like

758
00:40:29,320 --> 00:40:33,560
Speaker 1: especially play signaling. I mean, does how would that really

759
00:40:33,600 --> 00:40:36,360
Speaker 1: affect something like puns? It seems kind of hard to

760
00:40:36,400 --> 00:40:41,160
Speaker 1: figure that out. Ye. Now, another major explanation of what's

761
00:40:41,160 --> 00:40:44,560
Speaker 1: going on when when people experience the feeling of humor

762
00:40:44,880 --> 00:40:49,360
Speaker 1: is what's known as benign violation theory. One study we

763
00:40:49,360 --> 00:40:51,040
Speaker 1: talked about in the past having to do with this

764
00:40:51,160 --> 00:40:54,600
Speaker 1: was by Peter A. McGraw and Caleb Warren called Benign

765
00:40:54,719 --> 00:40:59,400
Speaker 1: Violations Making immoral Behavior Funny, published in Psychological Science in

766
00:40:59,440 --> 00:41:02,720
Speaker 1: two thousands. Him and this study looked at the idea

767
00:41:03,360 --> 00:41:08,239
Speaker 1: of humor as some kind of violation of norms that

768
00:41:08,440 --> 00:41:11,920
Speaker 1: is recognized by the person who finds it funny as

769
00:41:12,040 --> 00:41:15,640
Speaker 1: not actually very harmful. Uh So, the example they used

770
00:41:15,640 --> 00:41:19,360
Speaker 1: in their study was they they confronted people with a

771
00:41:19,400 --> 00:41:22,759
Speaker 1: news story about a church that had raffled off a

772
00:41:22,840 --> 00:41:26,560
Speaker 1: Hummer suv as part of a promotion for its members,

773
00:41:26,800 --> 00:41:30,759
Speaker 1: for the church goers. And so the thinking here is

774
00:41:30,800 --> 00:41:33,239
Speaker 1: that obviously to some people, that's going to be kind

775
00:41:33,239 --> 00:41:35,440
Speaker 1: of a funny idea, right, like doing a sort of

776
00:41:35,520 --> 00:41:38,880
Speaker 1: secular like car giveaway at a church would seem to

777
00:41:38,960 --> 00:41:42,399
Speaker 1: in some way undermine the sanctity of the church. And

778
00:41:42,440 --> 00:41:46,440
Speaker 1: they they figured under their theory, well that maybe church

779
00:41:46,520 --> 00:41:51,279
Speaker 1: goers would find this story less funny because they would

780
00:41:51,360 --> 00:41:54,759
Speaker 1: see this violation of the sanctity of the church as

781
00:41:54,840 --> 00:41:58,800
Speaker 1: more actually harmful than non churchgoers would. And they wouldn't

782
00:41:58,800 --> 00:42:01,480
Speaker 1: find it as funny if humor is indeed based on

783
00:42:01,520 --> 00:42:04,400
Speaker 1: the idea of a benign violation, and that is what

784
00:42:04,440 --> 00:42:06,600
Speaker 1: they claimed to find in this study. They found that

785
00:42:06,719 --> 00:42:10,960
Speaker 1: churchgoers and non churchgoers were both about equally disgusted with

786
00:42:11,080 --> 00:42:13,440
Speaker 1: the idea of a church giving away a car, but

787
00:42:13,520 --> 00:42:16,840
Speaker 1: they found that non churchgoers found the story more humorous

788
00:42:16,840 --> 00:42:19,000
Speaker 1: than churchgoers did. So I think it was like nine

789
00:42:19,239 --> 00:42:22,520
Speaker 1: tent to sixty. So the idea would be that non

790
00:42:22,600 --> 00:42:26,640
Speaker 1: churchgoers saw this as a benign violation, churchgoers saw it

791
00:42:26,680 --> 00:42:30,799
Speaker 1: as a real harmful violation. And in that other episode,

792
00:42:30,680 --> 00:42:33,560
Speaker 1: we we talked about a bunch of reasons why this

793
00:42:33,920 --> 00:42:37,640
Speaker 1: might and might not work to explain certain types of humor, Like,

794
00:42:37,800 --> 00:42:40,200
Speaker 1: there are a lot of things that are clearly benign

795
00:42:40,360 --> 00:42:43,640
Speaker 1: types of violations that just aren't funny. But then again,

796
00:42:43,800 --> 00:42:45,960
Speaker 1: a lot of the things that are funny are some

797
00:42:46,080 --> 00:42:49,400
Speaker 1: type of benign violation. You could see easily how you

798
00:42:49,400 --> 00:42:52,840
Speaker 1: could make them not funny by either making them not

799
00:42:53,000 --> 00:42:56,000
Speaker 1: a violation at all, or by making them such a

800
00:42:56,080 --> 00:43:00,880
Speaker 1: violation that they actually hurt someone. Yeah. I in the past,

801
00:43:00,880 --> 00:43:05,160
Speaker 1: I've definitely seen the nine violation theory being one that

802
00:43:06,320 --> 00:43:09,600
Speaker 1: that feels feels accurate, like I can I can feel

803
00:43:10,920 --> 00:43:14,160
Speaker 1: it feels like that's what's going on in various jokes.

804
00:43:14,360 --> 00:43:17,200
Speaker 1: But again, I would be hesitant to to assign all

805
00:43:17,360 --> 00:43:19,640
Speaker 1: humor to this one theory. Yeah, this seems to me

806
00:43:19,760 --> 00:43:22,839
Speaker 1: like one that maybe sort of grasping in the right direction.

807
00:43:23,080 --> 00:43:25,680
Speaker 1: But but that might not have the full contours of

808
00:43:25,719 --> 00:43:28,440
Speaker 1: exactly what makes something funny or not, because there are

809
00:43:28,320 --> 00:43:30,600
Speaker 1: the I mean, there are plenty of cases where things

810
00:43:30,719 --> 00:43:34,520
Speaker 1: are clearly truly harmful and people still find them funny.

811
00:43:35,040 --> 00:43:37,960
Speaker 1: Like sometimes even against your better judgment, like you might

812
00:43:38,640 --> 00:43:41,400
Speaker 1: something might happen that is clearly harmful in one way

813
00:43:41,480 --> 00:43:43,560
Speaker 1: or another, and you find it funny even though you

814
00:43:43,600 --> 00:43:46,240
Speaker 1: feel like you shouldn't, and you feel bad for finding

815
00:43:46,239 --> 00:43:49,680
Speaker 1: it funny. Yeah, but but sometimes they are funnier, like

816
00:43:49,840 --> 00:43:52,920
Speaker 1: knowing that everyone is okay, Like I've seen that that

817
00:43:53,280 --> 00:43:57,279
Speaker 1: disclaimer placed in front of the sharing of various like

818
00:43:57,320 --> 00:43:59,800
Speaker 1: amusing video clips these days, where it will be stressed

819
00:44:00,120 --> 00:44:03,640
Speaker 1: everybody was fine, nobody was actually killed or seriously wounded

820
00:44:03,680 --> 00:44:05,880
Speaker 1: in what you're about to see. Therefore you have you

821
00:44:05,920 --> 00:44:08,680
Speaker 1: have license to actually laugh at it. Now, there's another

822
00:44:08,680 --> 00:44:10,920
Speaker 1: one we talked about just briefly in that other episode

823
00:44:11,280 --> 00:44:16,040
Speaker 1: that was called the incongruity resolution theory, and essentially that says,

824
00:44:16,120 --> 00:44:20,880
Speaker 1: when there is a mismatch between expectation and reality, you

825
00:44:20,920 --> 00:44:23,840
Speaker 1: expect things to be one way, but then there's something different.

826
00:44:24,120 --> 00:44:28,319
Speaker 1: Laughter occurs when we realized that this incongruity can be resolved.

827
00:44:28,640 --> 00:44:31,359
Speaker 1: So that's another way of framing something that is in

828
00:44:31,400 --> 00:44:34,400
Speaker 1: some ways kind of similar. But there's one last one

829
00:44:34,440 --> 00:44:36,920
Speaker 1: I wanted to talk about that I've been thinking about

830
00:44:36,960 --> 00:44:39,919
Speaker 1: more and more since we discussed in since we talked

831
00:44:39,920 --> 00:44:42,240
Speaker 1: about it in in that plate s X Market episode.

832
00:44:42,960 --> 00:44:46,600
Speaker 1: And this is thinking about laughter from an evolutionary perspective.

833
00:44:47,640 --> 00:44:49,839
Speaker 1: So one of the things that is really notable about

834
00:44:49,920 --> 00:44:55,120
Speaker 1: laughter is it's not just an external behavior. Laughter is pleasurable.

835
00:44:55,239 --> 00:44:59,800
Speaker 1: It feels good. You like specifically seek out stimuli to

836
00:45:00,040 --> 00:45:02,479
Speaker 1: make yourself laugh, just in the same way you would

837
00:45:02,800 --> 00:45:06,040
Speaker 1: seek out like delicious food. It feels good and you

838
00:45:06,080 --> 00:45:10,360
Speaker 1: want it to keep happening. Uh. Usually, pleasure is a

839
00:45:10,480 --> 00:45:15,799
Speaker 1: biological reward. The brain delivers itself pleasure in response to

840
00:45:15,840 --> 00:45:19,480
Speaker 1: an activity that provides some kind of direct or indirect

841
00:45:19,560 --> 00:45:22,680
Speaker 1: benefit to survival or reproduction. And these, of course you

842
00:45:22,680 --> 00:45:24,920
Speaker 1: know in the case of direct benefits, you can think

843
00:45:24,960 --> 00:45:27,640
Speaker 1: about the obvious stuff you know, food, food tastes good

844
00:45:27,680 --> 00:45:30,520
Speaker 1: because you need it to give yourself energy and survive.

845
00:45:31,000 --> 00:45:34,640
Speaker 1: Or it can be much more abstract, like socializing with

846
00:45:34,680 --> 00:45:37,799
Speaker 1: others can feel really good, and that's pretty clearly explicable,

847
00:45:37,800 --> 00:45:41,920
Speaker 1: and that it's the strengthening of social bonds and informing

848
00:45:42,200 --> 00:45:45,720
Speaker 1: you know, tighter relationships between yourselves and other people, which

849
00:45:45,760 --> 00:45:48,719
Speaker 1: which gives you more of a support structure, makes you

850
00:45:48,840 --> 00:45:51,319
Speaker 1: less vulnerable. Or you could think about the sense of

851
00:45:51,320 --> 00:45:55,520
Speaker 1: accomplishment you get from completing a task. So if laughter

852
00:45:55,760 --> 00:45:59,360
Speaker 1: is an adaptation that provides not just an external behavior

853
00:45:59,400 --> 00:46:04,480
Speaker 1: but internal pleasure reward, what is it rewarding? And one

854
00:46:04,520 --> 00:46:06,759
Speaker 1: answer that I that I came across to this is

855
00:46:06,840 --> 00:46:11,920
Speaker 1: that what if it's the brain rewarding itself for performing

856
00:46:12,080 --> 00:46:16,000
Speaker 1: a debugging procedure? Basically uh And this was an idea

857
00:46:16,040 --> 00:46:18,560
Speaker 1: explored in a two thousand eleven book from M I. T.

858
00:46:18,760 --> 00:46:23,960
Speaker 1: Press called Inside Jokes by Matthew Hurley, Daniel Dinnett, and

859
00:46:24,000 --> 00:46:27,799
Speaker 1: Reginald Adams Jr. And I have not read this book,

860
00:46:27,800 --> 00:46:30,799
Speaker 1: but I've read some summaries of the argument they make,

861
00:46:30,840 --> 00:46:35,200
Speaker 1: and essentially it is that humor is a pleasurable reward.

862
00:46:35,320 --> 00:46:38,680
Speaker 1: It's the you know, the reward inside the brain that

863
00:46:38,719 --> 00:46:44,360
Speaker 1: we get when we recognize the inappropriateness of a mental representation.

864
00:46:45,040 --> 00:46:47,799
Speaker 1: So in this all jokes basically have some form of

865
00:46:47,840 --> 00:46:50,920
Speaker 1: set up and punchline. Uh. The setup sort of puts

866
00:46:50,960 --> 00:46:54,880
Speaker 1: you in a state of mind to establish an inappropriate

867
00:46:55,000 --> 00:46:59,400
Speaker 1: or unrealistic mental representation, and then the punchline kind of

868
00:46:59,440 --> 00:47:04,839
Speaker 1: suddenly creates that inappropriate or incongruous mental representation. And then

869
00:47:04,880 --> 00:47:08,279
Speaker 1: what happens immediately after is that you suddenly figure out

870
00:47:08,320 --> 00:47:11,080
Speaker 1: what's wrong with the representation that's in your brain. So

871
00:47:11,120 --> 00:47:14,600
Speaker 1: in the Armies and Sleevies example, uh, you know, it's

872
00:47:14,640 --> 00:47:18,240
Speaker 1: like you suddenly have that moment where you realize, oh, oh,

873
00:47:18,280 --> 00:47:22,760
Speaker 1: I see yes, armies in this is just referring to arms,

874
00:47:23,200 --> 00:47:26,160
Speaker 1: and that is not how grammar works. You don't actually

875
00:47:26,200 --> 00:47:30,160
Speaker 1: say ease at the end of every noun. But then

876
00:47:30,200 --> 00:47:33,040
Speaker 1: the brain rewards you for going through that process of

877
00:47:33,160 --> 00:47:37,400
Speaker 1: debugging the problematic representation in your brain by giving you

878
00:47:37,520 --> 00:47:40,279
Speaker 1: this pleasurable feeling of humor that is in some ways

879
00:47:40,280 --> 00:47:42,720
Speaker 1: analogous to the pleasure that you would get from eating

880
00:47:42,719 --> 00:47:46,480
Speaker 1: delicious food or sleeping or something like that. And so

881
00:47:46,760 --> 00:47:50,040
Speaker 1: this really gets my brain going because I wonder about

882
00:47:50,040 --> 00:47:53,040
Speaker 1: this debugging interpretation. Obviously, you know, I think this would

883
00:47:53,080 --> 00:47:56,080
Speaker 1: have its critics as well, like all of these ideas do.

884
00:47:56,200 --> 00:47:58,839
Speaker 1: But I wonder if you could see evidence for this

885
00:47:58,960 --> 00:48:02,600
Speaker 1: debugging inter rotation in the special kinds of humor that

886
00:48:02,640 --> 00:48:07,399
Speaker 1: are especially effective with little kids but start getting groans

887
00:48:07,600 --> 00:48:11,279
Speaker 1: once the kids get older. Is a young brain in

888
00:48:11,320 --> 00:48:14,640
Speaker 1: a more frantic debugging phase? Is it? You know? Is

889
00:48:14,680 --> 00:48:18,720
Speaker 1: the young brain more apt to make an inappropriate mental

890
00:48:18,800 --> 00:48:22,560
Speaker 1: representation and then get a lot of pleasure from figuring

891
00:48:22,560 --> 00:48:26,120
Speaker 1: out no, that's not how words work, or something like that,

892
00:48:26,640 --> 00:48:29,399
Speaker 1: And uh? Is it? Is it? Also? Is the young

893
00:48:29,440 --> 00:48:32,480
Speaker 1: brain more susceptible to bugs of this kind in the

894
00:48:32,480 --> 00:48:34,680
Speaker 1: first place? You know, will will you sort of fall

895
00:48:34,800 --> 00:48:37,840
Speaker 1: for the setup and punchline in a way that makes

896
00:48:37,880 --> 00:48:40,839
Speaker 1: the debugging possible? No, yeah, I can I could see that.

897
00:48:41,040 --> 00:48:44,399
Speaker 1: Uh that playing a role here. Yeah, you're you're When

898
00:48:44,400 --> 00:48:46,839
Speaker 1: the sitcom dad wanders into the room and tells a joke,

899
00:48:46,920 --> 00:48:49,279
Speaker 1: He's not just trying to get some cheap laughs. He

900
00:48:49,360 --> 00:48:52,719
Speaker 1: is debugging the children's brains. He is, uh, he is

901
00:48:52,760 --> 00:48:56,239
Speaker 1: helping them sort out, uh, some possible errors in their

902
00:48:56,239 --> 00:49:01,080
Speaker 1: cognition by basically presenting them with with little um, a

903
00:49:01,719 --> 00:49:06,160
Speaker 1: little thought puzzles, little thought experiments that they have to

904
00:49:06,600 --> 00:49:09,440
Speaker 1: instantly deal with. I mean this does kind of go

905
00:49:09,520 --> 00:49:13,400
Speaker 1: along with another aspect of humor, which is that humor

906
00:49:13,640 --> 00:49:16,359
Speaker 1: often kind of gives you a little bit of a

907
00:49:16,400 --> 00:49:19,440
Speaker 1: feeling of being smart. Have you ever noticed this, Like

908
00:49:19,480 --> 00:49:22,160
Speaker 1: when when you laugh at something and something you find

909
00:49:22,239 --> 00:49:26,320
Speaker 1: something very funny. In the back of your mind, there's

910
00:49:26,400 --> 00:49:29,280
Speaker 1: almost kind of a little like, yeah, you're pretty smart,

911
00:49:29,440 --> 00:49:33,080
Speaker 1: you're a genius. Yeah. Yeah. To to get a joke,

912
00:49:33,120 --> 00:49:35,520
Speaker 1: To laugh at a joke is to sync up with

913
00:49:35,600 --> 00:49:39,319
Speaker 1: the mind of the comedian that is telling it or

914
00:49:39,440 --> 00:49:41,960
Speaker 1: or has written the joke. And uh, yeah, I could

915
00:49:41,960 --> 00:49:45,880
Speaker 1: see that. Yeah, I can see that interpretation for sure.

916
00:49:46,560 --> 00:49:52,840
Speaker 1: I'm super a little bit smart. Yeah, pretty much. Um yeah, Okay,

917
00:49:52,960 --> 00:49:55,439
Speaker 1: I like this this interpretation. Yeah, it makes me wonder

918
00:49:55,480 --> 00:49:57,000
Speaker 1: if this is this is part of it as well.

919
00:49:57,719 --> 00:50:01,080
Speaker 1: But it also makes me wonder about I guess this

920
00:50:01,160 --> 00:50:02,960
Speaker 1: came up a little bit earlier, but you know, can

921
00:50:03,320 --> 00:50:06,799
Speaker 1: we understand how dad jokes work by looking at when

922
00:50:06,840 --> 00:50:09,600
Speaker 1: they really do not work? You know that period where

923
00:50:09,600 --> 00:50:12,040
Speaker 1: I guess the kid gets to adolescents or whatever, at age,

924
00:50:12,160 --> 00:50:15,200
Speaker 1: whatever age it is where they start to really groan

925
00:50:15,400 --> 00:50:18,560
Speaker 1: at dad's dad jokes or at anybody's dad jokes and

926
00:50:18,560 --> 00:50:23,160
Speaker 1: and say, Dad, you know, like, what exactly has changed

927
00:50:23,280 --> 00:50:25,640
Speaker 1: that is failing there? And does that tell us about

928
00:50:25,680 --> 00:50:28,480
Speaker 1: what worked with the jokes originally? Well, I mean, if

929
00:50:28,520 --> 00:50:30,880
Speaker 1: we were to roughly compare it to say, a child

930
00:50:31,960 --> 00:50:35,200
Speaker 1: getting ready to leave the house at a younger age,

931
00:50:36,120 --> 00:50:39,600
Speaker 1: they need a lot of help and reminding and uh,

932
00:50:39,680 --> 00:50:41,319
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of nagging to get to get

933
00:50:41,360 --> 00:50:43,920
Speaker 1: it done. Are your pants on? Are you wearing the

934
00:50:44,000 --> 00:50:46,200
Speaker 1: right shirt? Is it buttoned up properly? Let me see

935
00:50:46,200 --> 00:50:49,319
Speaker 1: your hair? Um? And as they get older there, you know,

936
00:50:49,440 --> 00:50:51,920
Speaker 1: ideally they're they're doing more and more of this themselves,

937
00:50:51,960 --> 00:50:55,279
Speaker 1: and they might take a front at you, uh, interjecting

938
00:50:55,320 --> 00:50:57,560
Speaker 1: yourself and saying I think you need to rebutton that

939
00:50:57,600 --> 00:51:00,719
Speaker 1: shirt or I'm not sure that that hair looks completely etcetera.

940
00:51:00,880 --> 00:51:02,880
Speaker 1: So maybe something similar is going on with the the

941
00:51:02,960 --> 00:51:06,520
Speaker 1: debugging of their brain with puns and bad jokes. Is

942
00:51:06,560 --> 00:51:08,759
Speaker 1: that you're saying, uh, let me see that brain of

943
00:51:08,800 --> 00:51:10,440
Speaker 1: yours for a second, I'm not sure I got all

944
00:51:10,440 --> 00:51:12,520
Speaker 1: the bugs and they're like, Dad, I got you got

945
00:51:12,520 --> 00:51:14,800
Speaker 1: all the bugs. There are no bugs left, but maybe

946
00:51:14,800 --> 00:51:16,680
Speaker 1: there are. You know, that's why you keep at it.

947
00:51:16,840 --> 00:51:20,360
Speaker 1: You know, I'm thinking about another interpretation of uh. What

948
00:51:20,520 --> 00:51:23,520
Speaker 1: could be a possible reason that parents keep telling grown

949
00:51:23,560 --> 00:51:26,319
Speaker 1: inducing jokes as their kids get older and start being like,

950
00:51:27,520 --> 00:51:30,439
Speaker 1: awful mom, dad, don't talk. You know that that's that's

951
00:51:30,480 --> 00:51:33,200
Speaker 1: the worst? Is that A lot of times what can

952
00:51:33,239 --> 00:51:36,000
Speaker 1: be frustrating. I think about interacting with somebody who's like

953
00:51:36,000 --> 00:51:39,359
Speaker 1: a teenager is like sort of low affect in in

954
00:51:39,440 --> 00:51:42,640
Speaker 1: many different directions, you know, just kind of like inability

955
00:51:42,680 --> 00:51:45,880
Speaker 1: to give much of a response in any direction, and

956
00:51:45,920 --> 00:51:50,160
Speaker 1: so getting a very very clear, gross kind of emotional

957
00:51:50,239 --> 00:51:53,080
Speaker 1: response in the form of a groan at a really

958
00:51:53,760 --> 00:51:57,879
Speaker 1: really painful pun in a way that is a big reaction, right,

959
00:51:58,360 --> 00:51:59,759
Speaker 1: you know, at a time when maybe a lot of

960
00:52:00,000 --> 00:52:03,040
Speaker 1: it's are just like not reacting enough. I don't know

961
00:52:03,080 --> 00:52:05,319
Speaker 1: if that makes any sense, you know it totally does?

962
00:52:05,400 --> 00:52:08,520
Speaker 1: You know, Like there's this uh and I don't I

963
00:52:08,560 --> 00:52:11,560
Speaker 1: only have limited experience with with like the junior high

964
00:52:11,960 --> 00:52:15,280
Speaker 1: and teenager set, but but you know, from from interacting

965
00:52:15,320 --> 00:52:18,520
Speaker 1: with with niece and nephew, Uh, yeah, they're at times

966
00:52:18,560 --> 00:52:20,359
Speaker 1: there can be that feeling of like all right there

967
00:52:20,360 --> 00:52:22,640
Speaker 1: in their own own little world, you know, either uh,

968
00:52:23,120 --> 00:52:25,680
Speaker 1: you know, completely absorbed by their their phone and what

969
00:52:25,760 --> 00:52:27,840
Speaker 1: have you. Uh So, maybe you're not gonna get a

970
00:52:27,920 --> 00:52:30,480
Speaker 1: laughter laughter out of them. But if you can get

971
00:52:30,520 --> 00:52:32,279
Speaker 1: that grown, if you can get their eyes to roll,

972
00:52:32,360 --> 00:52:34,799
Speaker 1: at least they're listening to you, you know, at least

973
00:52:34,800 --> 00:52:37,439
Speaker 1: you've made some connection. And it probably ties back into

974
00:52:37,480 --> 00:52:40,080
Speaker 1: you can make an easy analogy to stand up comedy,

975
00:52:40,200 --> 00:52:44,000
Speaker 1: right like you, I guess you ideally, if you can't

976
00:52:44,000 --> 00:52:47,800
Speaker 1: be the comedian who's just getting you know, an uproar

977
00:52:47,880 --> 00:52:51,040
Speaker 1: of laughter, at least if you could get the the opposite,

978
00:52:51,040 --> 00:52:52,600
Speaker 1: that would be something. If you could get like the

979
00:52:52,640 --> 00:52:55,880
Speaker 1: Andy Kaufman um kind of response right where you're just

980
00:52:56,239 --> 00:52:59,239
Speaker 1: enraging the audience and you know, and you're making them

981
00:52:59,280 --> 00:53:04,919
Speaker 1: feel something. You're still working with comedy, but you're you're

982
00:53:04,920 --> 00:53:08,440
Speaker 1: going after a different emotional response. It comes back to

983
00:53:08,480 --> 00:53:11,440
Speaker 1: the idea that that perhaps dad jokes are just a

984
00:53:11,480 --> 00:53:13,880
Speaker 1: one way of thinking about a particular type of humor,

985
00:53:14,400 --> 00:53:18,480
Speaker 1: that that is, um is desirable in and of itself,

986
00:53:18,520 --> 00:53:22,960
Speaker 1: outside of any kind of uh, parental context. And you know,

987
00:53:23,040 --> 00:53:24,879
Speaker 1: just as this this, you know, used to be more

988
00:53:24,920 --> 00:53:28,440
Speaker 1: popular as a mainstream form of comedy. Um, you know,

989
00:53:28,520 --> 00:53:31,640
Speaker 1: it's it's still going to find an audience today again,

990
00:53:31,680 --> 00:53:33,719
Speaker 1: in part perhaps because your your guard is down to

991
00:53:33,800 --> 00:53:38,319
Speaker 1: that that slow moving comedic knife. I was just trying

992
00:53:38,360 --> 00:53:41,319
Speaker 1: to look up the name of the martial art that

993
00:53:41,360 --> 00:53:42,880
Speaker 1: you do with the knives in Dune. I don't think

994
00:53:42,920 --> 00:53:45,440
Speaker 1: it has a name, but they're the Chris knives in Dune. Yeah,

995
00:53:45,640 --> 00:53:48,759
Speaker 1: to past the Holtzman shields. Yeah, this is just the

996
00:53:48,760 --> 00:53:50,880
Speaker 1: way you try and stab somebody with the Holtzman shield

997
00:53:51,880 --> 00:53:54,080
Speaker 1: But I had forgotten about this detail as well. Apparently

998
00:53:54,120 --> 00:53:58,560
Speaker 1: you can't use lace guns or Holtzman shields on Iracus

999
00:53:58,640 --> 00:54:04,479
Speaker 1: because the energy field created by them attracts sandworms. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

1000
00:54:04,560 --> 00:54:08,120
Speaker 1: that that's that's right. I still need a part of

1001
00:54:08,120 --> 00:54:10,759
Speaker 1: me wants to reread the first book again, and now

1002
00:54:10,760 --> 00:54:14,040
Speaker 1: I have more time in anticipation of the of the

1003
00:54:14,080 --> 00:54:16,759
Speaker 1: movie when it comes out this fall. Uh So, I

1004
00:54:16,800 --> 00:54:18,239
Speaker 1: don't know. I'm trying to decide on that, or maybe

1005
00:54:18,239 --> 00:54:20,360
Speaker 1: I should read it to the Boy. I can't decide.

1006
00:54:20,520 --> 00:54:23,359
Speaker 1: When is the Boy enough for Dune? I don't know.

1007
00:54:23,640 --> 00:54:25,719
Speaker 1: Like there because there's a lot of heady stuff in there,

1008
00:54:25,760 --> 00:54:28,800
Speaker 1: but there's also a basic adventure story, you know, about

1009
00:54:28,920 --> 00:54:31,640
Speaker 1: a young person coming up in the world. Um, there

1010
00:54:31,719 --> 00:54:35,080
Speaker 1: is a lot of brutal violence and treachery, true, but

1011
00:54:35,360 --> 00:54:38,480
Speaker 1: you know, ultimately you find that in every everything. There's

1012
00:54:38,480 --> 00:54:40,359
Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of kids literature that has

1013
00:54:40,360 --> 00:54:43,160
Speaker 1: a lot of betrayal and violence in it. Okay, what

1014
00:54:43,239 --> 00:54:46,040
Speaker 1: we need is like an age chart that maps response

1015
00:54:46,160 --> 00:54:51,040
Speaker 1: to dad jokes with with a receptivity to dune and

1016
00:54:51,160 --> 00:54:55,200
Speaker 1: like where that coincides. All right, but before we close that,

1017
00:54:55,280 --> 00:54:58,080
Speaker 1: I do want to mention one cool dad joke, if

1018
00:54:58,080 --> 00:55:00,200
Speaker 1: that is even a thing that sounds like an more

1019
00:55:00,239 --> 00:55:03,920
Speaker 1: on perhaps, but this was provided by Andrew Bourgeon in

1020
00:55:03,960 --> 00:55:08,120
Speaker 1: that twenty nineteen article in The Washington I and uh,

1021
00:55:08,200 --> 00:55:10,560
Speaker 1: this is out it goes. When does a bad joke

1022
00:55:10,920 --> 00:55:19,680
Speaker 1: become a dad joke when it's a parent A very

1023
00:55:19,760 --> 00:55:22,680
Speaker 1: nice All Right, we're gonna go ahead and close this

1024
00:55:22,719 --> 00:55:24,720
Speaker 1: one out, But obviously we'd love to hear from everybody

1025
00:55:24,719 --> 00:55:27,440
Speaker 1: out there. What what is your experience with the so

1026
00:55:27,520 --> 00:55:30,560
Speaker 1: called dad joke? Um, you know, what's what's your take

1027
00:55:30,600 --> 00:55:34,040
Speaker 1: on it? Your experience with it on the receiving end

1028
00:55:34,520 --> 00:55:37,600
Speaker 1: on the giving end. Um, we loved, we loved for

1029
00:55:37,800 --> 00:55:40,640
Speaker 1: everyone to chime in on this, so uh, do let

1030
00:55:40,719 --> 00:55:42,359
Speaker 1: us know in the meantime if you want to check

1031
00:55:42,360 --> 00:55:44,400
Speaker 1: out other episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, including

1032
00:55:44,440 --> 00:55:47,040
Speaker 1: those that we referenced earlier about humor and teasing and

1033
00:55:47,080 --> 00:55:50,480
Speaker 1: so forth, you can find them wherever you get your podcast,

1034
00:55:50,600 --> 00:55:53,400
Speaker 1: even the Stuff to Blow your Mind podcast feed. We've

1035
00:55:53,440 --> 00:55:56,080
Speaker 1: got core episodes on science and culture that come out

1036
00:55:56,120 --> 00:56:00,239
Speaker 1: on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Monday's we have a listener mail.

1037
00:56:00,320 --> 00:56:03,400
Speaker 1: On Wednesday's we usually have an artifact unless it's been

1038
00:56:03,440 --> 00:56:06,799
Speaker 1: preempted by something. And on Friday's that's when we do

1039
00:56:06,920 --> 00:56:10,200
Speaker 1: Weird House Cinema, where we leave most of the science

1040
00:56:11,320 --> 00:56:13,719
Speaker 1: on the shelf instead focus on some sort of a

1041
00:56:13,760 --> 00:56:16,440
Speaker 1: weird picture. Uh. And then we have a volt episode

1042
00:56:16,440 --> 00:56:19,040
Speaker 1: on the weekend that's a rerun. Huge thanks as always

1043
00:56:19,040 --> 00:56:22,320
Speaker 1: to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you

1044
00:56:22,320 --> 00:56:24,280
Speaker 1: would like to get in touch with us with feedback

1045
00:56:24,320 --> 00:56:26,719
Speaker 1: on this episode or any other to suggest topic for

1046
00:56:26,760 --> 00:56:29,040
Speaker 1: the future, just to say hello, you can email us

1047
00:56:29,080 --> 00:56:40,040
Speaker 1: at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.

1048
00:56:40,120 --> 00:56:42,600
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow your Mind is production of I heart Radio.

1049
00:56:42,960 --> 00:56:45,280
Speaker 1: For more podcasts for My heart Radio, visit the iHeart

1050
00:56:45,320 --> 00:56:48,080
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you're listening to your

1051
00:56:48,080 --> 00:57:04,120
Speaker 1: favorite shows. Twenty five proposi