Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know
Speaker 1: from house Stuff Works dot Com? Hey, and welcome to
Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. Ay,
Speaker 1: you have tape on your You have tape on your
Speaker 1: new cover. Well that's because it's mine and mine alone.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna write Chuck on it at some point.
Speaker 1: That's gonna affect something. It will. How does he sound, Jerry,
Speaker 1: I'll screwed up. For those of you that don't know,
Speaker 1: I got my own microphone cover because all the other
Speaker 1: ones your smell bad. So I got one to keep
Speaker 1: in my drawer, and uh, it's Chuck's. And I'm paranoid
Speaker 1: that I'm making the microphone cover smell bad. Well there's
Speaker 1: three of them now, yeah, Well you keep switching them
Speaker 1: out and I can't smell it. So I'm like, all right,
Speaker 1: I got something for you. Speaking speaking of you, just
Speaker 1: laughing right there? You ready for this? Right? What do
Speaker 1: you think I have integrity? I'm buying a cinnamon right now.
Speaker 1: I'm buying a cinnamon at the airport that I arrived
Speaker 1: at you understand why that's extra disgusting. Right when you're leaving,
Speaker 1: if you're at your destined you know, when you're at
Speaker 1: the airport, you're leaving. But you can go like, oh,
Speaker 1: I gotta eat. I need to do food because I
Speaker 1: might be trapped in the sky forever, and I obviously
Speaker 1: to eat right now. But this is I've landed, the
Speaker 1: trip is over. Not too shabby. Check. That's the great
Speaker 1: Louis c. K. If I'm not mistaken, Yes, who I
Speaker 1: think is one of the funnier people on the planet today.
Speaker 1: I agree with you. You know, I started as a
Speaker 1: Saturday Night Live writer. Doesn't surprise me. Um. And that
Speaker 1: was from his h his special, right, like his like
Speaker 1: what's it called chewed up? Yes, chewed up? His stand
Speaker 1: up special? One one of his stands. Very good. Okay,
Speaker 1: so I've got one for you. Okay, all right, I
Speaker 1: mean you couldn't get you to laugh here, listen up, chucker.
Speaker 1: All right. When I finished, I want to take all
Speaker 1: my graduation money and buy myself a motorcycle, but my
Speaker 1: mom said no, she who died in a horrible motorcycle
Speaker 1: accident when he was eighteen, And I could just have
Speaker 1: his motorcycle. He's that guy. That's Anthony Jeselnick. He's hilarious.
Speaker 1: Oh you saw him live, yeah, south By Southwest. Okay,
Speaker 1: that was that guy. So okay, all right, we're laughing.
Speaker 1: This is a pretty good it's a pretty auspicious start
Speaker 1: to the podcast on how laughter works. Yeah, now we
Speaker 1: just have to be as funny as Louisa. Kay. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't think we should even try no pressure, Yeah, no, no,
Speaker 1: I think we should just be ourselves here and explain
Speaker 1: how after it works. Like this is a robust how
Speaker 1: stuff works articles. Actually it was written by Marshall Brain himself. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: and he went to town, uh, figuring out exactly how
Speaker 1: um laughter works why we laugh? And you can't up
Speaker 1: with a bunch of really good data on it. We're
Speaker 1: gonna share here. He gets right into it too. Did
Speaker 1: you notice that with the joke with nothing man, it
Speaker 1: was like, oh no, I cut all that out. I think,
Speaker 1: oh you did. You didn't see the joke about Bill
Speaker 1: Gates and the president of General Martin. I cut all
Speaker 1: that out. No, wonder it seemed like he got right
Speaker 1: into it. Yeah, I cut that part out. Well. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: after after that, after the intro. He does start out
Speaker 1: with you know, first of all, laughter is not the
Speaker 1: same as humor and quote uh and that's a pretty
Speaker 1: good point. Laughter is the physiological response to humor. Right,
Speaker 1: So humor is a joke or um, Mo Howard slapping
Speaker 1: Larry Fine, Um, whatever is your bad Tom, you know,
Speaker 1: chasing Jerry, Jerry makes it into his mousehole and then
Speaker 1: Tom smacks's face or modaba tenda. That's where I thought
Speaker 1: you were going when you said Mo, No, Mo Howard
Speaker 1: another funny moment, that's mo. What's most last name? Moda tenda?
Speaker 1: No he has the last name? Does he? Is it? Like?
Speaker 1: I don't know what it is. His first name is momar,
Speaker 1: but I can't remember what his last name is. Well anyway,
Speaker 1: So any of that is humor, and then we respond
Speaker 1: to in a certain way. And what's awesome is although
Speaker 1: we can't really say like why things are funny or
Speaker 1: why we even have a capacity to find things humorous. Um,
Speaker 1: we have a pretty good understanding of what happens in
Speaker 1: the brain, right we do. UM. And we also know
Speaker 1: that what happens physically, like there's a there's a cascade
Speaker 1: of events that takes place in a very unfunny way.
Speaker 1: Um that that starts with your face, right, that's right. Uh.
Speaker 1: Right off the bat, fifteen facial muscles will contract. It's
Speaker 1: going to stimulate the zygomatic major muscle, which is the
Speaker 1: apparently the lifting mechanism of your upper lip. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: think about it. When you're trying to stifle laughter, what
Speaker 1: you're doing is focusing on keeping that muscle from lifting,
Speaker 1: because once it hits that one point of no return,
Speaker 1: you're you just crack up. That's right, and that crazy Uh.
Speaker 1: Your respiratory system is upset, and your epiglottis apparently half
Speaker 1: closes your larynx, so that's why you sometimes can't catch
Speaker 1: your breath, and if you really get going, it's gonna
Speaker 1: activate your tear ducks. That's why you cry with laughter sometimes. Yes,
Speaker 1: And I guess those happen in a sequence depending on
Speaker 1: how hard you're laughing. Right. Um. Not only that you
Speaker 1: talked about the epiglottis closing the larynx right so that
Speaker 1: that you're trying to gasp for air, which is also
Speaker 1: why sometimes you can go for a pretty long period
Speaker 1: of time without making any sound whatsoever, because you're epiglottis
Speaker 1: has um completely close to your life. You can't breathe
Speaker 1: this right exactly. But when you're when you're drawing in
Speaker 1: and gasping, it makes the laughter sound right or w
Speaker 1: whit you snort? Right? Yeah, you don't snort normally when
Speaker 1: you're walking around, No, it's absolutely true. Um snort. Ever
Speaker 1: when you laugh sometimes once in a while, Yeah, me too.
Speaker 1: It's funny. It's such an embarrassing thing too, certainly, like
Speaker 1: kind of I'm proud of That means I'm really laughing,
Speaker 1: right sure, um, And when I cry, it means I'm
Speaker 1: really laughing. It's wonderful. But um so when when we
Speaker 1: make this uh, when we're drawing air in right to
Speaker 1: try to survive and live, um, where we make a
Speaker 1: sound and we make a certain sound. And what I've
Speaker 1: what I found is that it's universal. Ho ho ho.
Speaker 1: I thought you meant when you're breathing or ha ha ha,
Speaker 1: that's the laugh, right. What's crazy is is it happens
Speaker 1: like almost universally people say ha ha ha or ho
Speaker 1: ho ho, right, and they deliver that same laugh at
Speaker 1: about the same rate about every two milliseconds. Structure. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and the h is almost a delivery vehicle for the
Speaker 1: vowel either the O or the A, the long or
Speaker 1: the long A or the short am aha ha. I've
Speaker 1: never paid that much attention to myself. But you don't
Speaker 1: intermix them ever. No one has ever in the history
Speaker 1: of humanity ever genuinely intermixed hot and ho into a
Speaker 1: real laugh. And that interesting it is. And you also
Speaker 1: have your own signature laugh, just like your voice is
Speaker 1: your own, and your hiccupping pattern is your own. It's
Speaker 1: your laugh generally is the same like it might might range,
Speaker 1: but that is your laugh. You're never gonna laugh like, Wow,
Speaker 1: that sounded like someone else all of a sudden, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that'd be weird. My signature laugh is pink. It's really
Speaker 1: I don't know what that means, but I'm laughing. So um, well,
Speaker 1: there there you go. Then it was it was successful. Um.
Speaker 1: And we also apparently humans have some sort of um
Speaker 1: laughter detector that as far as I know, since we
Speaker 1: call it a laughter detector, it means science hasn't figured
Speaker 1: out what that is yet because that's to do with
Speaker 1: the brain. But just based on observation, UM, we have
Speaker 1: an ability to pick up on other people's laughter, and
Speaker 1: for some reason that can make us laugh. It's contagious,
Speaker 1: and as we laugh, it can make the other people
Speaker 1: laugh and so on, and laughter just kind of keeps going.
Speaker 1: That's right. Something else interesting about laughter is the more
Speaker 1: you try to stifle it, say you're trying to really
Speaker 1: keep your zygomatic major muscle in a relaxed position, the
Speaker 1: more the funnier the situation becomes. The church, even heathens
Speaker 1: know that it's called the church eagle. If you've never
Speaker 1: setting footed side of church, you still call the church giggles.
Speaker 1: And I have actually gotten the church giggles in church
Speaker 1: big Oh yeah, sure, when I was a kid like it.
Speaker 1: I remember being specifically being a teenager. This one time
Speaker 1: I got the church kiggles really bad because something a
Speaker 1: guest preacher said. He misspoke in a funny way and
Speaker 1: it's something you shouldn't have laughed at, and I couldn't
Speaker 1: help it, and I literally for like, I had to
Speaker 1: excuse myself. I was the only person that had to
Speaker 1: get up in leave. Did he shout center at you
Speaker 1: on your way out? No? No. So one last little
Speaker 1: universal aspect or pretty much universal aspect of laughter specifically, um,
Speaker 1: and we should say, like this is based on the
Speaker 1: article how laughter works, but it includes humor quite a
Speaker 1: bit as well, but laughter specifically, Uh, there's this aspect
Speaker 1: of it called the punctuation effect, where it doesn't it
Speaker 1: doesn't normally I know what you're saying, I know your idea,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't normally come in the middle of a sentence.
Speaker 1: It normally comes at the end of a sentence or
Speaker 1: the end of a phrase, or in a dead space
Speaker 1: a period, which hence the name punctuation effect. That's one
Speaker 1: of those things where I was like, do you really
Speaker 1: need some researcher to tell you that, like that you
Speaker 1: laugh after you speak, because you can't do both at
Speaker 1: the same time. No, But I think the point is
Speaker 1: that you're not like most people don't in the middle
Speaker 1: of a joke laugh and then continue on with the joke,
Speaker 1: and then laugh and then continue on and then deliver
Speaker 1: the punch line. And if they do, everybody thinks they're
Speaker 1: terrible joke teller. Well, if you're laughing at your own
Speaker 1: joke anyway, probably doing it wrong. Or when um, when uh,
Speaker 1: Henry Hill and good Fellas, right, he's just ticking off
Speaker 1: Joe Pesci and he tells him he's a funny guy
Speaker 1: and He's like, what am my clown do? I amuse you?
Speaker 1: You think I'm you think I'm funny? Right, And then
Speaker 1: like they they the tension is relieved and he jumps
Speaker 1: on him or no, he doesn't jump on him yet,
Speaker 1: and he goes, you really are a funny guy, and
Speaker 1: then they starts laughing again. He didn't go you really
Speaker 1: are and laugh a funny guy. The punctuation effect. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's lame. Well, okay, let's move on then
Speaker 1: to why we laugh like this is a This is
Speaker 1: one of the parts where we just don't fully understand. Well, uh,
Speaker 1: some people have their ideas obviously. Uh. It all goes
Speaker 1: back to Tuck Tuck, and people think that initially it
Speaker 1: might have been as a ah, a release of tension
Speaker 1: from the passing of danger. Took Tuk and his buddies
Speaker 1: are sitting around in the saber Tooth Tigers nearby and
Speaker 1: they are all quiet, and then they think maybe laughter
Speaker 1: started as a relief that the danger is now gone,
Speaker 1: or maybe it took Tok farted right afterwards, which is
Speaker 1: always we had to get one of those in there.
Speaker 1: Um that Another explanation is that it's a form of
Speaker 1: social bonding. Sure that you don't really laugh around people
Speaker 1: you don't trust. You at the very least, don't genuinely
Speaker 1: laugh around people you don't trust, right, Yeah, you have
Speaker 1: to be at ease to laugh. Yes, generally speaking, Um,
Speaker 1: it's also a means of asserting dominance. As far as
Speaker 1: I understand that, dominant individuals in societies, whether it be
Speaker 1: human or maybe chimp, um, the jerks and other words,
Speaker 1: tend to um create laughter more. But it's not necessarily
Speaker 1: genuine laughter, not comfortable after it's a way of controlling
Speaker 1: the social climate. But as far as genuine laughter goes,
Speaker 1: there seems to be a necessity for trust and um,
Speaker 1: there's some sort of positive feedback loop, right where when
Speaker 1: you laugh with somebody you feel comfortable around them, and
Speaker 1: they laugh and they feel comfortable around you, and that
Speaker 1: lettle comfort can lead to more laughter and it's again
Speaker 1: a positive feedback, and then you're all just having a
Speaker 1: rip more good time. Right. And then afterward, after you've
Speaker 1: shared this experience of these this person, you feel even
Speaker 1: closer to than than before. That's right, When you share
Speaker 1: a good laugh with someone, it bonds you. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: feel that way for sure. So in that sense, it's
Speaker 1: a social signal. And there's other studies that back up
Speaker 1: the idea that this it's laughter is expressly designed for
Speaker 1: the as a social bonding glue. Yeah, you're thirty times
Speaker 1: more likely apparently to laugh in a social setting than
Speaker 1: when you're alone with the TV off. Then again, I
Speaker 1: wonder about that. It's like, don't you need some sort
Speaker 1: of stimuli or they did they do? When they did,
Speaker 1: they didn't have anything on the study, Like did they
Speaker 1: put someone in a room alone and give them like
Speaker 1: a funny book or something. I don't understand how that works.
Speaker 1: Probably Okay, I think that maybe a book um would
Speaker 1: do it. It says, no pseudo social device like a television,
Speaker 1: So what are you laughing at? Then? If you're just
Speaker 1: in a room. But that's what I'm saying, like, maybe
Speaker 1: like you, you just are reading jokes on strips of paper, okay,
Speaker 1: like a bazooka gum jokes nobody laughs at the Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that. That explains that. Well. In nitrous oxide, they
Speaker 1: found German physiologists named Willobald Rook. They he found that
Speaker 1: laughing gas was even less effective when you're alone. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which which is true because you're just high. Is that
Speaker 1: the deal. Oh yeah, I don't. I can't remember if
Speaker 1: I ever had laughing gas, to be honest, Oh really no,
Speaker 1: I've never liked had surgery. You don't necessarily I mean
Speaker 1: you do kind of laughing. You're funny and everything seems funny.
Speaker 1: And I have noticed, like when when you're at the dentist, uh,
Speaker 1: and there, you know, the dentist and the hygienist during
Speaker 1: there and they got you like nice and loaded. Everything's
Speaker 1: kind of funnier and you're talking and all that, and
Speaker 1: then when they leave and you're by yourself, you're just
Speaker 1: like looking at the ceiling tile because it looks crazy.
Speaker 1: But it's not necessarily funny. You should try it, man,
Speaker 1: it's my whole life free. I hate the dentist too.
Speaker 1: That would probably change that experience. You'll still hate the dentist,
Speaker 1: but you'll be like, at least there's this okay, gotcha doctor,
Speaker 1: feel good? Uh? It is uh. The study of laughter,
Speaker 1: Josh has a name, is called gelatology, or it's g lotology.
Speaker 1: That's the physiological study of laughter. That's what it said, right,
Speaker 1: But I just want to make sure that that's clear,
Speaker 1: because we're kind of vacillating between laughter and humor, and
Speaker 1: this is the physiological study of humor of laughter. Thanks
Speaker 1: for clearing that up. Uh. Emotional responses, um start in
Speaker 1: the I'm sorry emotional responses or the function of the
Speaker 1: frontal lobe. But when it comes to laughter, it's all
Speaker 1: over the map. It's not just the frontal lobe. They
Speaker 1: hooked people up to E E. G s and showed
Speaker 1: them funny things and found that it's all All parts
Speaker 1: of the brain are involved in the laughter response. So
Speaker 1: it's not just emotional. But it's not necessarily all over
Speaker 1: the map. I mean, it is all over the brain,
Speaker 1: but it follows a prescribed neural circuit. That's right, Like
Speaker 1: they can go, oh, it's going here next see, um,
Speaker 1: what what parts of the brain does? It include the
Speaker 1: cerebral cortex. Electrical wave moves through there and if now
Speaker 1: I didn't really understand this, but if the wave takes
Speaker 1: a negative charge, then you're gonna be laughing. If it's
Speaker 1: a positive charge, then there's no response. So I guess
Speaker 1: that just measures whether or not you think something's funny.
Speaker 1: I guess I don't know, or else. Like it literally
Speaker 1: like one type of electrical charge will trigger this response
Speaker 1: and another type won't like it just passes over you.
Speaker 1: But the human electric though, well either way. Um, an
Speaker 1: electrical wave is generated when something that's potentially funny, potentially
Speaker 1: funny stimuli is encountered. Within four tenths of a second. Yes,
Speaker 1: this electrical signal is generated, and it's it. It's determined
Speaker 1: I guess in four tents whether you thought it was
Speaker 1: funny or not. Yeah. So, but that's a great question.
Speaker 1: I mean, like that's a card or the horse kind
Speaker 1: of question, like does it turn positive or negative because
Speaker 1: we found it funny or do we find it funny
Speaker 1: because it turned positive or negative. I think it's the humor.
Speaker 1: You have to find it funny, and then the brain
Speaker 1: reacts to that response. That's what I think. So let's
Speaker 1: say that it does take a negative charge, this electrical
Speaker 1: wave that just covers your brain, and um, it starts
Speaker 1: spreading through this neural circuit, starting with the left side
Speaker 1: of the cortex right, which analyzes the words and structure
Speaker 1: of a joke. Yep, making sense of it all. Ye,
Speaker 1: of the words themselves. The frontal lobe, which is in
Speaker 1: charge of emotion. That's right, you got the right hemisphere,
Speaker 1: the cortex, which basically it sorts out whether or not
Speaker 1: the joke makes sense to you. Right, Well, that's where
Speaker 1: you put it together, like the the right um, the
Speaker 1: right hemisphere, the frontal lobe is the place where we
Speaker 1: managed to construct emotion and intellect of the cortex, and
Speaker 1: that's where we that's where you get the joke. Right.
Speaker 1: They've also found that that's the hard since you need
Speaker 1: all these different systems in the brain. But that's the
Speaker 1: part when it's damage that produces the um most damage
Speaker 1: to experiencing humor, getting humor, finding anything funny, Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: real sad uh. Of course, you have the motor sections
Speaker 1: that get all the physical responses going, like slapping your
Speaker 1: knee or doubling over or whatever you do that's wacky
Speaker 1: when you laugh. And there's there's also another big one
Speaker 1: that um, I didn't think of, but it made perfect
Speaker 1: sense when I when I thought about it, which was
Speaker 1: the sensory processing area of the occipital lobe towards the
Speaker 1: back of the head. But that's where you visualize things.
Speaker 1: So it's like imagine what a snake wearing a vest
Speaker 1: does look like, you know, and then that makes you
Speaker 1: laugh as well. So it's almost like all of these
Speaker 1: different like the structure of the joke, the words, and
Speaker 1: all that um, pulling in past emotions, your emotional response
Speaker 1: right then going um, visualizing the thing that's just been described.
Speaker 1: All this stuff is brought together to produce the sensation
Speaker 1: of finding something funny, and then that motor part is triggered,
Speaker 1: and that's when you start crying and you can't breathe
Speaker 1: and you say ha ha ha or ho ho ho
Speaker 1: every milliseconds, or flail your arms about her whatever you're
Speaker 1: into the Olympics system. I didn't get a lot out
Speaker 1: of this part, especially the comparison to the alligator. It
Speaker 1: was a I have a I have a big question
Speaker 1: markt that didn't really there's a whole paragraph in this
Speaker 1: um in this article everybody that it has no purpose
Speaker 1: for being there. Chuck and I can't make heather tails
Speaker 1: of it. If you can email us later. Um, but
Speaker 1: I chucked. The Olympics system part didn't make much sense
Speaker 1: to me until I found a theory um that that
Speaker 1: we that we can talk about called incongruity theory. UM. Well,
Speaker 1: it's one of the theories of why we have the
Speaker 1: ability to find things funny or why things are funny
Speaker 1: and others aren't. And incongruity theory says that, um remember
Speaker 1: with curiosity. That was also a theory for why we're curious, like,
Speaker 1: you know, this pencil just fell up and I want
Speaker 1: to go find out why that. That's a theory to
Speaker 1: explain why things make us curious. There's also a similar
Speaker 1: theory for why things can be found funny, and it's
Speaker 1: when you tell a joke. We were the joke tellers,
Speaker 1: riling up the expectation and the listener and then delivering
Speaker 1: something totally different. That that moment of incongruity that makes
Speaker 1: the brain like, whoa, it just slipped on ice and
Speaker 1: it's regaining its footing is thrilling. That's one explanation. The
Speaker 1: other explanation for incongruity theory is that we find things
Speaker 1: funny so that we can learn how not to think
Speaker 1: or how not to act right like you don't you
Speaker 1: don't you just don't walk around acting like the Three Stooges.
Speaker 1: We find it funny because it's something we don't do.
Speaker 1: We learned to not do it like that, or we
Speaker 1: can we cannot follow logic just in a madcap screwy
Speaker 1: logic is attendant to jokes by finding them funny as well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's I think that's one part of some types of
Speaker 1: comedy for sure, is when the punch line is unexpected
Speaker 1: in some way in congruous, like for instance, Um, the
Speaker 1: other day, I was hanging out at the house with
Speaker 1: Emily and I was singing songs to my dog. Um,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of things like that in our home,
Speaker 1: and I was singing the song I was playing patty
Speaker 1: Cake with my dog, Charlie, who was a girl. And
Speaker 1: I said, well, you gotta know that for the song
Speaker 1: to make sense. And so I was singing this song
Speaker 1: and I said, patty cake, patty cake, Baker's chick, bake
Speaker 1: me a cake that's shaped like a standard cake. It.
Speaker 1: Emily just thought that was the funniest thing she'd ever heard.
Speaker 1: But that's a good example, like that Limerick thing where you,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's the same, what's the Limerick joke where
Speaker 1: you think you're gonna say something dirty and it's actually
Speaker 1: something great normal. I know what you're talking about. I
Speaker 1: can't think of it right, But it's that unexpected, incongruous
Speaker 1: thing that works so well in comedy. So many times
Speaker 1: you have me that you thought I was gonna say
Speaker 1: something else I did and I blushed, You did, your
Speaker 1: face got a little red. So um. Incongruity theory is
Speaker 1: old and very widely accepted, although it's also criticized for
Speaker 1: being overly broad. Explain a lot of stuff totally. But
Speaker 1: it's like, I don't understand why everybody has to have
Speaker 1: a theory for everything. Why can't it be like, Yes,
Speaker 1: incongruity explains some type of humor, superiority explains another. Well,
Speaker 1: that's another. That's what I like to call the America's
Speaker 1: Funniest Home Videos humor, which is we've talked about before,
Speaker 1: And that's when you focus on stupidity or misfortune a
Speaker 1: gufall and not a god fall. That's a laugh, a boner,
Speaker 1: a mistake, and um, it makes you feel superior to
Speaker 1: the guy that just got kicked in the groin, and
Speaker 1: you think that's funny. It is because it's not you
Speaker 1: getting kicked in the groin. I guess I've never analyzed
Speaker 1: it like that, but yeah, I guess better him than
Speaker 1: me what I'm thinking? And I kicked in the groin?
Speaker 1: Would you think it was funny? No? I wouldn't, But
Speaker 1: that doesn't explain why I find it funny when it
Speaker 1: happens to somebody else. Well, in a way, it's just
Speaker 1: the superiority theory. And I don't think that literally means
Speaker 1: you feel superior. But it's just funny to see someone
Speaker 1: fall down sometimes and they should call it something else. Um.
Speaker 1: Let me say one more thing about in congruity. Okay,
Speaker 1: there's a dude out there named Alistair Cook who came
Speaker 1: up with a book and in it I know him,
Speaker 1: you do, well, not personally really, I hadn't heard of
Speaker 1: him until recently. Anyway, he came out with a book
Speaker 1: and in it he had he came up with an
Speaker 1: equation to basically figure out how humorous something is. So
Speaker 1: humor equals Are you ready for this? The guy came
Speaker 1: up with a formula to humor equals um the amount
Speaker 1: of misinformation present in the joke, right, which is part
Speaker 1: of incongruity times um the potential for the joke listener
Speaker 1: to take it seriously. Right, So the bigger the whopper
Speaker 1: is and the more finesse with which you tell it,
Speaker 1: the more humorous this joke is going to be. That
Speaker 1: makes sense. There's also the comedy is tragedy. Plus time.
Speaker 1: We've all heard that things that aren't funny today might
Speaker 1: be funny in ten years. That's why too soon you
Speaker 1: can also get a laughing actually just by saying too
Speaker 1: soon when you make a bad joke in poor taste
Speaker 1: or Alan al said, did you ever see Crimes and Misdemeanors?
Speaker 1: What do Allen? Movie? Alan Alda was this really pompous
Speaker 1: director in that movie. And when he was he's trying
Speaker 1: to explain comedy to what Allen And he said, if
Speaker 1: it bends, it's funny. If it breaks, it's not funny.
Speaker 1: But that's kind of true though, It's that take it
Speaker 1: to a certain point, but don't break it, because then
Speaker 1: it's just not funny. I don't know, sometimes it's funny
Speaker 1: to break it. I think there's always just because you
Speaker 1: don't take something it's funny doesn't mean that someone else does. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I don't think you should ever begrudge somebody for taking
Speaker 1: something funny, even if it offends you. There's not a
Speaker 1: lot that offends me, as you know. Um. The last
Speaker 1: one is relief theory, which is, like you were saying, um,
Speaker 1: some people populate was the first experience of laughter? Um
Speaker 1: was some danger past and everybody was just relieved so
Speaker 1: they were laughing. Right, Um, have you seen Emerson the
Speaker 1: baby that's um scared of his mom no blowing her nose. Oh,
Speaker 1: it's awesome. You gotta see it. This kid is terrified,
Speaker 1: like you've never seen a human being terrified whenever his
Speaker 1: mom blows his nose. And then he starts laughing and
Speaker 1: she does it again. He's terrified again, and it's really
Speaker 1: just I'll send you the link. It's awesome. But yeah,
Speaker 1: he supports relief theory. Uh. The other thing too about
Speaker 1: superiority theory before we move on, is that's that's the
Speaker 1: basis of a lot of comedy period. Like Louis c
Speaker 1: k is so funny because he's talking about how fat
Speaker 1: he is and how he never has sex anymore and
Speaker 1: like what a piece of crappy as a human and
Speaker 1: a bad dad. And that's that's not just him, that's
Speaker 1: a lot of comedians take that route that self and
Speaker 1: see that goes beyond self deprecating even it's like make
Speaker 1: fun of myself, like everyone laugh at me and how
Speaker 1: miserable I am, and feel better about yourself because you're
Speaker 1: not fat and bald. And then relief theory. Also, Um
Speaker 1: explains how uh, laughter is a great way to diffuse
Speaker 1: a Mexican standoff, right, because you're in there and you
Speaker 1: got your gun on one guy, he's got his gun
Speaker 1: on you. And then if you laugh and you can
Speaker 1: convince him it's a genuine laugh, he becomes disarmed and
Speaker 1: then blam right, you're you're the last man standing. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna remember that. Haven't you ever seen any movies? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that happens to the movies. You're right, that's why that's
Speaker 1: scientific fact. Are there really Mexican standoffs? Has that ever happened?
Speaker 1: Three people? It has? I think you can do it
Speaker 1: with two. But yeah, and I thought the definition was
Speaker 1: three people. No, I don't know. I know that if
Speaker 1: you have your gun on somebody and they have their
Speaker 1: gun on you, I think that's a a a Chilean standoff, right,
Speaker 1: And I'm just taken. So we've just dragged humor through
Speaker 1: the mud and just basically we've just eviscerated it. We've
Speaker 1: vivisected it. Um, So let's find out what's not funny,
Speaker 1: chuckers Um. Apparently it comes down to and again, there's
Speaker 1: researchers out, there's a guy named Robert Provine, who's quite
Speaker 1: a career for himself, like studying humor and laughter. Um.
Speaker 1: But this laughter or humor research um has yielded that
Speaker 1: there's basically two factor in somebody not finding something funny
Speaker 1: that's age makes sense and attachment to the subject or
Speaker 1: the victim that says it all. When you're a little baby,
Speaker 1: you're discovering the world, you think your mom uh sneezing
Speaker 1: is funny, no terrifying, No, no, no, I was just
Speaker 1: using a different example. Or your dog, you know, lapping
Speaker 1: water is funny because it's all brand new. You get
Speaker 1: a little bit older, things are gonna change. When you're
Speaker 1: a little toddler, you're gonna think poopoo is funny. Well,
Speaker 1: when you're an adult, you might think poopoo is funny.
Speaker 1: When you're an awkward teenager, you might be more into
Speaker 1: h jokes that make fun of authority figures or that
Speaker 1: focus on sex and like all these new things when
Speaker 1: you're trying to figure yourself out. And then as you mature,
Speaker 1: supposedly you're supposed to get a little more evolved with
Speaker 1: your humor and barriers are broken down much more um
Speaker 1: and uh, like you may joke about work, right sure,
Speaker 1: the old the old boss, the old man, the old lady. Right, um.
Speaker 1: And and with all of these, each of these stages,
Speaker 1: even though like an adult thinks a teenager sense of
Speaker 1: humor is just trap, right, um, if you if you
Speaker 1: kind of take away that evaluation and look at all
Speaker 1: of them equally, people laugh about or find things funny
Speaker 1: based on what's a stresser in their life. So what
Speaker 1: stress is a teenager oute is totally unrelatable for an adult,
Speaker 1: so they're not gonna find it funny. There's it's not
Speaker 1: a stressor. So mainly most of the stuff we laugh
Speaker 1: about or we find funny are based on stressors in
Speaker 1: our lives. Yeah, that makes sense, and your intelligence level
Speaker 1: has a little something to do with it, um, as
Speaker 1: far as what you find funny, I've known people, and
Speaker 1: I'm sure you have that were dumb and that didn't
Speaker 1: get jokes or humor. I used to have a rule
Speaker 1: of a measuring stick for intelligence. You remember the show
Speaker 1: Doctor Kats. Did you ever meet anybody who was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I can't watch that show. That's those quickly lines is
Speaker 1: driving me crazy? Yeah, yeah, you have it. That's pretty good.
Speaker 1: They just use that it was infallible. Yeah, or I mean,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of TV shows like that, but it's
Speaker 1: all just I don't know, it's all subjective. It's I
Speaker 1: guess it's not right to say someone's not smart. But
Speaker 1: I've known some dummies that in a quick paste funny
Speaker 1: conversation they just sit there like I don't get it.
Speaker 1: They're lost. Yeah, it's sad and drags everybody else down,
Speaker 1: and really they should just stay in their rooms, right,
Speaker 1: um so chuck josh. Uh. Lastly, I guess where you
Speaker 1: come from is another aspect of what you find funny
Speaker 1: and what cultural for sure? May I may I play
Speaker 1: an example of that. I brought another one today. Okay,
Speaker 1: I have a joke. There is it cheer the cheer
Speaker 1: walk Oh with a shot la la la, you walk
Speaker 1: on the street that he's a walking from. Yes, well,
Speaker 1: what's a funny image? Yes? Nice that one was using
Speaker 1: her occipital lobe. Oh boy, that was from the genuinely
Speaker 1: perfect movie Borat. Yeah, there's not not much as funnier
Speaker 1: to meeting Borah. I love it, Yes, but it's a
Speaker 1: great example of how, uh, something could be funny in
Speaker 1: theory to a to a foreigner that the person in
Speaker 1: the culture outside of that, and that's the whole basis
Speaker 1: of pride. That's all he does talk about things that
Speaker 1: are funny in Kazakhstan. So, um, British humor. You've always
Speaker 1: heard about British humor very specific and like if you think,
Speaker 1: like I didn't like Faulty Towers, well you just don't
Speaker 1: get British humor. Like on, oh, I just not thought
Speaker 1: it was funny. Yeah it was hit or miss. Fawlty Towers,
Speaker 1: Monty Python was even hit or miss. I mean just
Speaker 1: sometimes you're not in the move for absurdainity. Agreed, And
Speaker 1: there is a British humor. But I found the Brits
Speaker 1: are a little prone to get up on their high
Speaker 1: horse about like, well, you just don't get it right. Well, no,
Speaker 1: you know you have a British friend, don't you. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: Justin will tell me. I don't get it took Oh,
Speaker 1: it's just it's pretty human. You don't understand, right, No,
Speaker 1: leave me alone while my beans drenched and catch up.
Speaker 1: Justin's been here since he was seventeen though he's so
Speaker 1: he's American, He's American Georgia and even until the girls
Speaker 1: come around um, so chuckers. Oh lastly, um, if you
Speaker 1: have an attachment to the subject, say you know you're
Speaker 1: you're your brother really did die in a motorcycle accident,
Speaker 1: You're never gonna find it. Might not find that Anthony
Speaker 1: doesn't nick joke funny, or if you literally couldn't care
Speaker 1: less about people dying in motors cycle accidents, you're probably
Speaker 1: not going to find that funny. And that researcher Provine
Speaker 1: has basically divided that up into two ends of the spectrum,
Speaker 1: which based on things people commonly say, which is is
Speaker 1: it offensive or what's the point? Or it is I'm
Speaker 1: sorry it is offensive or what's the point? Well, there
Speaker 1: you have it. That means you Yeah, that probably means
Speaker 1: you have a personal something at stake. Yes, and you
Speaker 1: found even in time won't even cure that. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: like the Twin Towers falling. It was the first comedians
Speaker 1: to start joking about that. It was remember that being
Speaker 1: a very like tense thing when people started making jokes
Speaker 1: about that. But I think one of the ways to
Speaker 1: digest raw and negative emotions is to eventually laugh about it, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: because it's the best medicine. So, speaking of medicine, Chuck,
Speaker 1: that's a nice set up. Um. There is no less
Speaker 1: than two UM groups dedicated to studying humor, and these
Speaker 1: are international associations, well ones American UM what is it?
Speaker 1: The American Association for Therapeutic Humor and the International Society
Speaker 1: for Humor Studies, and they are bona fide. They have
Speaker 1: conferences all over the place. Because it's real, dude, it
Speaker 1: is UM. And there's like a definite hint of Patch
Speaker 1: Adams in there. So I'd like to just skim right
Speaker 1: over this. But there is a physiological effect to laughter,
Speaker 1: UM that is totally beneficial of the body. That's right, right,
Speaker 1: And it kind of goes back to fight or flight
Speaker 1: in a way very much, because we've talked about this
Speaker 1: gazillion times. When the fight or flight response kicks in,
Speaker 1: that kind of a lot of your other bodily functions
Speaker 1: cease to happen and everything freezes up. And when we laugh, though,
Speaker 1: is that uh, laughter shuts off the stress hormones, certain
Speaker 1: stress hormones that the fight or flight response would normally
Speaker 1: be shutting down your like immune system. It shuts that
Speaker 1: down and actually boost to your immune system right temporarily, UM,
Speaker 1: not only that it boosts the production of gamma interfere
Speaker 1: on um B cells and T cells, which are all
Speaker 1: UM engaged in warding off disease or boosting the immune system. Right,
Speaker 1: UM the production of blood platelets increases UM UH, SAL,
Speaker 1: salivary immunoglobulin A, which UM protects against respiratory diseases. All
Speaker 1: of these cells and antibodies their production is boosted. So basically,
Speaker 1: we're just inherently healthier when we laugh, which is pretty
Speaker 1: awesome if you ask me so. Not only is the
Speaker 1: is the fight or flight the sympathetic uh, the sympathetic
Speaker 1: nervous system like deadened, but we're actually getting healthier, right,
Speaker 1: That's just that's awesome. It's pretty amazing. It also gives
Speaker 1: you a pretty good workout. They found that laughing one
Speaker 1: hundred times is about the same as fifteen minutes on
Speaker 1: an exercise bike works out your diaphragm. You know you've
Speaker 1: had your stomach kurt from laughing so hard, Yes, crunches,
Speaker 1: I know, it feels so good. It feels so good
Speaker 1: your stomach kurts, and you realize you just peed yourself
Speaker 1: a little. I've never pead myself laughing. Really, it's a gas. Uh.
Speaker 1: There's a guy named Norman Cousins. Have you ever heard
Speaker 1: of this dude? He is uh or was an author, humorist,
Speaker 1: political activists, and he studied the biochemistry of emotions for
Speaker 1: many years. And U c l A. And he struggled
Speaker 1: with heart disease and then eventually a severe form of arthritis.
Speaker 1: And he watched Marx Brothers films, and uh basically found
Speaker 1: that belly laughing for ten minutes. Watching one of these
Speaker 1: Marx Brothers films allowed him to sleep pain free for
Speaker 1: two hours. And then it literally he could feel it
Speaker 1: wearing off as if it were a medicine. And then
Speaker 1: he would watch funny stuff again. If only I could
Speaker 1: laugh at March but There's films, I'd be a happier person.
Speaker 1: You don't laugh at March Brothers. No, I'm more like
Speaker 1: in awe, like wow, these guys were comic geniuses. But
Speaker 1: to find something that comic genius doesn't necessarily mean to
Speaker 1: find it funny interesting. I don't. I don't, although I
Speaker 1: do have to say and maybe like I'm like a
Speaker 1: fan of The poor Man's Marks Brothers, but I do
Speaker 1: laugh out loud. You me and I both laugh out loud.
Speaker 1: At Three Stooges. Now, I would think you would laugh
Speaker 1: at March Brothers because they have watched it. Man that
Speaker 1: that's not even like higher class of comedy than three students.
Speaker 1: I'll have to check it out again. No, Gratcha was
Speaker 1: he was a sharp tack. Yeah, sure, And I think
Speaker 1: that that kind of translates so a different part of
Speaker 1: my brain is activated where I'm like watching him on
Speaker 1: an intellectual level. With with the Three Stooges, I can
Speaker 1: just turn off and it's just funny. I got you
Speaker 1: all right, Um, do you got anything else? Yeah? U
Speaker 1: c l A has a study they're doing now too,
Speaker 1: Um where they they inflict pain on children there. It
Speaker 1: is the funniest thing of this wolds. Uh. They take
Speaker 1: healthy kids and they wire them up and then ask
Speaker 1: them to put their hands in ten degrease celsius water
Speaker 1: and hold it there for as long as they can.
Speaker 1: It's painful. It's not like inflicting damage though, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. And Uh, on average kids can hold
Speaker 1: their arms in the freezing water for eighty seven seconds.
Speaker 1: But if they're shown funny videos while they're doing that,
Speaker 1: their heart rate, blood pressure and breathing and all their
Speaker 1: vital signs get better and stronger, and they can last
Speaker 1: up to longer. And then afterward they sample the we've
Speaker 1: talked about cortisol, the stress hormone before. Then there's saliva
Speaker 1: and they laughing helps their bodies recover much faster. So
Speaker 1: it's physical, baby, it's very neat. It's all in the spit.
Speaker 1: I guess that's the that's the point of this whole
Speaker 1: How Laughter Works podcast. It's all about your spit. It's
Speaker 1: that the deal. Hey, you should check out. I think
Speaker 1: it's a national geographic maybe Natio Nova. It's one of those.
Speaker 1: It's one of those two um documentary on stress, like
Speaker 1: the Physiological effects of stress. Who read about that too?
Speaker 1: Really awesome, it's very good. It's that article actually, physical
Speaker 1: effects of stress. It's good. It's streaming on Netflix. Check
Speaker 1: it out. All right, you got anything else? I got
Speaker 1: nothing else? All right? Well, if you want to learn
Speaker 1: more about laughter, type in laughter in the search bar
Speaker 1: how Stuff Works dot Com, which brings up Chuck. It's
Speaker 1: been a little while. Listener mail Josh. We asked for
Speaker 1: bear stories and we got him. And this is what
Speaker 1: I thought was the best one. This is from Chris
Speaker 1: ef in Vancouver, BC, Canada. It's British Columbia. Two years ago.
Speaker 1: The bear population came out of the mountains early because
Speaker 1: of poor barry supplies. Basically, this guy's neighborhood was rampant
Speaker 1: with bears for for a summer. Um I'm sorry. In
Speaker 1: the spring, I'm sorry. In the autumn, he returned from
Speaker 1: walking his dog, walked into his cardboard and there was
Speaker 1: a large bear cub chowing down on my garbage. My
Speaker 1: dog was an energetic labradoodle, how old and happy excitement
Speaker 1: of what he thought was the biggest squirrel he had
Speaker 1: ever seen, and chased after the cub, who we named
Speaker 1: boot Dog, ran around uh Chase's cub in the backyard,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, booze mother came around the corner,
Speaker 1: and they later named this one Marie Hardy. She weighed
Speaker 1: about two and fifty pounds and walked up to this
Speaker 1: guy and the dog, who was barking four ft away.
Speaker 1: When I hit her on the head with my golf umbrella.
Speaker 1: The south stopped deadner Track sat back on her haunches,
Speaker 1: shaking her head in disbelief, and was very surprised to
Speaker 1: be smacked with the umbrella. For about five seconds, and
Speaker 1: then she came straight at me in the garage and
Speaker 1: I smacked her again with significantly less profound effect. Gave
Speaker 1: me time to back out of the cardboard and do
Speaker 1: the only thing I could think of, which was to
Speaker 1: open the umbrella in her face and yell and scream
Speaker 1: and close my eyes. Yeah that sounds like a reasonable
Speaker 1: thing to do. Yeah, that makes perfect sense. I mean,
Speaker 1: I am so tense right now. What happened? I opened
Speaker 1: my eyes again and Moriarty was gone into the brush
Speaker 1: along with Boo. But they became regular visitors throughout the
Speaker 1: rest of the fall, ranging through the neighborhood for scraps,
Speaker 1: and then they returned the next summer with a new
Speaker 1: small cub that we named Boo Too Happy ending for
Speaker 1: Chris and ps, we're proud Civa contributors, which is really
Speaker 1: a lord that our Kiva team is killing it. We're
Speaker 1: about to hit sik in loan. Yeah, so go guys.
Speaker 1: If you want to join our Kiva team, you can
Speaker 1: go to www. Dot Kiva k i v a dot
Speaker 1: org slash team singular slash stuff you should know. Join up,
Speaker 1: start donating and uh help contribute to the cause. And
Speaker 1: if you want to send us an email about laughing
Speaker 1: something you thought was very funny or even better than that,
Speaker 1: because we probably wouldn't find it that funny. Send us
Speaker 1: a link to something that's actually funny, all right, and
Speaker 1: we will judge you, well, we'll judge your laughing skills. Um.
Speaker 1: Send it to Stuff Podcast at how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: Be sure to check out our new video podcast, Stuff
Speaker 1: from the Future. Join how Stuff Work staff as we
Speaker 1: explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow, brought
Speaker 1: to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready,
Speaker 1: are you