Being funny is something that most of us desire to do well, yet it often eludes us. There are some simple key points to humour that can be practiced by anyone to make their comments lighter, funnier, and more entertaining.
The use of humour can be a valuable tool in a variety of situations. Humour can break tension which may otherwise lead to conflict. Humour can be a useful ice breaker in starting a conversation whether it is with a co-worker, a prospect, or that new person working at the firm down the hall.
Humour puts us in a nice state of mind, most people enjoy laughing and tend to gravitate toward people that make them laugh. Emotionally we are more open to ideas and suggestions and our ability to think flexibly is improved. The humorous response is actually the response to misdirection and mismatching from what we expected. This makes humour skills even more vital as they enable us to bring others to a state in which we can then guide things in the direction we want.
The basic pattern of humour is one of misinterpretation. Whether the joke is a one liner or takes five minutes to tell, the punch line works because of misinterpretation on the part of the listener. The punch line delivers a different interpretation of the events with a surprising punch. It is this shift of perception that results in laughter. Additionally someone is usually uncomfortable in the joke in some sense, leading to the idea of being the butt of a joke.
Many people have told me that they just can’t tell jokes, they can’t remember them, or they just aren’t able to be funny. As with any skill, humour takes some practice. Of course there are people who appear to be naturally funny, some folks don’t think they ever “learned” this skill because they were not formally trained. Like most behaviours the skill of being funny is learned through modeling others which means that we can only be as funny as they are. We see and hear others and observe the responses that the listeners have to them. From this we develop a model of humour.
Most punch lines and humorous statements provide a shift of perception or interpretation from the norm, you were expecting cherry ice cream and got broccoli! This interpretation can the result of a variety of things; misunderstanding a word and responding to a word that is close to it, double entendres in which a different meaning of the same word is used, responses which are embarrassing to most of us, and responses which show an interpretation that is outside of regular behavior for the group you are a part of at the time.
This basic understanding of what sort of things are funny and when, doesn’t tell us why they are funny. The source of the humour is often outside of our awareness. To understand funny you need to dig deeper into what is happening in the mind. The simplest example is a short joke or skit.
“A guy walks past a mental hospital and hears a moaning voice "13.......13.......13.........13" the man looks over to the hospital and sees a hole in the wall, he looks through the hole and gets poked in the eye. The moaning voice then continues on ‘14.........14.........14.......14.'”
For the listener an image is created in which their idea of a hospital with a wall is created. As humans tend to be curious it is normal that we would follow the same path as the subject of the joke. In this case we have a layered punch line, the first is the surprise of being poked in the eye, which we can imagine like a skit with the guy looking into the end of the hose trying to figure out why there is no water. When he is poked he looks foolish for putting himself in this position. The second layer of punch line is the resumption of the counting from inside the wall which shows us that this was the intention of the speaker to begin with. Of course this is no longer amusing when it is dissected in this fashion but it does point out the two operant portions of a joke, surprise and ridicule. Without these there is no joke, or it is a very weak joke.
While many people tell me they can’t remember jokes it seems that the important thing to remember is the punch line and the structure of the joke. Everything else that you say is just clothing hung on it to add to the character of it. This doesn’t mean that the story leading to the punch line is unimportant, it must draw in the listener, catch their interest, and help them identify with the character in the joke.
I doubt I ever tell a joke the same way twice, I only worry about the punch line and structure. Once you think about humour this way it makes it far easier to relax and get people laughing. If you are concerned about remembering every word correctly you will throw off your delivery and your concern will be telegraphed to the listener ruining their experience as well.
“Deep within a forest, a little turtle began to climb a tree. After hours of effort, he reached the top, jumped into the air waving his front legs and crashed to the ground. After recovering, he slowly climbed the tree again, jumped, and fell to the ground. The turtle tried again and again, while a couple of birds sitting on a branch watched his sad efforts. Finally, the female bird turned to her mate. "Dear," she chirped, "I think it's time to tell him he's adopted."
This joke is a good example of many of the patterns that make a joke funny. The first is that the main character is doing something with a lot of intent and effort. The repeated attempts and overcoming of serious obstacles for a turtle put the listener in a mindset of hard work, intent, and determination. It also helps them identify with his struggle making it their own. The punch line shows that the turtle’s efforts are ridiculous since it was thinking it could fly. There is also a subtler second commentary here about the difficulty of telling a child they are adopted. If you try the alternate punch line “I think it’s time to tell him he can’t fly.” The response is nowhere near as intense. This shows one of the aspects of humour that is often missed, discomfort or the suggestion that the character is somehow deficient is usually a part of any funny exchange. This is also reflected in clean and politically correct humour, which pretty much isn’t funny.
An unexpected point, a hard stop “k” sound is amusing to people. I have heard that this is related to the types of sounds that parents make to infants which make them laugh. If you have the opportunity in word choice to use words with hard k’s they may not break out laughing but they will loosen up and smile some. Don’t take my word for it, experiment with it some and you will find that a cricket is funnier than a bug and Keokuk is much funnier than Cincinatti.
“The scene is the darkest jungle in Africa. Two tigers are stalking through the jungle when the one in the rear suddenly reaches out with his tongue and licks the butt of the one in front. The lead tiger turns and says, "Hey, cut it out, alright." The other tiger says sorry and they continue on their way.
After about five minutes the rear tiger suddenly repeats his action. The front tiger turns angrily and says," I said don't do that again!" The rear tiger says "sorry" again and they continue.
After about another five minutes, the rear tiger repeats his action. The front tiger turns and says, "What is it with you, anyway? I said to stop." The rear tiger says, "I really am sorry but I just ate a lawyer and I'm just trying to get the taste out of my mouth."
This joke presents things in a longer format which functions to build up the pattern. It is fairly typical of this sort of joke to use three iterations of the scenario before the punch line is delivered. Three seems to be a fairly important number in human behavior, especially in demonstrating patterns of behavior, and helps to really draw in the listener. In this particular case the result of going through the same pattern three times gives the listener a little bit of conditioning to the pattern. At the same time the listener is trying to figure out the reason why anyone would do something so disgusting to a person, yet something that for a tiger is a natural part of cleaning. This shows the metaphorical nature of jokes. While we are talking about tigers we are at the same time implying that we are talking about people. The punch line then whacks you by offering a reason that makes sense yet makes someone else look foolish in the process.
Now that we have looked at the basic ideas of humour we can explore the thinking that goes on to come up with something funny. We are all used to the standard interpretation of things. Finding the offbeat interpretation or misunderstanding of them is a key technique to humour creation. In the example above the tiger has to be shown to be doing something that actually makes sense in the circumstance. Since most of us can’t think of a reason to lick someone’s butt the provision of the punch line actually relieves stress that builds up inside of us from the lack of understanding.
We are conditioned to make sense of the world around us. When we don’t understand things we build up a tension inside which gives us focus and energy to solve the mystery. There is a point at which this reaches threshold and we go into frustration and irritation over our inability to solve it. Providing the punch line at as close to the maximum positive buildup will get the strongest response. If we pass that point before the punch is delivered we can run into defensive reactions resulting from the listener’s embarrassment about getting it late. A simple way to think about this is the distance you run before you jump over something, once you reach the maximum speed there isn’t any point in running further; you just start to get tired.
To be spontaneously funny requires two things, exposure to many other funny events which allows you to identify similarities in current situations, and a fractured viewpoint. By a fractured viewpoint I mean that you have to be able to find a fully different interpretation of the situation and play it as though it is yours.
Improper comparisons, especially those that are slightly taboo or distasteful are often humorous as are references in which something is misclassified. Commenting that the elevator was so packed you couldn’t have fit a loud fart or referring to something as being smaller than a mouse’s rectum both play into this type of humour. Shifting things into the pattern that are outside of the norm are also amusing. Referring to a school as Our Lady of Sour Milk has great response potential since there are many schools which have names that start this way, the Sour Milk part then shifts away to something disgusting and amusing that is still related to children.
So now you are like a one armed man with a bow, you have enough information to be dangerous. Now you can start experimenting with these ideas and find the particular style of funny that is right for you and your closest victims!
No comments:
Post a Comment