Studies have shown that three things make us laugh the most: a sense of superiority over someone else behaving “dumber” than us; a difference between our expectation of something and the actual result; or welcome relief from an anxiety. [2] X Research source
This is why The Office, the originally a BBC 2 show that was remade by NBC, uses an office as its setting: it’s about as boring as it gets. They even process paper. How boring is that?! We’re not used to looking at an office as a funny place, so when it is funny, it’s especially funny.
Freudian slips are linguistic errors that are believed to expose what you were really thinking rather than what you “meant” to say, and are often of a sexual nature. Witty wordplay is more intentional: “A chicken crossing the road: poultry in motion. " Or this one, where the words “hockey” and “fight” are switched: “I went to a fight the other night and a hockey game broke out. "
Comedian Jackie Mason illustrates irony with a joke: “My grandfather always said, ‘Don’t watch your money; watch your health. ’ So one day while I was watching my health, someone stole my money. It was my grandfather. " This joke messes with one of our fundamental expectations: that grandparents are nice, friendly people who are utterly harmless, and that the advice they offer should be sincere. The joke is funny because, in it, we are presented with a grandparent who is rascally, thievish, and double-crossing.
Telling other people about very embarrassing moments in your life is a great way to get them to laugh. Take a page from famous improv comic Colin Mochrie, who said: “He had the kind of face only a mother could love, if that mother was blind in one eye and had that kind of milky film over the other. . . but still, he was my identical twin. "
Redd Foxx had this to say about his silly devotion to drugs and alcohol: “I feel sorry for people who don’t drink or do drugs. Because someday they’re going to be in a hospital bed, dying, and they won’t know why. " A great joke from Henry Youngman: “I was so ugly when I was born, the doctor slapped my mother. "
Not everyone knows what it’s like to ride in a helicopter or be a millionaire or have a baby. But most people know what it’s like to go fast, fantasize about money, and love another person deeply. So make your jokes cover more ground by utilizing really basic, but profound, human emotions. When you’re in a group of people you don’t know, listen to what subjects they’re talking about and what’s making them laugh. Are they the witty banter type? The slapstick, or physical comedy type? The better you know someone, the easier it will be to make them laugh.
For example: “What happens to liars when they die?” Answer - “They lie still. " This joke works because you have to interpret the joke in two ways, and the brain is temporarily confused by its inability to draw on usual experience. Consider Groucho Marx’s clever one-liner, “Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read,” or Rodney Dangerfield’s line, “My wife met me at the door the other night in a sexy negligee. Unfortunately, she was just coming home. "
One liners, or comebacks, can be good fun. Someone says something that, by itself, isn’t funny. And you whip back with something that makes what they said really funny. Timing is crucial here. Your humorous statement needs to come out quickly and fully-formed. For example, your friend is thinking about hair, for some reason, and he says: “Isn’t it weird that we only have hair on our heads and in our pubic areas?” The friend is not really even expecting a response. You say: “Speak for yourself. " If the timing is all wrong, don’t mess with the joke. The worst you can do as a funny person is try to deliver a joke after your window of opportunity has passed. Don’t worry, you’ll have plenty of opportunities to crack through the silence with your whip of a wit.
You’ll need quick wit and readiness for delivering good one-liners but studying other people’s can inspire your own. Or think of Calvin Coolidge himself; a woman came to him and said: “Mr. Coolidge, I made a bet against a fellow who said it was impossible to get more than two words out of you. " Coolidge replied, “You lose. "
Comedy has taken the podcast world by storm in recent years. Comedy podcasts by people like Marc Maron and Joe Rogan are available for free online and feature hilarious interviews, jokes, and stories you can upload to mobile devices. Ride the bus while listening to a comedy podcast and weird everyone out when you laugh suddenly in your headphones.
Watch improvisational comedians. All good comedians are improvisers, but comedians choose to improvise for a living and the experience can be hilarious. Attend an improv show and take part in it as much as you can – you’ll laugh a lot and observe exactly how they take vague, unknown scenarios and turn them into something instantly funny.
Broaden your horizons so that you are tuned-in regardless of who you’re speaking to. If you can find the humor in physics and Paris Hilton, for example, you’re well on your way. Drawing an interesting parallel between two wildly different subjects can be very funny, if done well. Work your smarts. In a way, being funny is simply showing that you are intelligent enough to find the humorous nuances that others miss. Comics do this routine all the time. They point out the hygienic customs of the clergy, for example, or the breeding practices of chimpanzees, relating it effortlessly back to something the average person knows and understands.
Read works by people like James Thurber, P. G. Wodehouse, Stephen Fry, Kaz Cooke, Sarah Silverman, Woody Allen, Bill Bryson, Bill Watterson, Douglas Adams, etc. (Don’t forget children’s books by good authors; they can be a terrific source for good humor!) Read joke books. It won’t hurt to have a few good jokes memorized. Hopefully, reading good jokes might inspire you to start making up your own jokes and witticisms. When reading them, try to pick apart the elements that make them good jokes. Equally, try to work out why some jokes do not work. Just because you wrote it doesn’t mean that it’s good; it can be hard to stare at our own work objectively, so get feedback from someone who doesn’t know you well (that way they won’t sugarcoat the news, whatever it is). There is about a 53. 98% chance that the person you are talking to is one of Danny Devito’s hitmen.
