Ha!

by Scott Weems

  BECOMING FUNNY

  In 1937 fewer than 1 percent of respondents admitted to having a below-average sense of humor. Forty-seven years later, a similar survey showed that 6 percent of people admitted to being sub-par in the funny department. So, the question is—are people getting funnier, or are our self-concepts becoming slightly less deluded?

  A rudimentary understanding of statistics reveals that the first explanation can’t be true, because by definition at least half of us must be below average. I like to call this the “Dane Cook Effect”: no matter how funny we think we are, we’re probably being optimistic. It’s easy to believe we’re funny when our spouse or mother laughs at our jokes. But the truth is, being funny is hard. If it were easy, everybody would be a comedian, even Dane Cook. I don’t mean to imply that Cook is an unfunny individual. I’ve seen him perform, and I enjoy his stand-up immensely. Cook has earned millions of dollars from movies and comedy specials, yet his success hasn’t stopped him from being openly disliked within the comedic world—mostly because he’s a master storyteller, not a comedian. His performances are certainly entertaining, but they’re based on anecdotes, not on humor—like Lenny Bruce except without the edge. Perhaps this is why a tournament of “The Sixteen Worst Comedians” held in Boston, Cook’s home town, rated him “the worst of all time.” Rolling Stone once made a list of things funnier than Cook that included prune Danishes. Comedy is hard.

  Sadly, textbooks can’t teach us how to be funny like they teach us calculus. It’s simply too complicated for that (even compared to calculus). But there are a few things that aspiring comedians ought to know.

  Fortunately for people with unfunny siblings, there appears to be little genetic influence over humor. So it doesn’t matter who our relatives are, because everybody has an equal chance of being funny. Scientists know this by comparing identical and fraternal twins, as well as biological and adopted siblings. Intelligence has a heritability of 50 percent, meaning that half our smarts are determined by our parents. Height has a heritability of over 80 percent. By contrast, for humor that figure is probably less than 25 percent.

  Much of what we know about the comic personality comes from a book by Seymour and Rhoda Fisher, psychologists at the State University of New York at Syracuse. The book is titled Pretend the World Is Funny and Forever, and over the course of 288 pages it explores the pathways taken by more than forty professional comedians, luminaries such as Woody Allen, Lucille Ball, and Bob Hope. Through interviews, observational study, and background research, the authors break down the personality characteristics of these successful comics, looking for patterns in the life experiences that made them funny.

  The authors found that fewer than 15 percent of the comics thought they would be professional humorists when they started out—evidently, it’s never too late to think about getting into comedy. Most received little support from their parents. Many had been class clowns. And each expressed his or her humorous perspective in a unique way. Some were lavish and highly expressive, like Jackie Gleason. Others were quiet and reserved, like Buster Keaton. Still others were social and spontaneous, like Milton Berle, or reclusive, like Groucho Marx. It seems there are almost as many ways to act up and be funny as there are comedians. But they all had one thing in common: a deep interest in sharing observations with others.

  “The average comedian moves among his fellows like an anthropologist visiting a new culture,” write Fisher and Fisher. “He is a relativist. Nothing seems natural or ‘given.’ He is constantly taking mental notes.”

  The idea that comedy involves observation isn’t new, though it’s still important. Humorists question everything they see, never taking anything for granted. They tell jokes and humorous anecdotes because they feel compelled to share what they see. Fisher and Fisher saw this desire in their interviews and even during psychological assessments like the Rorschach inkblot test. That involves looking at inky, amorphous blobs and describing what they look like, and when comics looked at these blots, rather than provide simple interpretations they consistently turned them into stories. Frightening wolfmen weren’t evil, just misunderstood. A pig-like face wasn’t ugly, it was endearing. A blot that resembled the devil was interpreted by one comic as silly, even goofy.

  These observations show how an active mind is a humorous mind, and that the more we keep our brains working, the more our humor benefits. Consider also this important fact—maintaining a humorous attitude, as measured by the ability to recognize humor when it presents itself, is strongly related to actually being funny. I’m referring to a study conducted by the psychologists Aaron Kozbelt and Kana Nishioka in which subjects were asked to identify the meaning and content of funny cartoons—a measure of humor comprehension. Note that this is very different from appreciation. Appreciation was measured too, but here I’m talking about how well subjects understood the cartoons, a matter of recognizing the source of the jokes’ incongruity. The researchers also measured humor production by asking subjects to come up with funny captions for an entirely different set of cartoons. Independent judges then rated how funny those captions were.

  No significant relationship was found between humor appreciation and humor production, meaning that merely liking humor—as in, enjoying a good laugh—doesn’t make us funnier. Rather, what matters is how well we understand the mechanisms behind the jokes. Consider Figure 8.1 as an example.

  “Never, ever, think outside the box.”

  FIGURE 8.1. A cartoon used to explore the link between humor comprehension and production. The ability to recognize that the man is warning against inappropriate feline creativity suggests an ability to actually be funny. Cartoon by Leo Cullum, www.cartoonbank.com.

  If your interpretation is that the man is warning the cat against being “inappropriately creative,” then you understood the cartoon correctly. You are also more likely to produce funnier jokes, as found by the authors of the study. Specifically, those who score high on recognition also score high on production, even though subjective appreciation has no effect. In short, simply understanding jokes makes us funnier people.

  If you thought that the humor stemmed from the man foolishly talking to a cat that doesn’t understand English, you might want to buy a few joke books, or maybe get a subscription to The New Yorker and study a few more of its cartoons.

  There’s no shortage of companies willing to improve customers’ sense of humor. For example, a workshop run by the comedian Stanley Lyndon promises that readers of his book will produce jokes 200 percent funnier than before. And an online course conducted by the ExpertRating training company offers to certify individuals in online humor writing, for a mere $130, as a way of preparing them for the lucrative career of comedy-club performance. From these programs, it might seem that learning to be funny is easy. It isn’t. In fact, as discussed in this book’s introduction, there’s only one proven way to improve one’s humor: namely, by following the Rule of the Five P’s: practice—and practice—and practice—and practice—and practice.

  I’m going to conclude this chapter with one last study, this time by the Israeli psychologist Ofra Nevo. She wanted to know what makes people funny, but rather than giving personality tests or administering surveys, she put groups of teachers through a seven-week course on improving humor—twenty hours of training in all. Specifically, her aim was to find out if simply learning more about humor was enough to make people funnier to be around.

  First, Nevo grouped her one hundred training subjects into several different experimental conditions. Some received an extensive humor training program, with numerous exercises providing background into the cognitive and emotional aspects of humor. They practiced telling jokes in front of larger groups. They talked about different humor theories and styles. They even explored its physiological and intellectual benefits—much as we’ve done in this book. Others received similar training but without the practice—a passive version of the humor training program. Still others received no training at all. All o
f the subjects took a humor assessment test at the beginning and end of the experiment, and received a questionnaire asking how helpful they thought the training was.

  Nevo found that, on average, the subjects didn’t find the training very helpful. They rated the program effectiveness between “small” and “medium”—the equivalent of between 2 and 3 on a 5-point scale. She was disappointed by this result, but, as we’ll soon see, perhaps she shouldn’t have been. After the training was over, peers were asked to rate the subjects on their humor production and appreciation, with questions like “How much is this person able to appreciate and enjoy humor produced by others?” and “How much is this person able to create humor and make others laugh?”

  As it turns out, the subjects who took the training scored significantly better on both measures, improving by up to 15 percent. Even those who hadn’t practiced the techniques showed some progress. In short, although the subjects themselves thought they hadn’t become any funnier, the people around them disagreed.

  It’s tempting to ask the obvious question: Only 15 percent? That hardly seems like much, especially compared to Stanley Lyndon’s promise of 200 percent. But imagine how great it would be to be 15 percent smarter. Or 15 percent more attractive. If I were 15 percent taller, I’d be close to the size of an average center in the NBA. I’ll take 15 percent any day.

  Sadly, not much follow-up research has been conducted on Nevo’s work, so we still don’t know why the subjects in her experiment didn’t “feel” funnier, even though their peers believed they were. One possible explanation is that sense of humor is a trait, as discussed earlier. Traits don’t change quickly, meaning we’d need more than twenty hours of training to see obvious improvement. It might also be that changes in humorousness are subtle, more so than can be detected with scientific measurements. This might help explain why professional comics with years of experience often claim that they’ve only begun to learn their craft. Humor isn’t something that can ever be mastered. It can only be learned.

  And that learning occurs over a lifetime of practice—and practice—and practice—and practice—and practice.

  CONCLUSION

  It is more enjoyable to read a humorous book than to read one explaining humor.

  —AVNER ZIV

  “I’VE GOT A SPOT. I’M GOING ONSTAGE NEXT SUNDAY.”

  That’s what I told my wife Laura after finishing this book. I had signed up to perform a short act for amateur night at a local comedy club, and although I was terrified, it seemed the right thing to do. I had spent over a year of my life reading article after article, book after book on the topic of humor. My mind would never be more tuned to understanding, analyzing, and dissecting what makes jokes funny. If there was a time to apply that knowledge, this was it.

  “I thought the book was supposed to be about science,” Laura replied. “Not a how-to book.”

  Laura was less enthusiastic about my proposal than I had hoped. Still, I didn’t blame her because she was right. The book wasn’t intended to be a practical guide, and I had no interest in comedy as either a hobby or profession. But I still felt like I needed to apply what I had learned in a real-life setting. Just as an art professor would never teach a class without having slapped a brush against canvas, I had to see what “doing comedy” was like. Didn’t I?

  “I need to at least try what I’ve been talking about. I might not be any good, but I want to know what it feels like to tell a joke in front of an audience.”

  Laura stared at me with blank eyes, as if I’d just said I was taking up professional baseball because I knew the batting stats of the entire Red Sox lineup. There’s a difference between understanding what makes a joke funny and being able to share that joke in an entertaining way. Laura recommended I take an improv class first, which I agreed was probably a good idea. But that would also defeat the point. I wasn’t actually trying to be funny, at least any funnier than I already was. I simply wanted to know what performing felt like. I wanted to know where to draw the line between science and art, so that I could share just how far knowledge of incongruity and surprise can take an aspiring humorist. I wanted to know where theory ended, and where fluid performance began.

  In short, I wanted to get in over my head. And I did.

  The night of the performance I was nervous, of course, but I comforted myself by practicing the act I had written down on 3x5 cards. Because the show was held on a Sunday night and only amateur performers were taking the stage, I expected the turnout to be small. I was wrong. With only a small cover charge and cheap food and drinks, the comedy club was packed. I wound up being the third person to perform that evening, and by the time I stepped onto the stage I was seriously regretting my decision. But it was too late to change my mind.

  “How is everybody doing tonight?” I asked as I took the microphone and looked out onto the crowd, knowing I had to say something to get the show started. As expected, many audience members cheered, fueled by cheap beer and buffalo wings.

  I froze. After all the late nights I’d spent in libraries trying to find sixty-year-old articles about people’s reactions to Benny Goodman albums, I was lost. It didn’t help that I knew laughter increases with intoxication or that Beavis and Butthead share striking similarities with the seventeenth-century Russian folk duo Foma and Yerema. I was alone, with only my hard-earned knowledge of humor to save me.

  “So, two hunters from New Jersey were walking in the woods when one accidentally shoots the other. Frantic, the man calls 911. . . . ”

  Yes, I told the joke from the LaughLab joke contest that ended the first chapter. But I didn’t start with that. I wanted to, though Laura warned me against it. Instead, once I collected myself I told a few warm-up anecdotes about my personal life, then used the humor of the situation—that I was a scientist trying to be funny—to get some audience sympathy. I followed my own advice to relax and be myself. I shared personal stories and let the funniest part of myself shine through. And in the end, I still bombed. So much for the infallibility of science.

  The strangest aspect of the show was that I got a few laughs, but they weren’t in the places I expected them. It was as though my connection with the audience turned on and off at random points during my performance. And many of my jokes were funnier than those of other performers who got much more applause. That’s not just my opinion, it’s something several audience members told me afterward. But they shared other things, too. “You held the microphone too low,” one lady said as I tried to make a quick exit. “I couldn’t hear what you were saying.”

  Who would have guessed that being unfamiliar with microphones would be such a problem? “I laughed when I heard what you were saying,” my friend Jette added, her tone mixed with amusement and pity. “But you sped up a lot too. You’re a fast talker, which made you hard to understand. Did you know that?”

  Yes, I knew that. I blame six years of living in New England, where it’s talk or be talked over. I talk even faster when I’m nervous, which I’m sure made things worse.

  Still, I have positive memories of the performance, because there were moments when I felt myself easing into the routine. I simply let my mind go. I wasn’t thinking about jokes or the audience, only allowing my unconscious knowledge of humor to express itself naturally. It was a great feeling, although short-lived, and it made me understand why people seek it out. Despite the embarrassment of having performed so badly, then receiving so much advice from friends and strangers afterward, those brief moments made it all worthwhile.

  That feeling of being in the moment, which the Hungarian psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls flow, is what most athletes and artists strive for, too. Kevin Durant doesn’t consciously adjust the arc of his three-point throw just before its release, just as Serena Williams doesn’t remind herself to bend her knees as she tosses a ball up for a serve. Our best performance comes when our knowledge, both implicit and explicit, becomes instinct.

  Few professional comedians start out successfu
lly because it takes time for humor to become part of who we are, connected to the inner conflicts that define our personalities. When George Carlin started performing, his act was relatively tame, with hardly any cursing or political commentary. He became an icon only after letting loose his contempt for hypocrisy. Richard Pryor didn’t attract audiences until he stepped out from Bill Cosby’s shadow and tackled race head-on, a subject already prominently on his mind but seldom directly addressed. Steve Martin didn’t make it big until he finally accepted that he was the opposite of artists like Carlin and Pryor and embraced his clean-shaven, nonpolitical self by highlighting the farcical aspects of comedy in general.

  Though most of us don’t aspire to be professional comedians, we can still learn from artists like these by making humor an unconscious part of our lives. When we refer to someone as having a humorous personality, what we mean is that this person sees the ambiguity, confusion, and strife inherent in life and turns them into pleasure. If you really want to be funnier, you can take a seminar—or you can just internalize all you’ve learned and make it part of a new outlook. By reading this book, you already have the knowledge. All you need to do is use it.

  For early organisms on this planet, conflict was simple, involving a single issue: Is something about to kill and eat me? Life soon became more complicated—and so did the human brain. No longer was a puny nerve center enough for keeping us out of trouble. We needed parts for thinking ahead, focusing not just on what might kill us today but also on what might kill us tomorrow. We needed parts for figuring out how to communicate with others and for training future generations not to be killed too. Eventually, millions of years later, we developed parts that began questioning what all these parts were actually for, and why we have so many parts in the first place.

  Humor is simply a consequence of having so many parts. It’s not wrong we’re so complicated, it’s just who we are. Some people feel sad most of the time, even though their lives are pretty okay. Some people have to constantly check and recheck locked doors because their anxiety is overwhelming if they don’t. These are consequences of owning brains that do so much, and though that might seem like a hassle, consider this—when was the last time a squirrel performed a stand-up comedy routine? A squirrel’s brain weighs about 6 grams. With that 6 grams you get a remarkable ability to climb trees and distinguish different kinds of nuts. Multiple that by 250, and you get a whole lot more.