A mushroom walks into a bar and orders a cold Coke. The barman says “I’m sorry, we don’t serve mushrooms”. “Awww” says the mushroom sadly, “but I’m a fun-guy”.
I tell that joke whenever I get a chance, and it’s not because it’s the best joke I’ve heard – it’s because it’s the only joke I can remember.
This week, the award for the best joke at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival – the annual arts festival in Scotland’s capital city – went to Masai Graham from England. Here it is: “My dad has suggested that I register for a donor card. He’s a man after my own heart.”
I think it’s funny. What do you think? What makes a joke funny?
Over the years, countless research has proven that laughter is indeed the best medicine. It’s contagious and binds people together, increasing the sense of happiness and intimacy. Laughter also triggers healthy physical changes in the body. It strengthens the immune system, boosts energy, diminishes pain, and protects the body from the damaging effects of stress.
A joke is a structured form of humour. It’s a way of controlling laughter and intentionally eliciting these positive effects. In order to understand why some jokes are perceived as funny and others are not, Robin Dunbar and his colleagues at Oxford University investigated the cognitive mechanism underlying laughter and humour. They analysed the reaction of 55 undergraduates from the London School of Economics to 65 jokes from an online compilation of the funniest jokes of all time. The collection includes jokes from successful stand-up comedians and all of them were rated on a scale from one (not at all funny) to four (very funny).
The research team found that the funniest jokes are those that involve two characters and up to five back-and-forth connections between the comedian and the audience. People easily get lost when jokes are more complex than that.
Whether it’s a joke you listen to, a comedy sketch or film you watch, or an every-day-life moment that makes you laugh, “your sense of humour is one of the most powerful tools you have to make certain that your daily mood and emotional state support good health,” says Paul E. McGhee, Ph.D.
And finally, here’s one from Roger Swift: “I spotted a Marmite van on the motorway. It was heading yeastbound,” or how about this one from Zoe Lyons: “I’ll tell you what’s unnatural in the eyes of God – contact lenses”.
Jokes aside though, laughter is priceless medicine – it’s fun, free, and easy to use. I hope you have many laugh-out-loud moments today.