About Telling Jokes
Jokes have been around as long as humans have. Laughter releases stress and helps groups form bonds. There is no doubt that this was useful when cavemen were huddled away in the dark hiding from giant carnivorous animals and fighting off starvation. Keeping the mood light became a survival trait. Comedy has lived on into civilizations of the Greeks, who coined the word comedy, through the days of vaudeville, and into the age of cable television and Youtube. In every age and every situation, we could always use a laugh.
Structure
The structure of jokes has stayed relatively the same over the years. The formula is simple:
Set Up: This where a comic does his storytelling. This is where a comedian connects with the audience. It might begin with something the audience can relate to like "I was in line at the DMV the other day..."
Punchline: This comes after the set up and usually involves an unexpected twist. The humor comes from a combination of surprise and shock in the context of a "safe" situation.
Variants on the Structure
Today, their are many variations on the traditional structure of joke telling.
The Act Out: After the set up and punchline, some comics get more laughs by visually demonstrating the punchline. This is often done with comedian taking on the persona of a character in the joke and using large physical gestures.
The Mix: This is when a comic uses a simple observational set up ,like "You know how hard it is for people to understand voices coming from a fast food menu speaker?" They then act this out and put a twist on it. "What if they used those speakers at the doctor's office?'" Then, they act out the mix of a fast food speaker voice asking about your health problems, for example.
Types
Observational: Comedy derived from the performer observing strange or ridiculous everyday events and commenting on them. Jerry Seinfeld is a noted observational comedian.
Deadpan: Comedy that follows strict basic joke structure. The performer, however, has no reaction whatsoever to his or her own punchline. This heightens the humor of the joke because it creates the impression that the performer utterly believes his ridiculous statement as fact.
Black or Dark Comedy: Also known as "gallows humor," this type of comedy is derived from making light of intensely emotional subjects such as death, disease, the humiliation wasting away in old age, and the loss of loved ones. The phrase "gallows humor" actually comes from real people who worked at executions and had to make light of their situations or suffer deep depression.
Blue Comedy: When a comic works "blue," they typically use foul language and offensive material. The humor is derived from the shock at hearing someone say offensive things but with a knowing wink that deep down we all have a darker aspect to our personalities.
Benefits
The old statement, "laughter is the best medicine" has been scientifically proven to be true. Laughter helps to release pent up stress hormones in the body and helps with revitalizing the immune system. According to a study by Dr. Lee Berk and Dr. Stanley Tan, laughter causes a number of health benefits, including creating more anti-viral cells in the immune system and decreasing the levels of a stress hormone called dopamine.
Potential
Jokes help humans deal with the day-to-day pains of ordinary life without losing our minds. There is an increasing amount of humor available in media form today. Websites have arisen in the last decade as huge producers of humor. With the increase of office related jobs, more and more people sit in front of computers all day and therefore have access to online humor sites.
