It's a Laugh

I got to thinking about what makes me laugh. It wasn't a total non-sequitur. I was reading one of the recent additions to a site that I visit regularly. James Lileks is a journalist who like myself has a keen interest in nostalgia. His site is full of wonderful pictures of the past - old postcards, matchbooks, magazines, comics, book covers, promotional pamphlets and much more. Even though we are from two different countries, nostalgia seems to have a universal appeal.

What I especially enjoy is the completely different viewpoint he has when describing these images. He, to employ a cliche "thinks outside the box", challenges assumptions often by picking out some minor detail. These may include such things as a figure in the distance, a facial expression or something else mundane or obscure and twists it into something that often has had me in tears of laughter.

So that's what lead me to think about what I find funny or at least part of what makes me laugh.

We all make assumptions. Take a basic statement like "Hugo went into the shop". Picture it in your mind. Okay there isn't a lot to go on, you really can't paint an accurate picture with 5 words so your imagination fills in the blanks using experience and your perceptions of reality.

You've probably assumed that Hugo is a man, Hugo could be a dog, a robot, an alien, a spider or any infinite number of things.

You've probably assumed Hugo went in through the door instead of the window or down stairs.

You've probably assumed Hugo was walking, he may have been crawling or dancing or in a wheelchair.

I've looked at just three of the many assumptions you made. If those assumptions are particularly absurd and especially combined with elements that are normal, I will often find humour in it.

I also find the reverse interesting, we at various times in our life find ourselves in absurd situations and have treated them as normal.

Absurdity by itself isn't that funny. It's difficult for us to picture a completely unreal situation. A good comedian will know how to tie normality into the absurd. They use the normality often using cliches is to give us an understanding and the absurd to make it funny.

A good example is Billy Connolly, his stand up comedy is based around describing mundane situations but his ability to extrapolate those into the insane has his audiences in stitches. A few other good examples of comedy writing employing this technique are Monty Python, The Goons, Douglas Adams and Red Dwarf.