🔗 Share this article

"How much did Father Christmas's sled cost? Nothing, it was on the house."

This joke is greeted with groans that echo through a warehouse in the capital.

This describes a humor-evaluation meeting with a firm that makes products for gatherings. Its catalogue includes festive crackers.

The company's founder smiles, almost sheepishly at the gag. But the joke has been selected and will appear in upcoming crackers.

"You measure the gag by the number of moans and the intensity of the groans at the table," the founder says.

The key to a great Christmas cracker joke is not the identical as a stand-up gag per se. It is entirely about the context - in this case, the communal laughter of the holiday meal with elders, children and potentially friends.

"You want the gag to be a thing that unites the child in harmony with the 80-year-old," she adds.

The Neuroscience Of Communal Amusement

Gathering to enjoy communal laughter is not only nothing new, scientists say, it is likely to be older than humanity.

"Therefore when you are laughing with people at the Christmas dinner you are dropping into what's almost certainly a really primordial mammal play sound," explains a neuroscience expert.

Communal amusement, she explains, aids in make and maintain social bonds between people.

Researchers have discovered that a lack of these interactions can significantly harm mental and physical health.

"The people you converse with, and laugh with, it results in increased levels of 'happy chemical' release," the professor continues.

These natural chemicals are the body's "feel-good compounds" and are released both to reduce stress and pain and in reaction to enjoyable activities, such as chuckling with loved ones over a truly awful Christmas cracker joke.

"You're not just chuckling at a silly pun with a holiday cracker," she states. "You are in fact performing a lot of the really vital work of building, preserving the connections you have with those you care about."

Which Happens Inside the Mind?

But what is truly happening within the brain when we hear a joke?

An awful lot happens in reaction to comedy, it turns out.

Using brain scanning technology, a type of neural imager which shows which parts of the brain are more active, researchers have been able to map the areas that get more blood.

Testing entails imaging the minds of healthy participants and then exposing them to a collection of funny phrases, accompanied by either a neutral sound, or recorded chuckles.

"During the study we observed a really fascinating activation pattern of neural activity," says the professor.

A joke stimulates not just the parts of the mind responsible for auditory processing and understanding language, but also brain regions associated with both planning and initiating movement and those involved in vision and memory.

Put these elements together, and people hearing a pun have a complex set of neural responses that support the laughter we experience.

The Infectious Power of Laughter

Scientists discovered that when a humorous phrase is combined with laughter there is a stronger response in the brain than the identical word when followed by a non-emotional sound.

"This was in areas of the brain that you would employ to move your expression into a grin or a laugh," she explains.

It means we are not just reacting to humorous jokes, they are responding to the laughter that accompanies them.

Amusement, says the professor, can be infectious.

So what does this imply for the laughter heard at a holiday table?

"You laugh more when you are familiar with people," she says, "and laughter increases further when you are fond of them or care for them."

When it comes to festive cracker puns, she explains, the feel-good factor is more probable to be caused not by the gag itself, but from the reaction to it.

"It's the laughter. The joke is the terrible holiday cracker pun, and it's just a reason to laugh together."

The Quest for the Perfect Cracker Joke

Is it possible to find the perfect gag?

Probably not, but that has not prevented researchers from trying to.

Years ago, a professor set up a scientific search for the planet's funniest gag.

More than 40,000 gags later, with scores lodged by hundreds of thousands of participants around the world, he has a better idea than most as to what succeeds and what does not.

The ideal festive cracker joke needs to be short, he says.

"But they also need to be bad jokes, jokes that make us groan," he adds.

The increasingly "terrible" the gag, he states the more effective.

"This is because if nobody finds it funny – it's the joke's shortcoming, not your own.

"What's interesting about the holiday cracker puns is that not one person find them funny.

"That's a shared experience around the gathering and I think it's lovely."