What Makes Us Laugh Essay

As soon as you try and look directly at it and analyse it too much... Something is funny because it captures a moment, it contains an element of simple truth, it is something that we have always known for eternity and yet are hearing it now out loud for the first time.I think that our need to feel intelligent comes into play a lot in finding things funny...

(Oscar Wilde, P G Wodehouse ) Low comedy uses coarse language, slapstick and farce.

(Monty Python, Little Britain) Spoof is light parody or gentle imitation.

She tells the shop keeper she has dreamed of wearing it for months and been saving up.

The shop keeper says that this is the last one in stock. " Oh thanks," says the woman, "I almost sat on that." An escaped lion leaps in from the side and mauls her.

It is often used in repsonse to an initial statement or comment in order to pour scorn on the stated idea or statement.

Sarcasm often features irony (for instance, someone drops a tray and someone else shouts "Ooh, that was SO clever.") Throwing together completely disjointed concepts and random ideas to weave together something bizarre.

What one person finds funny another might cringe at.

One thing worth noting is that when analysing comedy and what is funny, it is almost like it is only visible out of the corner of your eye. Why does this reaction force us to convulse and make that noise? There is no simple answer to why something is funny...

sometime after the punchline to enable the audience time to react and get the joke, but often a pause is placed before a line to build expectation. Second punchline follows on that audience weren't expecting.

It can also be used to throw in a double punchline. These beats are often called 'pregnant pauses' as they are full of expectation.