🔗 Share this article

"How much did Santa's sleigh cost? Nothing, it was on the house."

This quip is greeted with moans that echo through a warehouse in the capital.

This describes a humor-evaluation session with a firm that produces products for social events. Its repertoire features Christmas crackers.

The firm's founder smiles, almost sheepishly at the gag. But the pun has made the cut and will appear in future crackers.

"You measure the joke by the number of groans and the intensity of the groans at the table," the founder explains.

The key to a good Christmas cracker joke is not the identical as a stand-up joke in itself. It is all about the setting - in this case, the shared laughter of the holiday meal with grandparents, kids and possibly friends.

"You want the joke to be something that unites the eight-year-old in harmony with the 80-year-old," she adds.

The Science Behind Communal Amusement

Coming together to experience communal amusement is not only nothing new, experts argue, it is likely to be older than humanity.

"So when you are chuckling with others at the Christmas dinner you are engaging in what's almost certainly a really ancient mammal play sound," explains a professor.

Shared amusement, she explains, aids in forge and strengthen social bonds between individuals.

Scientists have found that a absence of such social exchanges can significantly damage mental and physical well-being.

"Those you converse with, and share laughter with, it leads to increased levels of endorphin release," the professor continues.

These natural chemicals are the brain's "feel-good compounds" and are released both to alleviate stress and pain and in response to pleasurable experiences, such as chuckling with friends over a truly terrible Christmas cracker gag.

"You're not just laughing at a silly joke with a Christmas cracker," the expert says. "You are in fact doing a lot of the truly important work of making, maintaining the social bonds you have with those you care about."

Which Happens Inside the Brain?

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

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

Employing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a type of neural imager which shows which areas of the mind are more active, scientists have been able to map the areas that receive more blood flow.

The research entails imaging the minds of volunteer subjects and then exposing them to a collection of funny phrases, accompanied by either a non-emotional sound, or recorded chuckles.

"During the study we observed a really interesting activation pattern of activation," says the professor.

A gag stimulates not just the parts of the mind in charge of hearing and understanding language, but also neural regions involved in both planning and starting movement and those involved in vision and recall.

Put these elements together, and individuals listening to a pun have a complex set of neural responses that underpin the amusement we experience.

The Contagious Power of Laughter

Researchers found that when a funny word is combined with laughter there is a greater reaction in the brain than the identical phrase when followed by a non-emotional sound.

"This activation occurred in parts of the mind that you would use to move your expression into a smile or a laugh," she explains.

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

Amusement, says the professor, can be contagious.

So what does this mean for the chuckles heard at a Christmas table?

"People laugh more when you are familiar with others," she says, "and laughter increases more when you like them or care for them."

When it comes to Christmas cracker jokes, she explains, the positive effect is more likely to be caused not by the joke itself, but from the response to it.

"The laughter is key. The joke is the terrible Christmas cracker pun, and it's just a reason to chuckle together."

The Quest for the Perfect Festive Pun

Is it possible to discover the ultimate joke?

Likely not, but that has not stopped experts from attempting to.

Years ago, a psychologist set up a research project for the planet's most humorous gag.

More than tens of thousands of jokes submitted, with ratings lodged by 350,000 participants globally, he has a clearer idea than most as to what works and what fails.

The perfect Christmas cracker pun needs to be short, he explains.

"They must also need to be bad gags, jokes that make us groan," he continues.

The more "terrible" the gag, he says the better.

"The reason is that if no-one finds it funny – it's the joke's shortcoming, not your own.

"The fascinating part about the holiday cracker puns is that not one person find them funny.

"It creates a shared experience at the table and I believe it's wonderful."