🔗 Share this article

"What was the price did Father Christmas's sleigh cost? Nothing, it was on the house."

This joke is met by groans that resonate through a warehouse in London.

We're at a humor-evaluation meeting with a company that produces products for gatherings. Its catalogue includes Christmas crackers.

The company's founder grins, nearly apologetically at the gag. But the pun has made the cut and will feature in future crackers.

"You measure the joke by the volume of groans and the intensity of the groans around the table," the founder explains.

The secret to a good Christmas cracker joke is not the same as a stand-up joke in itself. It is entirely about the setting - in this instance, the communal laughter of the holiday dinner table with grandparents, kids and possibly friends.

"The goal is for the joke to be something that unites the eight-year-old in harmony with the 80-year-old," she adds.

The Neuroscience Behind Communal Laughter

Coming together to enjoy shared amusement is not only ancient, experts argue, it is likely to be pre-human.

"So when you are chuckling with others around the Christmas dinner you are engaging in what's very likely a really primordial mammalian play vocalisation," says a neuroscience expert.

Communal amusement, she explains, helps forge and strengthen social bonds between individuals.

Scientists have found that a lack of such interactions can seriously damage both psychological and bodily health.

"Those you talk to, and laugh with, it leads to increased amounts of endorphin uptake," she continues.

These natural chemicals are the body's "feel-good compounds" and are produced both to reduce stress and pain and in response to enjoyable experiences, such as laughing with friends over a particularly terrible Christmas cracker gag.

"You're not just laughing at a foolish joke with a Christmas cracker," the expert says. "You are actually performing a lot of the really important task of making, maintaining the connections you have with the people you care about."

Which Occurs Inside the Brain?

But what is actually taking place within the brain when we listen to a gag?

An awful lot happens in response to comedy, it transpires.

Using brain scanning technology, a kind of brain scanner which shows which areas of the brain are working harder, researchers have been able to map the areas that get more blood flow.

Testing involves scanning the minds of volunteer subjects and then exposing them to a collection of funny phrases, paired with either a non-emotional sound, or recorded chuckles.

"In the scanner we observed a really interesting activation pattern of neural activity," says the neuroscientist.

A gag activates not just the parts of the brain in charge of auditory processing and understanding speech, but also neural areas associated with both planning and starting motion and those linked to vision and memory.

Combine all of this as a whole, and individuals hearing a joke have a sophisticated series of brain reactions that support the amusement we hear.

The Infectious Power of Laughter

Researchers found that when a humorous phrase is combined with laughter there is a stronger response in the mind than the same phrase when followed by a neutral sound.

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

It indicates people are not just responding to humorous words, they are responding to the amusement that follows them.

Amusement, says the professor, can be contagious.

So what does this mean for the laughter found around a holiday table?

"People laugh harder when you are familiar with people," she notes, "and laughter increases more when you are fond of them or love them."

When it comes to festive cracker puns, she says, the positive factor is more likely to be triggered not by the gag in itself, but from the reaction to it.

"The laughter is key. The gag is the dreadful holiday cracker pun, and it's just a pretext to laugh as a group."

The Quest for the Ideal Festive Pun

Is it possible to discover the ultimate gag?

Likely not, but that has not stopped researchers from trying to.

In 2001, a psychologist set up a research project for the planet's most humorous joke.

More than 40,000 gags later, with scores provided by hundreds of thousands of participants around the world, he has a better understanding than many as to what works and what fails.

The ideal Christmas cracker pun must be brief, he explains.

"But they also be poor jokes, puns that cause us to moan," he continues.

The more "awful" the gag, he states the more effective.

"The reason is that if nobody laughs – it's the joke's shortcoming, not yours.

"What's interesting about the holiday cracker puns is that none of us find them humorous.

"It creates a shared experience around the gathering and I believe it's wonderful."