🔗 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 echo through a storage facility in London.

This describes a humor-evaluation meeting with a company that produces products for gatherings. Its repertoire includes festive crackers.

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

"The success is gauged by the gag by the number of groans and the loudness of the groans around the table," she explains.

The secret to a good holiday cracker pun is not the same as a good gag per se. It is entirely about the setting - in this case, the shared amusement of the holiday dinner table with elders, kids and possibly friends.

"The goal is for the joke to be a thing that brings the child in harmony with the grandparent," she adds.

The Science Behind Shared Amusement

Gathering to experience shared laughter is not only nothing new, scientists say, it is probably to be pre-human.

"So when you are laughing with others around the holiday table you are engaging in what's almost certainly a really ancient mammal social vocalisation," explains a professor.

Shared laughter, she explains, aids in forge and strengthen social connections between people.

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

"The people you talk to, and laugh with, it leads to increased levels of endorphin release," she adds.

These natural chemicals are the body's "feel-good compounds" and are released both to reduce stress and pain and in response to enjoyable activities, such as laughing with friends over a truly awful festive cracker joke.

"You're not just chuckling at a silly pun with a holiday cracker," the expert says. "You are in fact performing a lot of the truly important work of building, preserving the social bonds you have with those you care about."

Which Occurs In the Mind?

But what is truly taking place inside the mind when we hear a gag?

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

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a type of brain scanner which shows which areas of the mind are more active, researchers have been able to chart the areas that get more blood flow.

Testing involves scanning the minds of volunteer participants and then subjecting them to a collection of funny phrases, paired with either a neutral sound, or pre-recorded laughter.

"During the study we got a really interesting pattern of activation," says the neuroscientist.

A joke stimulates not just the parts of the brain in charge of auditory processing and understanding speech, but also neural regions involved in both planning and initiating movement and those involved in vision and memory.

Combine all of this as a whole, and people hearing a pun have a sophisticated set of neural responses that support the amusement we experience.

The Contagious Power of Laughter

Researchers found that when a funny phrase is paired with laughter there is a stronger response in the mind than the identical phrase when accompanied by a non-emotional sound.

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

It means we are not just responding to funny words, they are responding to the amusement that accompanies them.

Amusement, says the expert, can be infectious.

So what does this mean for the chuckles found at a Christmas gathering?

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

When it comes to festive cracker jokes, she explains, the feel-good factor is more likely to be triggered not by the joke itself, but from the response to it.

"The laughter is key. The gag is the terrible Christmas cracker joke, and it's just a pretext to laugh together."

The Search for the Ideal Festive Pun

Will we ever discover the perfect gag?

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

Years ago, a professor set up a scientific project for the planet's funniest joke.

Over 40,000 jokes later, with scores lodged by 350,000 participants globally, he has a better idea than most as to what works and what does not.

The ideal festive cracker pun needs to be brief, he explains.

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

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

"This is because if no-one laughs – it's the gag's shortcoming, not yours.

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

"It creates a common moment at the gathering and I believe it's lovely."