🔗 Share this article

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

This joke is met by moans that resonate through a storage facility in the capital.

This describes a humor-evaluation session with a company that makes products for social events. Its catalogue features festive crackers.

The company's founder smiles, almost sheepishly 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," she explains.

The secret to a great holiday cracker joke is not the identical as a stand-up gag in itself. It is all about the setting - in this instance, the shared laughter of the Christmas dinner table with grandparents, children and potentially friends.

"You want the gag to be a thing that brings the child together with the grandparent," she states.

The Science Of Communal Amusement

Coming together to experience shared amusement is not only nothing new, experts say, it is probably to be older than humanity.

"So when you are laughing with people around the holiday dinner you are dropping into what's almost certainly a truly primordial mammal play vocalisation," explains a neuroscience expert.

Shared amusement, she explains, aids in make and maintain social connections between people.

Scientists have discovered that a lack of such social exchanges can seriously damage mental and physical health.

"Those you talk to, and laugh with, it results in enhanced levels of endorphin release," the professor continues.

These natural chemicals are the body's "happy chemicals" and are released both to reduce tension and discomfort and in reaction to pleasurable experiences, such as chuckling with friends over a truly awful festive cracker joke.

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

Which Happens Inside the Brain?

But what is truly happening within the mind when we listen to a joke?

A tremendous amount happens in response to humour, it turns out.

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a type of neural imager which shows which areas of the brain are working harder, researchers have been able to map the areas that get more blood flow.

Testing entails scanning the minds of healthy subjects and then subjecting them to a collection of humorous phrases, paired with either a non-emotional sound, or recorded laughter.

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

A gag stimulates not just the areas of the brain in charge of hearing and understanding speech, but also brain areas involved in both preparation and initiating movement and those linked to vision and recall.

Put these elements as a whole, and people listening to a joke have a complex set of brain responses that support the laughter 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 word when followed by a neutral sound.

"This was in parts of the brain that you would employ to contort your face into a smile or a chuckle," the professor says.

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

Laughter, says the professor, can be contagious.

So what does this mean for the laughter heard at a Christmas gathering?

"People laugh harder when you know people," she notes, "and you laugh more when you are fond of them or care for them."

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

"The laughter is key. The joke is the dreadful holiday cracker joke, and it's just a reason to chuckle as a group."

The Quest for the Ideal Cracker Joke

Is it possible to find the ultimate joke?

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

Years ago, a professor set up a research project for the world's most humorous joke.

Over 40,000 gags submitted, with ratings lodged by 350,000 people around the world, he has a better idea than many as to what works and what fails.

The ideal Christmas cracker pun must be short, he says.

"But they also be bad gags, puns that cause us to groan," he continues.

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

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

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

"That's a common experience at the gathering and I think it's wonderful."