Being humorous is no laughing matter! Jokes aside, if, for a moment we pause to define humour, we realize the seriousness of it. Dissecting a joke word by word in order to find out where the humour lies will be like breaking down a symphony, note by note to see where its splendour lies. Or, for that matter, trying to analyse Beauty by looking separately at the eyes, the nose, the cheeks, etc., in detail, to find out where it lies. Perspective complicates things further because the very essence of humour depends on wherefrom one is looking at it. A pratfall after treading on a banana peel, for instance, evokes laughter from one and all except the one who stepped on it! So, it becomes evident that, for a humourous situation, a fall guy (pun intended!) is a basic requisite. It has to be at the expense of a person, thing or some subject that will be the butt of the joke. While most of us can take a joke at our expense, when the intention becomes vindictive or gross, it will be in bad taste.

The basic kind of humour is that which does not require the spoken word. Within the limits of decency, physical discomfort, as in the case of the pratfall, is humourous. The clowns in the circus, for example. This genre of comedy is referred to as slapstick. It gets its name from the tool used by the clowns, which is but a stick made up of layers of strips of wood stuck to each other only at one end. The clown holds the stuck end and beats his fellow-clown with it. The loose nature of the strips at the other end causes a resounding but harmless slap while the receiving clown makes appropriate gestures to act as in pain! As we have seen, since no speech is involved, this kind of humour cuts through the language barrier and thus has a more universal appeal.

Another kind of humour is the play on words. Puns. English, with its rich variety of words having more than one meaning, lends itself to this. Play on words that sound similar is also permitted. The more incongruous the situation the more humourous the effect. There is this story of the Red Indian and his three wives - one of the squaws slept on a moose hide, another a bison hide, and the last, a hippopotamus hide. While the first two wives gave birth to a son each, the last one gave birth to twin boys. This just goes to show that the sons of the squaw of the hippopotamus hide is equal to the sons of the squaws of the other two hides! (Yes! This is a take-off on the Pythagoras Theorem! The sum of the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sums of the squares of the other two sides!) This kind of humour restricts itself to people who are quite conversant with the language in which the joke is made. It also proves itself not open to translation into other languages for obvious reasons - it needs to play on the word, or its phonetic equivalent to evoke humour.

Yet another kind of humour is the kind where the variance in the perspective of two people yields itself to the humourous situation. When Mahatma Gandhi was asked what he felt about western civilization, he remarked that that would be a good idea!

The more ridiculous the comparison, the merrier it gets. This is another form of humour. The spate of elephant jokes comes under this category. What is the difference between an elephant and a plum? Their colour! What is the similarity between an elephant and a plum? Both are red except for the elephant! How do you know if an elephant is hiding in your refrigerator? You will find footprints in the butter!

Satire could be classified as intellectual or highbrow humour. This is where parallels are drawn between real-life people and situations with totally different, sometimes even mythical ones. Humour is enhanced when the parallels imply totally incongruous situations. The escapades of the boy who grew up in the jungle when he visits the big city for the first time fall under this category. His wary glance at a moving automobile, mistaking it for some form of predator, or, quizzically looking around a radio to see the person who is talking, would be examples. This situation lends itself to Satire where the writer could draw interesting parallels between life in the wild and that in the City are not very different, with the law of the jungle prevailing - survival of the fittest, or eat or be eaten, etc!

Equally so will be the tongue-in-cheek kind of humour which seems prima facie innocuous to the extent that the listener, more often than not, will do a double-take when the humourous aspect of the situation sinks in. Left-handed compliments, which, at first glance seem genuine, come under this category. 'Definition: A wife is one who stands by your side when you're facing problems which would not have arisen in the first place if it wasn't for her!' is a classic example.

Ethnic jokes are very popular, if not in bad taste sometimes. The humour is directed against a community or a country's people in their entirety. One attribute or a negative quality found in some people is extended to cover all the people to make it seem that it is a predominant trait present in those people. The joke about the cup of tea served with a fly in it to people of different nationalities would explain this point. The Irishman, on seeing the fly would immediately get up without touching the tea, pay the bill and leave. The Englishman would carefully remove the fly with a spoon, drink the tea, pay the bill and leave. The Scotsman would carefully remove the fly with a spoon, squeeze the drop of tea that the fly would have absorbed, drink the tea, pay the bill, and leave. The Chinese would carefully remove the fly with a spoon, chew the fly with relish, drink the tea, pay the bill, and leave. The Indian would glance around to see if anyone is noticing him, quietly remove the fly with a spoon, drink half of the tea from the cup, put the fly back in the cup, shout for the waiter, complain, and leave without paying the bill!

Jokes targeting a particular group of people like women, doctors, teenagers, etc. are almost as similar to ethnic jokes in their approach to humour. There could be further sub-classifications under these categories, for example, 'dumb blonde' jokes under 'women'.

Laurel and Hardy films have an evergreen and timeless flavour to thanks to the seamless blend of different kinds of humour that has been infused into them. This is precisely why it makes for pleasurable repeat viewing, especially after a long period, as the viewer becomes more receptive to it, given the changes in his own attitude. Each of the different strata of the audience finds something appealing to it - the child goes in for the slapstick, the literate for the puns, and the fun loving for the incongruity. There is this classic scene where, in a crowded pavement, a man is carrying a large grandfather's clock over his shoulder, parallel to the ground. As he turns a corner, the swinging clock knocks Hardy off his feet (slapstick). After he is back on his feet, Laurel who is incensed by Hardy's agony, walks hurriedly to the man and taps him on the shoulder. This makes him turn around once again with the identical result! (slapstick, once again!) Laurel, haughtily asks the man, "Why don't you wear a watch like everyone else?"

This article could go on and on because humour, by its very nature of highlighting the abnormal or the deviation from the usual, just cannot be slotted into just a handful of categories. The list would be endless. But what counts, is the fact that humour has been medically proved to have therapeutic qualities (he who laughs, lasts) and that Man, and Man alone, is the only being blessed with a sense of humour. Sorry, hyenas, you are not included, though you 'laugh'!

Scroll UP ^     Read other articles >