🔗 Share this article

"How much did Santa's sleigh cost? Zero, it was on the house."

This joke is greeted with moans that resonate through a storage facility in the capital.

This describes a joke-testing session with a firm that produces products for social events. Its repertoire includes festive crackers.

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

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

The key to a great holiday cracker pun is not the identical as a good gag in itself. It is entirely about the setting - in this case, the communal laughter of the Christmas meal with grandparents, kids and potentially neighbours.

"You want the gag to be a thing that unites the eight-year-old together with the grandparent," she states.

The Neuroscience Behind Communal Amusement

Coming together to enjoy shared amusement is not only nothing new, experts say, it is likely to be pre-human.

"Therefore when you are laughing with people at the holiday dinner you are engaging in what's very likely a really primordial mammal play sound," explains a neuroscience expert.

Shared amusement, she says, helps forge and strengthen social connections between individuals.

Researchers have discovered that a lack of these social exchanges can significantly damage both psychological and bodily well-being.

"The people you talk to, and share laughter with, it leads to increased amounts of 'happy chemical' release," she continues.

Endorphins are the body's "feel-good compounds" and are produced both to alleviate tension and discomfort and in response to enjoyable experiences, such as chuckling with loved ones over a truly terrible Christmas cracker joke.

"You're not just chuckling at a foolish joke with a holiday cracker," the expert says. "You are actually doing a lot of the really vital task of making, maintaining the connections you have with those you care about."

What Occurs In the Brain?

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

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

Employing brain scanning technology, a kind of neural imager which indicates which areas of the mind are working harder, scientists have been able to map the areas that get more blood flow.

Testing involves scanning the minds of healthy participants and then subjecting them to a collection of funny phrases, accompanied by either a neutral sound, or pre-recorded chuckles.

"In the scanner we got a really fascinating pattern of activation," says the neuroscientist.

A joke activates not just the parts of the mind in charge of hearing and understanding language, but also neural areas associated with both preparation and starting motion and those involved in vision and recall.

Combine all of this as a whole, and individuals listening to a pun have a complex set of brain responses that underpin the amusement we hear.

The Contagious Nature of Chuckles

Researchers found that when a humorous word is paired with laughter there is a stronger response in the mind than the identical word when followed by a non-emotional sound.

"This was in parts of the mind that you would use to move your face into a smile or a chuckle," the professor explains.

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

Amusement, according to the professor, can be infectious.

So what does this imply for the chuckles found around a Christmas table?

"You laugh more when you know others," she says, "and you laugh further when you like them or care for them."

When it comes to Christmas cracker puns, she explains, the feel-good effect is more likely to be triggered not by the joke in itself, but from the reaction to it.

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

The Quest for the Perfect Cracker Joke

Is it possible to discover the perfect gag?

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

In 2001, a professor established a research search for the planet's funniest gag.

More than 40,000 jokes submitted, with ratings provided by hundreds of thousands of participants around the world, he has a clearer understanding than many as to what works and what fails.

The perfect festive cracker pun must be brief, he says.

"They must also be poor jokes, jokes that cause us to moan," he adds.

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

"The reason is that if nobody laughs – it's the gag's shortcoming, not your own.

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

"It creates a shared experience at the table and I think it's lovely."