What Makes a Good Sense of Humor?

DUCKWORTH: “Oh no, we are off the rails. Oh yeah, we are completely over the cliff.”

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DUCKWORTH: I’m Angela Duckworth.

MAUGHAN: I’m Mike Maughan.

DUCKWORTH + MAUGHAN: And you’re listening to No Stupid Questions.

Today on the show: what does it mean to have a good sense of humor?

DUCKWORTH: “Hey everyone, I’ve got this great joke.”

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MAUGHAN: Angela, today I think we have a fascinating question about sense of humor. And it’s from this gentleman, Jeremy Sackley.

DUCKWORTH: Oh no, I have no sense of humor, Mike.

MAUGHAN: Oh stop it, really?

DUCKWORTH: No. I’m not kidding. Ha. See? That’s not even funny. 

MAUGHAN: I thought it was a little bit funny. 

DUCKWORTH: I bet Jeremy’s very funny. Go ahead.

MAUGHAN: Here’s his question. He says: “Where does our sense of humor come from? I know you’ve discussed in the past that our emotions fundamentally serve the purpose of our survival, but how does laughing or being funny prevent us from being eaten by a lion?” I mean, I feel like the question is already funny. Um, no. Sorry. Being eaten by a lion is not funny. Moving on. “Or maybe being funny increases our chances of finding a mate and thus perpetuating our species.” That actually, Jeremy, is where my mind went — is that being funny helps you meet people. “Also, why do we find the things we find funny, funny? Thanks, Jeremy Sackley.”

DUCKWORTH: I love Jeremy. You know why I love Jeremy?

MAUGHAN: Why?

DUCKWORTH: Because Jeremy learned something from our prior conversations. Like, yes, Jeremy, everything pretty much is for our survival. We just have to figure out how. And I think there’s a lot to say about how being funny and laughing actually do make us a little more likely to survive, anyway.

MAUGHAN: Well look, you just said you don’t have a sense of humor.

DUCKWORTH: I really don’t. I mean, I’m not, like, a humorless person, but I don’t think, like, oh, funny would be in the top 40 adjectives that anybody would use to describe me.

MAUGHAN: Okay, fair, but sense of humor can also be if you appreciate other people’s comedy.

DUCKWORTH: Even on that — like, did you ever see that movie Something About Mary?

MAUGHAN: No.

DUCKWORTH: It was, like, the number one box office smash hit and it had Cameron Diaz in it. Anyway, it was laugh-out-loud funny for, like, everyone, and I got up in the middle of the movie and walked out, because I was like, “This is so unfunny.” I didn’t think Borat was funny. I actually took a survey once and humor is one of the 24 strengths that people — you know, are you kind? Are you forgiving? Are you persistent? And humor is one of them. And I think it’s, like, 23rd or 24th for me out of 24.

MAUGHAN: I would like to test it by telling you two jokes I think they both fall under the categorization of “dad joke.”

DUCKWORTH: Okay, right, unfunny-funny. Like, so unfunny it’s funny?

MAUGHAN: For some reason, both of these jokes hit me so hard that they cause me to laugh uncontrollably. And then, anytime I thought about them, for days after, I would laugh — and sometimes couldn’t even tell the jokes, I thought they were so funny. I don’t think I’m in that category anymore.

DUCKWORTH: Alright, I guess I’m ready to be amused. Yeah. Go. 

MAUGHAN: One of them came as an email. I was in my first job after college. It comes through with the subject line, “Urgent.” And that didn’t happen often and it was from a co-worker, so I open it, and I’m like, “Oh my gosh, urgent.” It says, “Dear Mike, Aliens are coming to abduct all the smart, sexy people. You will be fine. I’m just writing to say goodbye.”

DUCKWORTH: Okay, that’s — see, I just faked laughing. 

MAUGHAN: I know you did. 

DUCKWORTH: I didn’t really think that was that funny.

MAUGHAN: I laughed so hard. I, like, nearly fell out of my chair.

DUCKWORTH: You nearly fell out of your chair. 

MAUGHAN: I don’t know. I thought it was funny. Here’s the other one. You’re also a terrible audience, jeez.

DUCKWORTH: I know this is so terrible. I feel even worse now. Okay. Go on.

MAUGHAN: “With all the sadness and trauma going on in the world at this moment, it’s worth reflecting on the death of a very important person, which almost went unnoticed. Larry LaPrise, the man who wrote the Hokey Pokey, died peacefully at age 93. The most dramatic part for his” —  

DUCKWORTH: This is so cute. Oh my God. Mike, you’re adorable. Okay.

MAUGHAN: I can’t finish it.  

DUCKWORTH: You should text it to me. No, I think you can do it. I think you can do it. 

MAUGHAN: It’s not that funny.

DUCKWORTH: I don’t think I’ve ever seen you laugh this hard. You’re crying. Wow.

MAUGHAN: “The most traumatic part for his family was getting him into the coffin. They put his left leg in, and that’s when all the trouble started.”

DUCKWORTH: That is actually pretty funny. I am not crying, but, but I will give you this: that is definitely better than the first joke, which I’ve already forgotten. And how did you come upon this gem, Mike?

MAUGHAN: My dad — I told you it was a dad joke, my dad sent me this.

DUCKWORTH: Wait, was this in the actual obituary? This was not in the obituary.

MAUGHAN: No, I don’t even know if Larry LaPrise wrote the Hokey Pokey.

DUCKWORTH: Oh, the whole thing could be made up.

MAUGHAN: Yeah, I’ve never fact checked it. Anyway, I have not thought of or told that joke in years and I still was laughing so hard I’m crying.

DUCKWORTH: Okay, wait, now you just reminded me. I was like, “Oh, I don’t know any jokes.” I do remember laughing earlier in my youth. I won’t repeat the things just because they’re, like, knock knock jokes. And, you know, “When is a door, not a door? When it’s a jar.” But here is a recent joke. It’s a joke from Danny Kahneman and I think he told me it was his favorite joke. And I’m sure I’m going to bludgeon it, but it goes like this: “An apple a day keeps the doctor away. And what do 20 apples a day keep away?”

MAUGHAN: I don’t know.

DUCKWORTH: “20 apples a day keep 20 doctors away.” Okay, nothing. Danny thought it was hysterical. 

MAUGHAN: Where’s the joke though?

DUCKWORTH: You don’t think that’s funny. 

MAUGHAN: I don’t think that’s funny at all.

DUCKWORTH: You’re like, “Hokey Pokey and coffins, that’s funny!” 

MAUGHAN: I know! I’m sorry. Okay.  

DUCKWORTH: I am sure Danny would have told it better.

MAUGHAN: Well, so here’s where I want to get to Jeremy’s point. Because as I was just telling you that joke, I was laughing so hard I was crying, and therefore absolutely would have been more likely to be eaten by a lion. And so, Jeremy would say that was not a self-preservation mechanism. But he does say, maybe being funny increases our chances of finding a mate, thus perpetuating the species. I think that there’s a lot to be said for this idea that humor does a lot to connect us as humans and bring us together in a way that other things probably don’t.

DUCKWORTH: See, this is why I love Jeremy so much. Jeremy not only took home the lesson about emotions being for our survival, like everything else about us. But also, I think Jeremy had the right intuition about what it is about laughing and humor that might be adaptive from, like, a, you know, pure survival standpoint. It is really, at the end of the day, about having a social connection. So, it doesn’t help you escape a lion in the moment. Other things help you — like fear, and adrenaline, and cortisol. But if you think about escaping a lion, you know, in the long run, it’s just so much better to be part of a tribe, for example. You know, having lots of other people who have your back. And we are, as Aristotle said, a social animal. We survive by connecting with other people.

MAUGHAN: I actually think — going back to his question on the evolutionary effect of laughter and where it comes from, I learned something really interesting from the podcast Endless Thread. It talked about the hundred-million year origin story of laughter and humor. And it goes through this idea that, for example, chimpanzees, they laugh a lot, but it’s based mostly on physical contact, whereas human beings will laugh more at stories. And so, they’ve seen this vocalization during play — meaning that animals will laugh or indicate that they’re having fun or enjoyment — in apes, monkeys, black bears, rats, seals. but human beings are kind of the only ones who can determine someone’s playful intentions without physical touch.

DUCKWORTH: Right, I can tickle you with a story. So, I mean, that’s really interesting, but why do animals tickle each other?

MAUGHAN: What they speculated is that it helps us with these really important learning tools. So, for example, if chimpanzees are playing fighting, which will help them later defend themselves, by laughing, they’re able to signify, “Oh, we’re having fun.” Then they do it in a constructive manner. But they’ve done play fighting with animals that don’t have a voice box and therefore can’t laugh, and in those circumstances the kind of childlike horseplay turns into real fighting very quickly, because there’s no communicative mechanism.

DUCKWORTH: There’s no signal. 

MAUGHAN: Yeah, no signal to say “Hey, this is for fun,” versus “I’m actually threatening you.”

DUCKWORTH: Okay, so this is why — I mean, I grew up in the age of sitcoms. Not that there are no sitcoms today, but I sort of feel like I’m old enough to have been alive when they were invented? Anyway, I remember these laugh tracks. And I remember thinking — and maybe this is the fledgling psychologist in me, I’m like a teenager just sitting in front of the TV for hours and watching not that funny stuff, but the laugh track was so important. And I remember thinking to myself like, “I wonder what this would be like if there wasn’t this piped in laugh track?” Which you know is a laugh track, because these are not even sitcoms that were recorded in front of a live audience. But  I thought to myself, there must be — I mean, I was a teenager, I’m sure I didn’t say it this way in my head, but there has to be something communal about laughing. And I do think this idea that, like, it’s a signal, like I’m signaling to you that this isn’t serious, or I’m signaling to you that I’m a friend, or we’re signaling to each other that we’re laughing at the same thing, so that must mean that we’re in the same tribe. But I that’s why it’s really un-fun to watch a sitcom and not have the laugh track, because then you feel like you’re laughing alone. And — well, you just did it and you seemed to have a good time,   but I think in general people would rather laugh together.

MAUGHAN: I think —

DUCKWORTH: See, now I’m going to bring it up, and you’re not even going to be able to breathe because you’re thinking about the Hokey Pokey.

MAUGHAN: I can say it now. “You put the left leg in, and that’s when all trouble started.”

DUCKWORTH: I did read a relatively unfunny scientific article about the —

MAUGHAN: I would love to find a scientific article on humor written in a way that was funny.

DUCKWORTH: I was hoping it would start with a joke. But no. It’s called, “What Makes Things Funny?: An Integrative Review of the Antecedents of Laughter and Amusement.” Right off the bat, I was like, this is not going to be a funny article on being funny. But it was really interesting. They were like, first of all, there’s really five active ingredients that have been hypothesized to make something funny. And they were like, “We want to figure out what the recipe really is.” Is it all five? Is it, like, one magic ingredient? So first I’ll tell you about one of the ingredients that’s not funny apparently, um, surprise. A lot of people think that you have to be surprising to be funny, but in their research they find that’s just not true. In fact, they said that jokes can sometimes be funnier when they’re unsurprising.

MAUGHAN: So, either one can work. That’s just not a necessary ingredient.

DUCKWORTH: Yeah, like, it can’t be, like, the active ingredient because unsurprising things can be super funny. Okay, here’s a second one: superiority, like making you feel like you’re better than someone else. That’s apparently not funny. I mean, sometimes you’re laughing at someone else’s expense, but apparently not necessary.

MAUGHAN: My mother — like, a thing growing up that was huge for us was, “We don’t use wit that offends.”

DUCKWORTH: Yeah, that sounds like a Maughan thing.

MAUGHAN: I didn’t know that “wit that offends” was, like, three separate words. I just knew that you can’t do “witthatoffends.” 

DUCKWORTH: Don’t use, “witthatoffends.”  

MAUGHAN: And I was like “Oh, that means don’t tell a joke at someone else’s expense.”  

DUCKWORTH: Well, you know, you were just talking about tickling. I hate being tickled, by the way. Do you hate being tickled?

MAUGHAN: Yeah, nobody likes being tickled. Well, maybe that’s not true.

DUCKWORTH: Some people might like getting tickled. 

MAUGHAN: I’m an adult. I feel like you tickle, like, little kids.

DUCKWORTH: Mm, that’s so true. You rarely get tickled as an adult.

MAUGHAN: I can’t imagine adults tickling other adults.

DUCKWORTH: I mean, I think we are still capable of being tickled.

MAUGHAN: Oh, I’m sure it works. I just think it would be a socially weird thing to do. 

DUCKWORTH: Very inappropriate for the business meeting. Well, the reason I bring up tickling is that when you are in the position of being tickled, you’re the one who’s doing the laughing, and you’re in the subordinate position. You’re being the quote-unquote “victim.” So they were, like, there’s lots of evidence to suggest that when you laugh at something, it’s not because you feel like you’re in a superior position. Okay, now I’m going to ask you to guess. Can you guess what the active ingredients are?

MAUGHAN: I would guess one is connection, that I can connect with it in some way that has some level of familiarity for me.

DUCKWORTH: Okay, I’m going to give you credit, because I think the magic recipe actually is all about connection. The first thing I’ll say is that it has to have something that’s, like,  there’s a conflict. There’s a conflict of beliefs. There’s a conflict of ideas. But here’s specifically what the conflict is, and here are the other two active ingredients. One is a violation, like you think something is threatening or wrong. And then the other that comes into conflict with that is what they call the principle of being benign. Like, basically, it’s okay. It’s harmless. Like, you’re okay with what went down, I think is how they phrase it. So, that’s the recipe. 00:45:57] The active ingredients are the simultaneous juxtaposition of, like, threat and safety, wrong and right. Like, when I was 18, I spent a summer in Japan. And I think one of the things that made it really hard is that I didn’t find anything funny, and nothing I said was funny. Like, there was no connection, because I think a lot of what makes one person laugh at the same thing that another person is laughing at is kind of being on the same wavelength. Like, you are vibing. And because I was so disconnected with Japanese culture and everything was foreign, literally and figuratively, I think I didn’t laugh for the entire, like, three months or two months that I was there. So, I think one of the reasons why it is so bonding is because when you’re an 18 year old from Cherry Hill, New Jersey and you are in a suburb of Tokyo, what I find to be benign is not what they find to be benign. What I find to be wrong is not what they find to be wrong. Like, the reason why I think humor is so connecting is that you have to be in this sweet spot where like, “Oh, yeah, I agree. That’s benign. Oh, I agree. That’s safe. Oh, I agree. That’s wrong. And I agree, that’s right.” And I think that’s why it’s so culturally specific. Your friend group probably has things that you all laugh at, but, like, other people don’t. So, connection is always about some kind of exclusivity too.  

MAUGHAN: Yeah! It’s interesting, because even that exclusivity can be an entire country, an entire culture, is what you’re saying, because there’s that in-group element. 

DUCKWORTH: Right, I fit in here.

MAUGHAN: Well, look, Angela and I would love to hear your thoughts on humor. We’d especially love for you to tell us about a moment that you found particularly funny or share one of your all-time favorite jokes. Record a voice memo in a quiet place with your mouth close to the phone and email it to us at NSQ@freakonomics.com and maybe we’ll play it on a future episode of the show. And if you like the show and wanna support it — and we are not joking when we say this — the best thing you can do is tell a friend about it. You can also spread the word on social media or leave a review in your podcast app. 

Still to come on No Stupid Questions: what role should humor play in the workplace?

DUCKWORTH: I’m laughing out loud, but I’m also thinking, “Crap!”

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Now, back to Mike and Angela’s conversation about humor.

MAUGHAN: So Angela, I was reading a lot of research about humor in the workplace. So, there’s a Stanford professor of marketing, Jennifer Aaker —

DUCKWORTH: I know Jennifer. I love Jennifer.

MAUGHAN: She’s amazing, and she co-wrote a book with Naomi Bagdonas, who’s a lecturer at Stanford as well, called Humor, Seriously: Why Humor Is A Secret Weapon In Business And Life (And How Anyone Can Harness It). They say that, like, humor and laughter are among the most valuable tools we have to strengthen bonds, like we’ve talked about, diffuse stress and tension, boost resilience, and help us perform when the stakes are high. And so, they talked to lots of behavioral scientists, world-class comedians, different business leaders, to just better understand: how does humor work and what should they do in the workplace? And they basically dive into four “deadly humor myths,” they call it. And the first thing is they say that we’re too worried that work is just a serious place. These authors write, “Today’s employees yearn for more authentic human leaders… Humor is a powerful leadership strategy to humanize oneself… break down barriers, and balance authority with approachability.” And they specifically talk about self-deprecating humor and the power of that. 

DUCKWORTH: Okay. Wait, I need to interrupt you. I know there are three other myths. But I have to say how helpful that is to me, because on a recent occasion, I made this mistake. I was like, “Well this is a serious occasion. I should be serious.” So, the occasion was the 100th anniversary of Simon & Schuster, who is my publisher. And so they said, “Angela, will you give a four minute talk?” Everybody’s there for four minutes — except for, like, Jerry Seinfeld, who got, like, ten. And Jerry Seinfeld did not do stand up. He was just interviewed, but by the way, his whole interview was hysterical.

MAUGHAN: I was going to say, I bet it was still enormously funny.

DUCKWORTH: And I had prepared a four-minute talk on why writing is so important to human intelligence. So, I had this, like, evolutionary story and, like, what happens in the brain when we read words. So, I wrote a very, very unfunny — there was not a word of wit in what I said. And so, I get this, like, polite applause afterwards and I slink off stage. And then, for the rest of the evening, from the back of the stage there was, like, a monitor and we could see everybody else. So, the next speaker comes up, and it is Frederik Backman.

MAUGHAN: Who I love. 

DUCKWORTH: What, your favorite author, right? Okay. So, you’ll be thrilled to know that he gave —.

MAUGHAN: Oh, I’ve watched this speech.

DUCKWORTH: The Simon and Schuster speech? You love him that much?

MAUGHAN: He’s hilarious — I mean, he’s the most deadpan, funny person.

DUCKWORTH: Right! Which, by the way, is another juxtaposition, because he’s saying really funny things, but it’s juxtaposed with his delivery, which is total straight man.

MAUGHAN: Total. Anyway, keep telling the story. I was not there, but I did watch it.

DUCKWORTH: I’m watching this and I was like, G** *****t. I totally misread this as, like, a really serious occasion on which I should, as a psychologist, bring the goods, right? In four minutes, I’m going to tell you about, like, human intelligence and this theory that, like, unites the craft of writing with Chat GPT. And, like, total fail. He gets up and everything he says, pretty much, is a joke from the beginning to the end. And this is the part that I really liked most — the most. And I’m going to read it to you because I transcribed it from his little video. You know, he’s Swedish, And he said, “In America, Sweden is often confused with Switzerland, but we are very different. In Switzerland, they have chocolate and watches. In Sweden, we have IKEA and depression. Swedish depression is just like American depression, but it’s cheaper, and you have to assemble it yourself,   and some parts may be missing. So, if someone here is depressed tonight and doesn’t know why, then you might be Scandinavian.” Okay, I was backstage, and I’m laughing out loud, but I’m also thinking, “Crap! I completely misread what I was supposed to do tonight.” And I think I was, like, doing what, I guess, Jennifer and her coauthor say — like, I made the mistake of thinking like, “Oh, this is a serious occasion.” You know what? There is no occasion on which humor doesn’t just land better than anything else you can do.

MAUGHAN: I — actually, the greatest speaker I’ve ever known, his name is Jeffrey Holland. His charisma, his ability to tell a story, to captivate an audience. He even spoke at both of my grandparents’ funerals. And you’d think: somber occasion, I mean, it’s a celebration of life, whatever. He starts with the most uproarious jokes and then goes into this very sweet, beautiful, epic eulogy of who they are and what they meant to him as a person. But —  

DUCKWORTH: But he started with a laugh.

MAUGHAN: And weaves them throughout. He’ll give these rather serious talks and he knows that in the ebb and flow — like, I’m down in the valley for a while, we got to, like, get a laugh and then we’ll keep it going. And that’s what I think is so interesting about this book, and this first point, is that we can’t take it all so seriously. Now there are certain moments, like, if you’re doing layoffs or firing someone, a joke’s probably not the right place, but I think in general what they’re trying to say, is that it makes us more human, it makes us more approachable, and it helps build the team in a way that, you know, outside of a few exceptional circumstances, it’s really powerful.

DUCKWORTH: That’s why I wanted to give you credit for “connection.” Because it’s like, is a funeral time when people really want to feel connected to each other? Yes! Then humor works, right? Like, is sitting and watching the inaugural address, a time where you want people to feel connected to each other? Yes! Okay, then be funny, like, if you can be.

MAUGHAN: Yeah. So, the second myth is the failure myth. I think this one’s interesting because I do think humor is risky. Not everyone thinks the same thing is funny. Some people inadvertently go a little too far and can get into that biting, sarcastic, stuff that does offend. You see that all the time, by the way, in a, in a wedding toast. Like people don’t understand the assignment. It’s funny to tell, like, a joke or two. It’s not the time to, like, roast them, and — anyway.

DUCKWORTH: Yeah, that is a threat without safety. That is, like, wrong without right. I have been in a few of those cringy — you’re like, “Oh no, we are off the rails. Oh yeah, we are completely over the cliff.”

MAUGHAN: Wrong person to toast you. But they talk about the failure myth. A lot of people have this deep, paralyzing fear that their humor is going to fail, and so they’re unwilling to try at all. Now, humor obviously impacts our perception of status, competence, confidence, etc. And when you fail, then that’s a challenge. But, what they learned in their surveys and talking to all these people was that the most important determinant of whether humor was viewed positively or negatively was not whether people laughed. It was whether the humor was perceived as appropriate.

DUCKWORTH: Okay. This very recent article came out in Psych Science — that’s, like, “the journal” for psychology. But basically, the researchers got lots and lots of jokes, and, like, memes, and videos, tons of different things that were funny — as, like, wide a variety as possible. Also, they tried to get things that were unfunny. And then, they just got lots of people to look at all these things and to rate how funny they were. And, basically, what they found — and I think this helps with people who are like, “I’m not going to say anything, like, I’m not a funny person, this is going to be fail.” They said, “When attempting a joke, you likely ask yourself, will the person in front of me laugh? At least three factors are at play. The joke, is it funny? The listener, how does this person usually respond to humor? And their interaction, is there a match between joke content and listener taste?” And then they say, across all of their studies, that “the quality of the joke was the least informative because humor tastes vary immensely across people. Most important was the match between joke content and listener preferences.” So basically, don’t worry about your joke being unfunny because that is the least important thing. When you tell a joke and it doesn’t land, you could just be like, you know, that may not have been a good joke for that person.

MAUGHAN: Honestly, what I have also used in those moments, I often will just call it out right then. I’ll be like, “Well, that was a failed attempt at humor.” And then people laugh at you making fun of yourself — 

DUCKWORTH: I was going to ask you, does that work?

MAUGHAN: It does! Yeah, often it does. I think it goes back to that first point, which is the self-deprecation, the willingness to just say, “Hey, I just tried something, abysmal failure. Let’s all just acknowledge it.”

DUCKWORTH: Right, so then you juxtaposed the failure with the sort of, like, it’s okay, right? Like, threat with safety.

MAUGHAN: Yes. So, the third myth is the “being funny” myth. They say that this is the trickiest one, because it indicates that people think that they have to be funny at work. And so, they said that the mere act of signaling your sense of humor has heartbeat enough to make a big difference. Even if you’re not the one out there telling the jokes, if you’re just the one laughing, well, then you’re still viewed as more respected, more pleasant to work with, as a friendlier person. 

DUCKWORTH: That’s definitely where I’m starting out, because I am not — yeah.

MAUGHAN: I’ll admit, I love being around people who laugh at my jokes. My older sister Christy, I can say the dumbest things and she has a loud, ringing, beautiful laugh. And you just think like, “I am a rockstar.” And the rest of the family can be sitting they’re like, rolling their eyes, being like, “Mike, you’re not funny.” And Christy thinks I’m a genius. And that’s really fun to be around. One thing that’s been interesting is, like, if you look at Jimmy Fallon, widely viewed as this incredible comedian. He hosts The Tonight Show. James Corden had The Late Late Show. If you watch them, they are funny, but what they do more than tell any jokes is they laugh at everything.

DUCKWORTH: Oh, they appreciate funny.

MAUGHAN: Yeah. And   Dick Costolo, the former C.E.O. of Twitter, he said this about laughter, which I thought was pretty interesting. He said, “You don’t have to be the quickest wit in the room. The easiest way to have more humor at work is not to try to be funny. Instead, just look for moments to laugh.”

DUCKWORTH: Ah, okay. So, if I am interpreting this, like, piece of advice that he’s giving is, like, you don’t have to be the one who’s like, “Hey everyone, I’ve got this great joke,” but you can be the person who laughs at whatever is happening. Like, you don’t have to be the generator of humor; you can be the appreciator of humor.

MAUGHAN: Honestly, I think that’s a huge piece of Jimmy Fallon’s rise. Jimmy’s not telling all the jokes, but if you watch Jimmy interview someone, they’ll say something that’s maybe moderately funny, and he’s, like, rolling off his chair laughing so hard. And I think that that’s half the entertainment, is his ability to laugh, not his ability to be the joke maker.

DUCKWORTH: I really love this because this is like the zero-entry pool for humor. It’s like, Angela, you can’t go into the deep end yet, because humor is, like, your 23rd or 24th strength out of 24. But, maybe you could look for opportunities to laugh at Mike’s jokes. Look for times where you can be Jimmy Kimmel.

MAUGHAN: Yes. Jimmy Fallon, but they’re both named Jimmy.

DUCKWORTH: They are so easily confused — they almost look like the same person, right? Am I the only one who thinks that?

MAUGHAN: I mean, what are the chances that the two main comics hosting late night shows are both named Jimmy?

DUCKWORTH: Someone should have said, “Look, I’ll be James, you be Jimmy. This is going to work out great for both of us.”

MAUGHAN: Who knows?

DUCKWORTH: I wonder if, like, you know, it’s in that book, How to Win Friends and Influence People. Laughing at someone’s jokes? It’s pretty hard to think of anything that would endear you more.

MAUGHAN: And that’s, I think, this point number three that they’re making. If you can’t be anything else, just be the person that can laugh. 

DUCKWORTH: The Jimmy Fallon principle.

MAUGHAN: We’ll call it “the Jimmy Fallon.” The last one is the “born with it” myth, meaning that you’re either funny or not. And they’re saying, look, it can be something that you can train and strengthen and you can get better at understanding and engaging in humor. Now, I will say, I think that the least funny thing ever is creating a formula and walking into a room and being like, “Okay, if I surprise them with the right amount of conflict and benign” — I mean, it’s just like, okay, now you’ve lost everybody. But their point is that we can all learn. And they hearken to the great Carol Dweck of a “growth mindset” — that you can develop a better sense of humor and a better ability to engage with humor versus the fixed mindset of, “I’m not a funny person.”

DUCKWORTH: On this last point, you’re like, “I don’t know about that. Like, I think the least funny thing you could do is to, like, walk in the room and think, like, ‘How do I juxtapose threat and safety?’” I beg to differ. And one reason I beg to differ is that, you know, I’ve read a lot of books on craft. So, I did read, cover to cover, this book by Judd Apatow, the director. It’s called Sick in the Head, and it’s very autobiographical. It’s basically how he was obsessed with comedy from a very young age. He directed The 40 Year Old Virgin, with Steve Carell. So, I read that, and I also have read a lot of what Jerry Seinfeld has written about being funny — and again, not because I am funny, not because I have the good sense of trying to develop my sense of humor, just because, like, this is what I study: expertise. And it’s so much more craft than you think. Now, I don’t think they would say that, like, you can start with any person and, like, make them into a laugh-out-loud stand-up comic. But, you know, the famous Pop-Tart joke? Jerry Seinfeld often uses this as the, like, example of writing a joke — that, like, first you have this idea. You’re like, “Oh, you know, Pop Tarts. A little square pastry. Oh, funny. We put it in the toaster.” And then over, like, hundreds of iterations, he is buffing and polishing it, and getting the juxtaposition and the timing and the words just right. So, I kind of want to challenge you on that, because I know it sounds like a deeply unfunny thing to be so premeditated about it. And yet, I wonder how much of spontaneity — like, I can think of people who I do think are funny and they do say things that feel, like, very off the cuff. But I wonder if it is more like learning how to dice an onion and, like, less like just a, you know, gift.

MAUGHAN: I guess the way that I would think through it is because of the extraordinary amount of practice and craft that goes into it, that’s what allows them to be funny in a spontaneous way.

DUCKWORTH: Like, maybe you’ve practiced this and then also this muscle that you’ve been, like, building is really strong.

MAUGHAN: And I guess this is what I’m saying. If I’m walking into a meeting, I cannot walk in there with a memorized joke that I — that’s not standup. It’s the ability to interact naturally with people over the course of the meeting and say something that’s really funny or that makes people laugh. But, I guess what you’re saying is that your ability to do that in a spontaneous way can be massively improved.  

DUCKWORTH: Right. So, I do think it is, you know, something that is spontaneous in the moment, it doesn’t have to be, like, rehearsed, but I do think this constantly looking for things that are, like, true and also uncomfortable, like, sort of wrong, but kind of right — like, I think that you just end up highly-skilled.

MAUGHAN: Right. So, Angela, as we are wrapping up this conversation on humor, I wanted to harken back to one of my favorite stupidest memories, I was having a tough time, I don’t even remember what was happening, and instead of watching a bunch of episodes of say The Office or Modern Family or something, which are funny and I find engaging, I went to YouTube or TikTok or something, and I just watched for like an hour the highlight moments of the shows, like the funniest moments. And there’s nothing as powerful as laughter. Even in that moment, I wasn’t connecting with other individuals per se, because I was by myself just like wallowing, but it got me out of a funk and then you want to go connect with humans again because you know that there’s a whole world of people out there that can make you smile and make you laugh.

Coming up after the break: a fact-check of today’s episode and stories from our NSQ listeners.

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And now, here’s a fact-check of today’s conversation:

Singer-songwriter Larry LaPrise is often credited as the creator of the novelty song and dance “The Hokey Pokey.” LaPrise died in 1996 at the age of 83 — not 93, as Mike suggested. However, the true origin of the song has been debated for years. A similar composition called “The Hokey Pokey Dance” was copyrighted a few years earlier by musician Robert Degen, who claimed that LaPrise stole the song from him. Northern Irish musician Jimmy Kennedy has also claimed rights to a version of the song called “Hokey Cokey” or “Cokey Cokey.” It’s also possible that the words “hokey pokey” come from the phrase “hocus pocus.” According to The New York Times, “the song may have been written by eighteenth-century Puritans to mock the language of Latin Mass.”

Later, Angela says feels like she is old enough to have been alive when the first sitcom aired. The first ever situation comedy on American television, Mary Kay and Johnny, premiered in 1947. By the time Angela was born in 1970, many additional sitcoms had achieved widespread success. There’s I Love Lucy, Leave It to Beaver, The Dick Van Dyke Show, and The Brady Bunch — just to name a few.

And we should note that laugh tracks were often used even when shows were recorded in front of a live audience. In 1950, American sound engineer Charley Douglass, dissatisfied with live audience reactions on early TV shows, adopted a technique from radio to enhance or reduce recorded laughter. Though controversial, this approach quickly became the industry standard.

That’s it for the fact-check.

Before we wrap today’s show, let’s hear some thoughts about last week’s episode on why we get stuck in suboptimal situations.

Molly POWERS: Hi Angela and Mike, this is Molly calling from Fiji. I enjoyed your episode on status quo bias, and the story about Sweden reminded me of a more recent story from this part of the world. In 2009, the island nation of Samoa successfully orchestrated a switch from driving on the right-hand side of the road to driving on the left. They built up to the switch with six months of public awareness and marked the occasion with a two-day national holiday and a three-day ban on alcohol sales. The government made this decision largely because it’s cheaper to import cars from Australia, New Zealand, and Japan than from the United States. Interestingly, their neighbors in nearby American Samoa still drive on the right and import American cars.  Many around the world were surprised how smoothly the switch went ahead with no serious accidents or fatalities. I’m not sure if this says more about the success of the campaign or the willingness of the Samoan public to make this change. Perhaps it’s a bit of both.

Tom ALLEN: This is Tom Allen in Cupertino, California. I knew there was a rhyme about remembering Celsius temperatures for Americans handicapped by the imperial system. So here it is: “30 is hot. 20 is nice. Ten is cool. Zero is ice.”  

That was, respectively, Molly Powers and Tom Allen. Thanks to them and to everyone who shared their stories with us. And remember, we’d love to hear your thoughts about humor and your favorite jokes. Send a voice memo to NSQ@Freakonomics.com, and you might hear your voice on the show!

Coming up next week on No Stupid Questions: Why do we listen to sad songs?

DUCKWORTH: “Wow, what is this masochism? Like, what am I doing?”

That’s coming up on No Stupid Questions.

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No Stupid Questions is part of the Freakonomics Radio Network, which also includes Freakonomics Radio, People I (Mostly) Admire, and The Economics of Everyday Things. All our shows are produced by Stitcher and Renbud Radio. The senior producer of the show is me, Rebecca Lee Douglas, and Lyric Bowditch is our production associate. This episode was mixed by Greg Rippin. We had research assistance from Daniel Moritz-Rabson. Our theme song was composed by Luis Guerra. You can follow us on Twitter @NSQ_Show, and you can now watch video clips of Mike and Angela at the Freakonomics Radio Network’s YouTube Shorts Channel or on Freakonomics Radio’s TikTok page. If you have a question for a future episode, please email it to NSQ@Freakonomics.com. To learn more, or to read episode transcripts, visit Freakonomics.com/NSQ. Thanks for listening!

DUCKWORTH: Is that funny? I need the laugh track.