🔗 Share this article

"What was the price did Father Christmas's sleigh cost? Zero, it was on the house."

This one-liner is met by groans that echo through a storage facility in London.

This describes a humor-evaluation session with a company that produces products for social events. Its repertoire includes festive crackers.

The firm's founder grins, almost apologetically at the joke. But the joke has made the cut and will feature in future crackers.

"The success is gauged by the joke by the volume of groans and the loudness of the groans around the table," the founder says.

The key to a good holiday cracker pun is not the same as a stand-up joke in itself. It is all about the setting - in this instance, the communal laughter of the Christmas meal with grandparents, kids and potentially friends.

"The goal is for the joke to be something that brings the eight-year-old together with the 80-year-old," she adds.

The Neuroscience Of Communal Amusement

Coming together to enjoy communal laughter is not only ancient, scientists argue, it is probably to be older than humanity.

"So when you are chuckling with people around the Christmas dinner you are engaging in what's very likely a really ancient mammalian play sound," says a neuroscience expert.

Shared laughter, she explains, helps forge and strengthen social connections between individuals.

Researchers have discovered that a absence of these interactions can seriously damage both psychological and bodily well-being.

"The people you talk to, and share laughter with, it leads to enhanced levels of 'happy chemical' uptake," the professor continues.

Endorphins are the body's "feel-good compounds" and are released both to reduce stress and pain and in response to pleasurable experiences, such as laughing with friends over a truly awful Christmas cracker joke.

"It's not simply laughing at a foolish pun with a Christmas cracker," the expert says. "You are actually doing a lot of the truly important task of making, maintaining the social bonds you have with those you love."

Which Occurs In the Brain?

But what is actually happening inside the brain when we listen to a joke?

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

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

The research entails imaging the minds of healthy subjects and then subjecting them to a collection of funny phrases, accompanied by either a neutral sound, or pre-recorded laughter.

"In the scanner we got a very fascinating pattern of neural activity," notes the professor.

A joke activates not just the areas of the mind responsible for hearing and understanding language, but also neural areas associated with both planning and starting motion and those linked to sight and memory.

Combine these elements together, and people listening to a joke have a sophisticated set of brain reactions that underpin the amusement we experience.

The Infectious Nature of Chuckles

Researchers found that when a humorous word is paired with laughter there is a greater response in the brain than the same word when accompanied by a neutral sound.

"This activation occurred in areas of the brain that you would use to move your face into a smile or a laugh," the professor says.

It means people are not just responding to funny jokes, they are responding to the amusement that follows them.

Amusement, says the expert, can be infectious.

So what does this imply for the chuckles heard at a Christmas table?

"You laugh harder when you are familiar with others," she notes, "and laughter increases further when you like them or care for them."

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

"The laughter is key. The gag is the dreadful Christmas cracker joke, and it's just a reason to chuckle together."

The Search for the Ideal Cracker Joke

Will we ever discover the ultimate joke?

Likely not, but that has not stopped experts from trying to.

Years ago, a psychologist established a scientific search for the planet's funniest gag.

More than tens of thousands of jokes submitted, with scores provided by 350,000 people globally, he has a clearer idea than many as to what succeeds and what fails.

The ideal Christmas cracker joke needs to be brief, he explains.

"But they also need to be poor jokes, puns that cause us to moan," he continues.

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

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

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

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