🔗 Share this article

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

This one-liner is greeted with groans that resonate through a warehouse in London.

We're at a humor-evaluation meeting with a company that produces supplies for social events. Its repertoire includes Christmas crackers.

The company's owner smiles, almost apologetically at the joke. But the pun has made the cut and will feature in upcoming crackers.

"You measure the gag by the number of groans and the intensity of the groans around the table," the founder says.

The key to a great Christmas cracker pun is not the same as a good gag per se. It is entirely about the setting - in this case, the shared laughter of the holiday dinner table with elders, kids and possibly neighbours.

"The goal is for the gag to be something that unites the eight-year-old in harmony with the grandparent," she states.

The Neuroscience Of Shared Laughter

Gathering to experience communal laughter is not only nothing new, scientists argue, it is likely to be older than humanity.

"So when you are laughing with people around the Christmas dinner you are dropping into what's very likely a really ancient mammalian play vocalisation," says a professor.

Communal laughter, she says, aids in forge and strengthen social bonds between people.

Researchers have discovered that a absence of such interactions can significantly damage both psychological and bodily health.

"The people you talk to, and share laughter 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 alleviate stress and pain and in reaction to enjoyable activities, such as chuckling with loved ones over a particularly awful Christmas cracker joke.

"You're not just laughing at a silly joke with a Christmas cracker," the expert says. "You are actually doing a lot of the truly important task of building, preserving the connections you have with the people you love."

What Occurs Inside the Mind?

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

A tremendous amount happens in response to comedy, it transpires.

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a type of brain scanner which indicates which parts of the mind are working harder, researchers have been able to chart the areas that receive more blood flow.

The research involves scanning the minds of volunteer subjects and then exposing them to a database of funny words, paired with either a non-emotional sound, or recorded laughter.

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

A gag activates not just the areas of the mind responsible for hearing and interpreting language, but also neural areas associated with both planning and initiating motion and those involved in sight and recall.

Put these elements together, and individuals hearing a pun have a complex set of neural reactions that underpin the amusement we experience.

The Infectious Power of Chuckles

Researchers found that when a funny word is paired with laughter there is a greater reaction in the mind than the identical word when followed by a neutral sound.

"This was in areas of the brain that you would use to contort your expression into a grin or a laugh," she explains.

It means we are not just responding to funny words, they are reacting to the amusement that follows them.

Laughter, according to the expert, can be contagious.

So what does this imply for the laughter found at a holiday table?

"You laugh harder when you are familiar with people," she says, "and laughter increases further when you are fond of them or care for them."

When it comes to festive cracker puns, she explains, the feel-good effect is more probable to be triggered not by the gag in itself, but from the response to it.

"It's the laughter. The gag is the dreadful Christmas cracker pun, and it's just a reason to chuckle as a group."

The Quest for the Ideal Cracker Joke

Will we ever find the ultimate gag?

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

Years ago, a psychologist established a scientific project for the planet's funniest joke.

More than tens of thousands of jokes submitted, with ratings lodged by hundreds of thousands of people globally, he has a clearer understanding than many as to what works and what does not.

The perfect festive cracker joke needs to be brief, he explains.

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

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

"This is because if nobody laughs – it's the joke's shortcoming, not your own.

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

"That's a shared moment around the table and I believe it's lovely."