🔗 Share this article

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

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

This describes a joke-testing session with a company that makes supplies for social events. Its catalogue features festive crackers.

The company's founder smiles, nearly apologetically at the gag. But the pun has made the cut and will appear in upcoming crackers.

"The success is gauged by the gag by the volume of groans and the intensity of the groans around the table," she says.

The secret to a great Christmas cracker joke is not the identical as a good joke per se. It is entirely about the setting - in this instance, the shared laughter of the Christmas meal with grandparents, kids and possibly neighbours.

"The goal is for the gag to be a thing that brings the child in harmony with the 80-year-old," she adds.

The Neuroscience Of Shared Amusement

Coming together to enjoy communal amusement is not only nothing new, experts argue, it is likely to be older than humanity.

"So when you are laughing with people around the holiday table you are engaging in what's almost certainly a truly primordial mammalian play vocalisation," says a professor.

Shared amusement, she says, helps make and maintain social bonds between individuals.

Scientists have discovered that a absence of these social exchanges can seriously harm both psychological and bodily health.

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

Endorphins are the brain's "feel-good compounds" and are released both to reduce tension and discomfort and in response to enjoyable experiences, such as laughing with loved ones over a truly terrible Christmas cracker gag.

"It's not simply chuckling at a foolish joke with a holiday cracker," the expert says. "You are actually doing a lot of the truly important work of making, maintaining the connections you have with the people you love."

What Happens Inside the Mind?

But what is truly taking place inside the mind when we hear a joke?

A tremendous amount happens in response to humour, it turns out.

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

The research involves scanning the brains of healthy subjects and then exposing them to a collection of humorous words, paired with either a neutral sound, or recorded chuckles.

"During the study we got a very interesting activation pattern of neural activity," says the neuroscientist.

A joke stimulates not just the areas of the mind responsible for hearing and interpreting speech, but also neural regions involved in both preparation and starting motion and those linked to sight and memory.

Combine these elements as a whole, and people listening to a pun have a sophisticated set of brain responses that underpin the amusement we hear.

The Infectious Power of Chuckles

Researchers discovered that when a funny phrase is combined with laughter there is a greater reaction in the mind than the identical word when followed by a non-emotional sound.

"This was in areas of the mind that you would employ to move your expression into a smile or a chuckle," the professor says.

It means we are not just reacting to humorous jokes, they are reacting to the laughter that follows them.

Amusement, says the expert, can be contagious.

So what does this imply for the chuckles found around a holiday gathering?

"People laugh harder when you know others," she notes, "and laughter increases further when you are fond of them or care for them."

When it comes to festive cracker jokes, she says, the feel-good factor is more probable to be triggered not by the gag in itself, but from the reaction to it.

"The laughter is key. The joke is the terrible holiday cracker joke, and it's just a pretext to laugh as a group."

The Quest for the Ideal Cracker Joke

Is it possible to find the ultimate gag?

Likely not, but that has not prevented researchers from trying to.

In 2001, a professor established a scientific search for the world's most humorous gag.

More than 40,000 gags submitted, with ratings provided by 350,000 people around the world, he has a better understanding than many as to what works and what does not.

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

"They must also be bad jokes, jokes that make us moan," he adds.

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

"The reason is that if no-one laughs – it's the joke's fault, not yours.

"What's interesting about the Christmas cracker jokes is that none of us find them humorous.

"That's a common moment around the gathering and I believe it's wonderful."