🔗 Share this article

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

This joke is met by groans that echo through a storage facility in the capital.

We're at a joke-testing session with a company that produces products for social events. Its catalogue includes festive crackers.

The firm's founder grins, nearly sheepishly at the gag. But the joke has been selected and will appear in future crackers.

"You measure the gag by the number of groans and the intensity of the groans at the table," the founder explains.

The key to a great holiday cracker pun is not the identical as a good gag per se. It is all about the setting - in this case, the communal laughter of the Christmas dinner table with elders, children and potentially friends.

"You want the joke to be a thing that unites the child in harmony with the 80-year-old," she adds.

The Neuroscience Of Communal Laughter

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

"So when you are laughing with others at the Christmas dinner you are engaging in what's almost certainly a truly primordial mammal play sound," explains a neuroscience expert.

Shared amusement, she explains, aids in forge and strengthen social connections between people.

Scientists have found that a lack of such social exchanges can significantly harm both psychological and bodily well-being.

"Those you talk to, and share laughter with, it results in increased levels of endorphin uptake," the professor adds.

Endorphins are the brain's "happy chemicals" and are produced both to reduce stress and pain and in reaction to pleasurable activities, such as laughing with loved ones over a truly terrible festive cracker gag.

"It's not simply laughing at a foolish joke with a holiday cracker," the expert says. "You are actually doing a lot of the truly important work of building, preserving the social bonds you have with those you care about."

What Occurs Inside the Mind?

But what is truly taking place within the mind when we listen to a gag?

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

Employing brain scanning technology, a type of neural imager which indicates which areas of the brain are more active, scientists have been able to map the regions that receive more blood.

The research entails scanning the brains of volunteer subjects and then exposing them to a collection of funny words, paired with either a neutral sound, or pre-recorded chuckles.

"During the study we observed a very fascinating pattern of activation," notes the professor.

A joke activates not just the areas of the brain responsible for auditory processing and interpreting speech, but also neural areas associated with both planning and initiating motion and those linked to sight and memory.

Put all of this together, and people hearing a pun have a sophisticated series of brain responses that support the laughter we hear.

The Contagious Power of Chuckles

Scientists discovered that when a humorous phrase is combined with laughter there is a stronger reaction in the brain than the same phrase when followed by a non-emotional sound.

"This activation occurred in parts of the mind that you would employ to move your face into a grin or a laugh," the professor explains.

It means people are not just responding to humorous words, they are responding to the laughter that follows them.

Laughter, according to the professor, can be contagious.

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

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

When it comes to Christmas cracker puns, she says, the positive effect is more probable to be caused not by the gag itself, but from the reaction to it.

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

The Quest for the Ideal Cracker Joke

Is it possible to discover the perfect joke?

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

Years ago, a psychologist established a research search for the planet's most humorous joke.

More than 40,000 gags submitted, with ratings provided by 350,000 participants globally, he has a better idea than most as to what works and what does not.

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

"They must also be bad jokes, puns that cause us to groan," he adds.

The increasingly "awful" the joke, he states the more effective.

"This is because if no-one laughs – it's the joke's fault, not your own.

"The fascinating part about the Christmas cracker puns is that none of us find them humorous.

"That's a shared experience around the gathering and I believe it's lovely."