Only Joking : : What's so Funny About Making People Laugh?

Locations
Call Number: 809.7 Ca
On Shelf At: Downtown Library

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	809.7 Ca	4-week checkout	On Shelf

1 Joking Matters: Why jokes are important 1 -- 2 Tickling the Naked Ape: The science of laughter 13 -- 3 Send in the Clowns: The early evolution of the stand-up comic 35 -- 4 Only Kidding: How children learn to joke 59 -- 5 Nuts, Bolts and Hydraulic Brains: Dissecting the joke 77 -- 6 No Way to Make a Living: How to be a professional joker 101 -- 7 Take My Wife ... No, Please: Take My Wife: Joking across the gender divide 139 -- 8 Beyond the Pale?: Offensive jokes and why we laugh at them 163 -- 9 An Englishman, an Irishman and a Rabbi ... : The checkered history of ethnic jokes 187 -- 10 Sometimes the Joke Gets Elected: Why we need political jokes 215 -- 11 Knock Knock. Who's There? The Police.: When jokes get taken to court 237 -- 12 The Last Laugh 261.
A seriously funny, up-close look at joking matters--from the social origins of laughter, to the art and craft of humor, to why we can never remember the punch line--featuring over 300 jokes. Comedian Jimmy Carr and comedy writer Greeves take an in-depth look at where humor comes from and how it works, through exploring its purest form: the joke. Surveying across national, ethnic, and gender divides, they begin with the mechanism of laughter--how it happens and why even infants do it--then delve into the power of the punch line, exploring the basics of all jokes, from the use of shock and surprise to advanced stand-up techniques such as the "pull-back/reveal." Carr and Greeves go on to explore taboo humor, jokes that bomb, and the psychology of finding something funny.--From publisher description.

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