🔗 Share this article

"What was the price did Santa's sled cost? Nothing, it was on the house."

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

This describes a joke-testing session with a company that makes products for social events. Its repertoire includes Christmas crackers.

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

"The success is gauged by the gag by the volume of groans and the loudness of the groans at the table," she explains.

The key to a great Christmas cracker joke is not the same as a good gag in itself. It is all about the setting - in this case, the shared amusement of the holiday meal with elders, kids and potentially friends.

"The goal is for the joke to be something that unites the child together with the grandparent," she states.

The Science Of Communal Amusement

Gathering to experience shared laughter is not only ancient, experts argue, 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 really primordial mammalian play sound," explains a neuroscience expert.

Shared laughter, she says, helps forge and strengthen social bonds between people.

Scientists have found that a absence of such social exchanges can significantly damage mental and physical well-being.

"Those you converse with, and share laughter with, it leads to enhanced amounts of 'happy chemical' release," the professor continues.

Endorphins are the brain's "feel-good compounds" and are produced both to alleviate stress and pain and in response to enjoyable activities, such as laughing with friends over a particularly terrible Christmas cracker gag.

"It's not simply chuckling at a silly joke with a Christmas cracker," the expert states. "You are in fact doing a lot of the really important work of building, preserving the social bonds you have with those you care about."

What Occurs Inside the Mind?

But what is actually taking place inside the brain when we hear a joke?

An awful lot happens in reaction to humour, it transpires.

Employing brain scanning technology, a type of brain scanner which indicates which areas of the mind are working harder, researchers have been able to chart the regions that receive more blood flow.

Testing involves scanning the minds of volunteer participants and then subjecting them to a database of funny phrases, paired with either a non-emotional sound, or pre-recorded chuckles.

"During the study we got a really fascinating pattern of activation," says the professor.

A gag activates not just the parts of the mind responsible for auditory processing and interpreting language, but also neural areas involved in both planning and starting movement and those linked to sight and memory.

Combine these elements together, and people listening to a joke have a complex series of brain responses that underpin the amusement we hear.

The Contagious Nature of Chuckles

Scientists discovered that when a funny word is paired with laughter there is a greater reaction in the mind than the identical word when accompanied by a neutral sound.

"This activation occurred in areas of the mind that you would use to move your expression into a grin or a chuckle," the professor says.

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

Laughter, according to the expert, can be contagious.

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

"You laugh harder when you are familiar with people," she notes, "and you laugh further when you are fond of them or love them."

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

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

The Search for the Perfect Cracker Joke

Will we ever find the perfect gag?

Probably not, but that has not stopped researchers from trying to.

Years ago, a professor set up a scientific search for the planet's funniest gag.

More than 40,000 jokes submitted, with ratings provided by 350,000 participants globally, he has a clearer understanding than most as to what works and what fails.

The perfect festive cracker pun needs to be short, he explains.

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

The more "awful" the joke, he says the better.

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

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

"That's a common moment at the table and I believe it's wonderful."