WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 521 - Peter McGraw and Joel Warner

Episode Date: August 5, 2014

Authors of The Humor Code, psychologist Peter McGraw and journalist Joel Warner, traveled around the world to find out what makes things are funny. They stop by the garage to share their findings and conclusions with Marc, including a scientific theory of humor. Plus, Eddie Pepitone drops in to get Marc up to speed on his life and his latest projects. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's a night for the whole family. Be a part of Kids Night when the Toronto Rock take on the Colorado Mammoth at a special 5 p.m. start time on Saturday, March 9th at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton. The first 5,000 fans in attendance will get a Dan Dawson bobblehead courtesy of Backley Construction. Punch your ticket to Kids Night on Saturday, March 9th at 5 p.m. in Rock City at torontorock.com. You can get anything you need with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything.

So no, you can't get an ice rink on Uber Eats. But iced tea and ice cream? Yes, we can deliver that. Uber Eats. Get almost, almost

anything. Order now. Product availability may vary by region. See app for details. Lock the gates! All right, let's do this. How are you, what the fuckers?

What the fuck buddies? What the fucking ears? What the fuck nicks? What the fucksters? What the fuckabillies? What the fuckleberry thins? Okay. How are you?

This is Mark Maron. This is my show WTF. Why am I talking like this? How is everyone? Nice to talk to you. Today on the show, Peter McGraw and Joel Warner are here. They wrote a book called The Humor Code. You can get that at humorcode.com or wherever books are sold. This was not a contentious interview for me but it was a little touchy because i always wonder what the motives are for trying to disassemble and categorize and make graphs of things like comedy why why do it why explain it i couldn't quite get past uh freud's wit and its relation to the unconscious i think there was some good stuff there it has something to do with i think fear and discomfort and feeling better uh disarming the pain i'm not even paraphrasing i'm making it up i have no idea what his primary

argument was in that book or what his observations were let's let peter mc McGraw and Joel Warner explain it. In a few minutes, Eddie Pepitone will be stopping. I can't tell you Eddie Pepitone is going to stop by. I interrupted my own sentence. How is that even possible that I interrupted myself? Well, look, I also wanted to talk a little bit about the TV show. We're waiting on a third season pick up. I think it's going to go. I want it to talk a little bit about the TV show. We're waiting on a third season, I pick up. I think it's going to go.

I want it to go. I think I have like a season in me that's going to be deeper and more creative than the seasons before it. I feel it within me. It was when I look back on the process of making two seasons of the show Marin I'm amazed that that it happened and that you know the amount I'm learning and the amount I'm experiencing I think I evolved as an actor as a writer as a producer I directed one and I'm really starting to look ahead you know into the possibilities of of you know using my imagination in a different way so I'm filling up my brain I'm filling up my brain. I'm filling up my brain watching movies. I'm writing things down.

I'm not necessarily writing things comedic. I'm trying to think in pictures. I'm trying to figure out what stories I can tell that are not directly based in my small world. It seems to me that a lot of the episodes that really resonated with people were things that were departures. Radio Cowboy got a lot of feedback.

And that, quite honestly, when we made Radio Cowboy, the only choice that I had for that role was Phil Hendry. The character was based on Phil Hendry. It was based on my limited knowledge of doing radio, but also based on my knowledge and relationship with radio people. And I think that episode in dealing with this sort of diminishment of relevance of terrestrial radio and the sort of evolution of podcasting and things that are more available in that way never really had a human heart to it and i think that that it brought a lot of information to people that they didn't they didn't really put into perspective or wouldn't have generally uh you know just being

you know consumers of this stuff and i think that the sort of dynamics of of those two worlds and and the evolution it showed and the human pain around that you know had a had a real effect on people and i was thrilled that people responded to that as did the the mouth cancer bit i think getting out into the world and uh working with other comics and showing the life of a comic a little bit in a slightly amplified way was compelling to people it also had sort of a surreal vibe to it but but held its reality pretty well uh people seem to love that episode uh people liked me and dave anthony and there'll be more of that if we get another season for sure me and andy kindler and and the final episode uh moved people a lot of people didn't know where to where

the show was coming from emotionally all the time, and sometimes it was a little heavy emotionally, but I think that that's okay. And, you know, sadly, you know, the idea of the death of an unknown comic and unknown to people in the broader sense, but known to us, is it's scary and it's sad. And, you know, you have moments where you realize how grateful you are when someone passes, that especially if they pass too young, like, you know, just the other day, I got information that a great comic from Boston named Rich Seisler, who I've known for years,

passed away of a sort of rare and bizarre ailment in the Dominican Republic, some type of autoimmune deficiency where your immune system sort of turns on your nervous system. And it looked like he was going to be okay. But then his lungs weren't working great and he got an infection and he passed away. It just, you know, within days. And this guy was a great guy. I tried several times to get him on WTF.

I wanted him to do both of the live in Boston episodes, but he was a guy who worked the boats. He was a cruise ship guy. He's a great comic. He'd been doing it for years. He was one of the first comics I actually saw work live in the sense that he when i was doing the team comedy the first time i really got on stage in boston with steve brill who you got to know on the 500th episode at the comedy connection boston rich seisler was the host and he was one of the guys that i saw a lot when i was doing open mics and uh i'd been in touch with on and off over the years.

Always great to see him. You know, just a horrible, horrible, tragic thing out of nowhere. And he's going to be missed. He was a great guy. And my heart goes out to his his fiance, Catherine, who was there through the whole thing. And, you know, my heart goes out to his family. It's jarring how fragile life can be, and it's a very sad thing. He was a good guy and a good comic, and I'm sorry we didn't get to talk on the show.

If you go look him up on Facebook, I do believe there might be some help needed. Rich Seisler, R-I-C-H-C-E-I-S-L-E-R. But, you know, as a guy who's 50 and, you know, thinking about, you know, obviously I'm living a good life and I'm grateful for that. Obviously, I'm living a good life and I'm grateful for that. But how much time am I going to spend repeating myself? Repeating myself. Easy.

It was easy. I guess the message is try to live your life as... Just don't drive yourself crazy. All rightdie pepitone is uh is stopping by here let's do that eddie pepitone i stopping by that's right there's a drop-in this is a drop-in i do drop-ins for friends you have things going on. Yeah, thanks. And we're all so thankful that you finally have something tangible going on. The special, which is great, but I'm going to Edinburgh, and that scares the fucking...

Let's talk about the special. What's the special called? It's called In Ruins. Eddie Pepitone, In Ruins, directed by Stephen Feinash. Who did the bitter booter. He did the bitter booter. Very talented. Yes, what a talented guy. I love this guy booter. He did the bitter booter. Very talented. Yes, what a talented guy.

I love this guy. Yeah. He is a sweetheart to me. I know that you and him have a combative. No, we do not. We do not. I think I said something

that he took the wrong way. Maybe he proved that he took it the right way. Maybe I was a little condescending because it's hard for me sometimes I look at these guys it's like that kid, you know,

but he's a very talented guy. He seems to like you, and you need someone like that. I remember one of the funniest lines of the interview was like, hey, where's my Jew to follow me with the camera? You said something like that. But yeah, so In Ruins is coming out on Netflix about August 7th. Now, this is an hour? It's an hour.

And I taped it at the bell house which was a wonderful experience because that's my home that's my home field advantage yeah and i had friends from just uh different parts of my life show up to this which was really kind of guys i waited tables with oh yeah which was very cool did you kill i killed and that was another and and it's similar to me now going away to scotland but that was another thing i was dreading like before it i was like i don't i don't know if i could really be on for an hour i do brooklyn i don't feel good like immediately i'm like i don't feel good yeah yeah i'm the same way what's wrong with us i wonder if i look like you inside now hold it i think that was a swag i think so it was good for you good for me for recognizing you're not so self-involved that you realize when you're getting hit

but uh are you happy with it i am very happy with it i am very happy with it and um i don't know what else to say it came out really great just straight up you didn't do any weird shit like in the middle you're walking somewhere you know like here's some stand-up and look i'm doing the same bit on the street nothing no we we had a little uh bumper at the beginning where i was walking the streets of brooklyn sure but that's just a setup because for the open right and then it's just straight up you're on stage you're doing the thing for an hour and at the end you do a little dressing room stuff i know no i didn't do that i didn't do that no no no uh post uh i don't know i'm not sure i was talking no post game i was talking to steve about hey maybe maybe we'll go back to the brooklyn walk like but i don't know if we did that or not

but i know it's a little Brooklyn walk at top. So that's on Netflix around August 7th. It's called In Ruins. In Ruins, yeah. That's Eddie Pepitone's first hour special. You deserve it. Thank you. It's self-produced.

Do they give you some money? What happened? Yeah, New Wave gave some money. Oh, they're doing that, right. Yeah, yeah. New Wave likes to give us money for things. Right. Yeah.

Doesn't that feel good, take their money? Yes, I love that I love taking money, period So now, alright, let's talk about this Edinburgh Yes I don't know how to say it, so I'm gonna just drop off Edinburgh I was finally told how to say it

Edinburgh Edinburgh Yeah, that's good Edinburgh Edinburgh, someone told me Edinburgh Picture this, E-D-I-N-B-R-U-H Edinburgh

Oh, Edinburgh Alright, so you're going back You crazy fuck picture this E-D-I-N-B-R-U-H Edinburgh oh Edinburgh alright so you're going back you crazy fuck yeah well why it's crazy is because it's 25 shows and 26 nights

that for me you have our condition don't even I feel like it's better I feel like it's better guy with your condition by the way I was like oh shit I. Guy with your condition. By the way, I was like, oh shit, I should get a physical before I go.

Because, you know, I'm like, Jesus, this is so demanding. And I haven't had a physical. Seriously, I don't even know if I ever had a full physical like this. And I've been vegan. This is what kills me. This is what kills me. What, vegan? I haven't been eating animal products. and I've been vegan. This is what kills me. This is what kills me. What, vegan? That's just, well, you probably,

are you a good vegan? I haven't been eating animal products, but of course, like an idiot, I've been eating too many carbs and I just haven't

been exercising. You know, I just haven't been because I had gotten into this thing where I just was like, I'm eating vegan, I'm cool.

No, of course. It was crazy. It was crazy. There's so vegan. I'm cool. No, of course. It was crazy. There's so much fat in that diet if you're not careful. Yes. They say now it's the inflammation that gets you, not the fat. It's all the sugar. Is that right? Yeah.

That's my next thing, man, is I'm cutting out sugar. And I've done it once before, but I snapped. Because if you cut it completely, like I cut it completely and lost, I lost, I think it was 40 pounds. Yeah. And I felt really good. You look better than usual. Well, I've been exercising for a couple weeks. For two weeks, yeah.

You're probably fine. When I... Oh, man. But the good thing about Edinburgh is that it's all hills. You know, just to go to the main place, you got to walk up the hill. It's true. Every day you're up that fucking hill by the castle. Right.

I want to do a couple of miles. I've been jogging. And also what I really want to get into there. Plenty of good jogs in Edinburgh. There are. Yeah. Yeah. It's beautiful.

Have you done it? Yeah. I did it once. That was enough for me. Yeah. Did you do the whole? It's brutal. Yeah.

It's rough. I was not in a good place in general yeah i just my wife had just left me and well that's oh that's so easy well is that always the situation one something is left one form or another something is leaving someone has had enough someone's had enough i've had enough you've had enough so what's that what's that show called rest in peace now is that uh is that really you wrote a show for edinburgh or you just I've had enough. You've had enough. So what's that show called? Rest in Peace USA. Now, is that really you wrote a show for Edinburgh, or you just said, no, I got a bunch of stand-ups. Seems that's the theme.

They tend to enjoy Americans shitting on their own country. That's my angle. You know, I don't want to do that. I don't want to pander to them. You know what I mean? You're going to have to pander to somebody. You know, it's like if you're not going to pander here i mean you might as well go over there enjoy the fact that your whole agenda here in the states is to make people go oh my god he's really against everything and you just happen to be going to a

place that has the same views as you just nationality wise yeah i feel safer doing this material there you know what i mean because i feel I feel like doing anti-US stuff here is always like, I could get some yahoos who are like, hey, what the fuck? Has that ever happened? No, it hasn't. That's because you're very diplomatic. You pick your targets. You're smart.

You insert yourself into the center of it. You can't always tell the difference between whether or not you're just aggravated over traffic or corporations. Everything just folds into the same thing. It's like, I didn't like my breakfast. We're all dying. Why don't they? Actually, I think I said in the description, I talk about the crumbling of myself and america like my inner crumbling relates to the outer that's exactly it how else are you gonna look at it if not

completely self-centered wise you got it right yeah and so that takes the sting out of me just pointing the finger no you're not self-righteous because you can't stand yourself now if i was a you know a great, high status fellow, I think it might be different. Well, thank God. None of that's going to happen. Don't you kid yourself. Oh God.

I'm so mean to you sometimes. It's all right. You know what? You know what? The other day, the other day this hit me now, now this goes back and forth, but the other day I kind of looked at myself in the mirror and this has been going on lately and i was like you know what i don't really care that much like i i'm not as like obsessed with leaving the house going man i look good today yeah yeah i think that happens with age it hasn't quite happened to me yet because if i feel if i feel

like i'm carrying a couple of pounds i might as well just well you're pretty crazy about your weight huh yeah see you torture yourself you see that isn't good either because they say the biggest um thing for a heart condition is stress so if you're stressing you know about stuff i have high cholesterol that's bad yeah you uh it's a little high not that i see that is one thing the vegan diet helps with. What do you eat? Meat? You eat a lot of meat? What's high cholesterol with you?

What do you eat? Well, no. I mean, at that time, I was eating a lot of meat because I thought it was okay. So what I did when I found out I had high cholesterol is I just started exercising. I stopped eating red meat almost entirely. Right. And I dropped 80 off of it. Wow. me almost entirely right and i dropped 80 off of it wow i'll tell you man with with feeling the dread and anxiety yeah you want to reach for the comfort stuff yeah you know what i mean and i i

can't by comfort you mean cock my cock yes and when i feel dread and anxiety i want to reach for my cock well that too yeah that too my cock and ice cream and that woman over there whoever they may be whoever they may be that one i want that one yeah that one's fine i think she looked at me i think so too i wonder if she saw my show ah yes all right so what's the show is called what it's called uh in edinburgh. It's called Rest in Peace USA. It's been fun, and it's about the fact that it seems like the economy just gets worse and worse and worse. It's a- And that you're going to be playing, let's see, at the all-

Wait, at the- Pleasance Above Theater. The Pleasance Above Theater for the entire month of August. If you don't, you know. Just about, till August 26th. Maybe this is your year there. Maybe you'll win the Soda Prize or whatever the fuck it is. The Soda Prize.

What is it? And now to give away the Soda Prize. I can't do a Scottish. The Perrier Award. Give away the Soda Prize. You got a lot of shit going on. I did London last summer. That was fun.

I got to go back to London. Three week run at the Soho Theater. I did London last summer. That was fun. I got to go back to London. Three week run at the Soho Theater. I did the Soho. You did as well? I found the audiences to be a little weird. Yeah.

I just like, they weren't, there would be a couple, no, more than a couple of nights where the laughter would not be rolling. That's because

you're just an American with problems. You know the, What do they want? They're not designed the same way. They actually look at a show as a show. They don't assume that you have these deep emotional needs that need to be met at every turn. Yeah.

Yeah. So they're sort of like, why does he keep pushing? Why does he keep pushing? Why can't he just do his thing? Can't he say something a bit insightful about our condition? Exactly. He says no boundaries, this guy. You ever see Stuart Lee over there?

Yeah. He's a good guy, huh? Yeah, he's good. Great comic. Great comic. Yep. Yeah, intimidating. Very intimidating because he's very decisive.

And he's got a very specific style that is his own. And he has no fear of not getting laugh one. It's true, right right mm-hmm guy interviewed him it's great interview oh were you interviewed him i did yeah i didn't know that early on holy shit it's a great one holy shit i'm going back on the archives to a lot of good news in that a lot of good uh advice in that was that a phone or how did you do it i was there when i was doing the soho i interviewed him i sought him out yeah because i knew he was a respected guy and I'd watched a little bit. But, you know, it was great to talk to him because he quit for a while.

I know. Yeah. Wrote a book about it. Yeah. I got the book, too. Well, so you got a lot going on. Yeah. And I'm happy for you.

I'm truly happy for you. Thank you, buddy. I can be that way for you. Thank you. I'm going to stay alive. You're going to be one of the people that I'm going to stay alive. I'm staying alive. You know, I'm staying alive for to stay alive i'm staying alive you

know i'm staying alive for my dog i'm staying alive uh for the wife i was hoping you'd get that in jesus christ you put the dog first you want to try it again we'll cut that out i'm staying alive for my wife i'm staying alive for the dog yeah and i'm staying alive i want to get really big i say i'm serious i want to get really really big yeah as a cop like bigger than anybody yeah and and then just go to a couple of people and say you see that i won i won i want to win i'm in it i'm in it to win it. I hear you, buddy. I hear you. So, rest in peace. Rest in peace. The special on Netflix. No, the special is called Eddie Pepitone in Ruins.

Shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh. Eddie Pepitone in Ruins. I'm going to tell Brendan to leave all of those corrections in. I'm going to tell him right now. Every time where we assume there's going to be an edit, there's no edit. So, even this, Brendan, leave the dog thing in. I don't know. You don't know?

I can get in trouble for that one. All right, Donald, take that out. Okay, we're going to do this right. Take it out. Take out. You know what to do. The special, In Ruins, Eddie Peppertone, Netflix, around August 7th. Yes.

And directed by Steve Feinart. Yes. The very brilliant guy. Yes. Great director. Great director. I'm glad he's coming along. See, I give and I take away.

You give and you take. And then, Rest in Peace USA. It's been fun. It's been fun. That's a long title. You know, everybody tells me that.

Okay. So, it's at the Pleasance Above Theater in Edinburgh maybe it'll be so popular that they just go do you see rest in peace and no one's gonna go like is that the whole name of it it's like everybody will just know what it is yeah yeah good luck with that Scotsman review or whatever the fuck it is is that what it is she likes me she does Kate Kate There's only one person? I think, well, she's the big one. All right. Well, again, congratulations. Thanks, Mark.

Don't die. I won't. I want to win. Okay. I love Eddie Pepitone. I love Eddie Pepitone. Can I say that again? It was so great. It's always great to talk to Eddie. He makes my heart sore. Mark, Mark. That's my, I was just possessed by the spirit of

Eddie Pepitone saying my name. All right. So let's get into this humor code business. I wanted to hear them crunch the angle. It was presented to me as science. I wanted to question the science. And here we go. Let's try to understand why. Why humor? How does it work? What does it mean?

What are the lines? What are the graphs? Crunch the numbers. Show me the research, Peter McGraw and Joel Warner. Let's talk to them. You can get anything you need with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. Peter McGraw and Joel Warner. Let's talk to them. Calgary is a city built by innovators. Innovation is in the city's DNA. And it's with this pedigree that bright minds and future thinking problem solvers are tackling some of the world's greatest challenges from right here in Calgary. From cleaner energy, safe and secure food, efficient movement of goods and people and better health solutions. Calgary's visionaries are turning heads

around the globe across all sectors each and every day. Calgary's on the right path forward. Take a closer look how at calgaryeconomicdevelopment.com. Now. We're just curious why you decided to reach out to us. I don't know. You wrote the book. I know. It's a pretty big undertaking.

The Humor Code, a global search for what makes things funny. I mean, why wouldn't I be interested in that? That's great. I mean, I don't usually do interviews like this. You're right. I'm skeptical. Good. But you guys seem to have done some kind of research a little

bit i mean i i know freud tried to to nail this thing with uh what it's and within its relationship to the unconscious correct yes yeah and what'd you did you guys check that out oh yeah that's that's not working it's not working what was his we wouldn't we wouldn't have written the book we just make c freud what no but no one can handle no one can read freud what well what is so okay well okay so that what was the other what were the seminal texts that you decided were not credible well okay so what freud has right yeah is that that humor comes from potentially dark places uh-huh it comes from uh at least partially from kind of sexual aggressive kinds of behavior uh- behavior and often things that are taboo right to express right so there's a discomfort yeah so there's some so you know a lot of times

good comedy comes from that kind of place and and good comics are good about uh making those unpleasant things safe enough for an audience to delight in. Freud was sort of wrong about the process, and Freud was wrong about, he was too much too limited in terms of the vast array of things that make us laugh, not just those little taboo things that are sexual or aggressive. Well, he needed to fit it into his theory of repression and everything else. He had a lot on his mind. It's actually a noble effort for someone

who didn't have the kind of scientific techniques that we have today. All right, so you're Joel, Joel Warner, Peter McGraw, the authors of The Humor Code, a global search for what makes things funny. What was the intention? Do you guys think you're funny? No, I don't think I'm particularly funny,

but I mean, I don't have to be. I get to write about comedians. What's your background? I'm a writer. I'm a Denver-based writer. A journalist? Yeah, journalist. I was working for the Alt Weekly Westward in Denver three years ago, and I heard about

this professor who had a human research lab at University of Colorado Boulder. That sounds like a really fantastic Alt Weekly story. Head of HURL. HURL. HURL. Short for Human Research Lab. Okay, then he must get a kick out of that. He loves it.

Hey guys, I'm in the room right now. In what department? I'm a psychologist by training and I have appointments in marketing. You're the professor. I am. You're the guy he's talking about. Yeah. Oh, I didn't make that connection.

You're the guy. Yeah, I'm that professor. I have a lab called HURL. Okay, so what department are you in? Marketing and psychology. All right. So you're- I'm like a behavioral economist type.

Right. So your intention to understand the way laughter works in people was to deliver the message. Yeah, to try to crack the humor code, to try to understand what are the underlying processes. So Joel comes along, he writes an article on you. And he, well, he did more than that. He sort of challenged me to leave the laboratory and to go out into the world. Well, yeah, as a writer, I mean,

Pete's kind of going through his research and his theories. And this is like a 5,000-word story for Westward. And I was thinking to myself, I need to get this guy out of the lab. Right, to apply his theory. Yeah, so I said, how about I take you to a stand-up night in Denver and you use your theory to critique the comedians.

So you go to Comedy Works. Well, actually, instead of that, Pete says, how about I get up on stage and try stand-up? Now, did you want to do stand-up? No, I never had really thought about it. I think I was just having a good day. Yeah, yeah. And I thought, oh, I can, you know. It's easy.

So you ask, am I funny? And the answer is, depends on who you compare me to. So if you compare me to other professors, I'm pretty funny. Yeah, you're the guy. You're the cool professor. Exactly. And so, at least most of the time. Right.

And so I decided I was going to go to this open mic. It's at the Squire Lounge. Okay. So you started small. You didn't use your pull to get a spot at the Comedy Works by saying, we're writing an article. Can you help me out? I'm a professor.

I just need five minutes. You went to an open mic night like a guy who doesn't know what he's doing? Well, I actually went to some of my comedian friends in Denver. Yeah. And I said, Adam Caton Holland. Oh, he's a good guy. Yeah. And I said, because he actually used to work at Westward.

And he said, take him to the Squire Lounge because it's known as the toughest open mic night in Denver. It's this dirty hipster bar. Yep. Adam said, if you fail at the Squire, you will be cruelly, cruelly mocked. And what happened? I failed at the Squire. Yeah.

Yeah. How'd that feel? It was a little bit of a wake-up call. You know, I mean, I know now. How? Well, in terms of the complexity of performing. What were you thinking going in? Well, that's the thing.

I think that now, in the benefit of hindsight, it was ludicrous that I thought I could succeed with 24 hours preparation and running some of these ideas past some of my bolder friends. But I did it anyways. But you did think you could succeed. Oh, yeah. I mean, I thought the jokes that I wrote were funny.

So you thought stand-up was easy. I thought that stand-up would be easy for me. At least easy enough to get up on an open mic and tell jokes for three or four minutes. And get some laughs. So you're one of those people. I was. There's plenty like you. I was one of those people. Plenty like you that think like, well, that doesn't

look too hard. That's right. I also was sort of playing nice. Joel was a good guy and he's like wanting to create some excitement around this. I want people talking. Yeah, I want people talking about what makes things funny. And so if I have to subject myself to a little humiliation to do that, I'll do it. But the funny thing is, to me, that you didn't expect that you would.

Well, I was nervous. I mean, I was worried at the time. I was like, I think my jokes are a little too benign for this crowd. Well, but you weren't at first. It was funny. So we walked in. I think I was the more nervous time. I was like, I think my jokes are a little too benign. Well, but you weren't at first. It was funny. So we walked in. I think I was more nervous. Yeah.

And I was just feeling nervous about how I was going to do. Were you introduced? Did they qualify it? They did. Yeah. And then all of a sudden, the first comedians started going on, and they were telling jokes about smoking crack cocaine. And then Pete looks at me and says

i'm worried my jokes might be just said it would be a boring boring set of jokes right but jokes are jokes they should work right didn't you find that out in your research good joke should work no well the best the best jokes should work universally exactly that's very difficult to do that's a tough code to crack indeed so you get off this stage after bombing. Yes. And what's the conversation? You thought about it for a night. I did. And then you sent me an email the next day.

Yeah. And one thing you said is that, you know, to succeed, I'll take the squire. He'd have to make his jokes much more violations, which wouldn't have worked because at that point, I think that was the day. That was the day he submitted his tenure application. It was the next day. So as he said, I mean, if he tried to kind of match these crack cocaine jokes. And the kinds of things that these other folks were doing. Oh, you might get in trouble. Yeah.

I mean, I actually really envy comedians in one sense because they're not only allowed to say nearly anything they want, but they're rewarded for it. And the more outrageous, the better. As a professor, you have to sometimes- Toe the line. Exactly. There's rules. The advantage I have, though, is I get a steady paycheck, right?

That's the benefit. Yeah, well, that is- That's the trade-off. But creativity is limited and personal freedom may be limited. Yeah, I mean, people make those sacrifices in order to get security. Yeah. No, no, I think that's one of the big problems with being a professor. I think that it's all – I refer to it as government work.

Right. and attracts a, what we call prevention focus, someone who's more interested in not failing than in succeeding and having that security. And so it takes a real effort to break out of that mold and to do things that might be unpopular as an academic, like team up with a journalist and travel around the world and write a popular press book. Right, you've got to be tenured to do that. I think that's a good idea.

All right. So you bomb. So I write the story for Westward. That's just revolving around his lab and this one application of testing. So the story came out. Yeah. And then soon after, a literary agent reached out to us and said, could there be a book in this?

And we started thinking about it. And right off the bat, we're thinking, okay, we need to once again kind of expand beyond just Pete doing research in a lab. So how can we kind of inspire this kind of journey around the world? Well, what kind of research were you doing before the journey around the world? I mean, what were your experiments? Oh, so I'm still doing those things. So the first paper I published on this topic was why people laugh at moral violations. So most times when people are exposed to something that they think of as immoral, they get angry, they get disgusted.

But sometimes they laugh. Sometimes they seem to delight. In that nervous, uncomfortable way. Yeah, and that was one of the findings that we had is that funny moral violations often are a mixed emotional experience. So people are experiencing enjoyment, but also some displeasure. Well, they're experiencing the enjoyment of knowing that what they're hearing is not what they're supposed to be hearing. Right? That there's that moment where you're like, well, that's wrong.

And I've never heard anyone say that before. And that's funny in and of itself. And then there's the discomfort of it out being out in the world yeah although it's a slightly more complicated than that because what we find is that that that have that a similar situation that you just described in some cases just get people upset and sometimes makes them laugh so we were using we were using these stories like we're basically using stories about bestiality yeah and making them more or less funny yeah that's one of the things that that's nice to do in a laboratory

you change a set of words in a description of an event and then you measure whether people find it more or less funny so one of the stories involves a young man who is sitting down and jill's already laughing at this he's sitting down and he has a kitten who's sort of playing on his lap and he's in boxers and he becomes aroused by this. And he decides that he, that he was going to, how exactly, what's the word he says that he, he basically uses the kitten as a sex toy in the, in the scenario. Yeah. And at this point point people don't

think this is typically very funny yeah it's a kitten and you add but if you add a qualifier to it that the kitten purrs and seems to enjoy the contact yeah all of a sudden this gets transformed into something that people it's not just a victim it's part of it so now the kitten now both parties are enjoying themselves yeah and that helps make that thing that's wrong in some way okay okay but if you but if you instead have the kitten whines and does not seem to enjoy the contact okay people don't laugh at that and so this is i mean this is something that i now realize about comedy is how sometimes just tiny changes within a joke, a word, an intonation, uh, can, can help facilitate this benign appraisal that we talk about. Okay.

So that, you know, this is just the kind of like, um, assessing, you know, what people laugh at and, uh, you know, why they laugh at it. But did you, were were were you curious about the the sort of neurological or mental or psychological necessity for laughter um so is that out of the out of the the range like do you obviously people need to laugh it provides something yeah so why is it they pursue this experience yeah um so or why does it happen even i mean that's one example the the moral sort of transgression example. Yeah, we've done work on, and we talk about it in the humor code, about when is a joke

too soon? Right. How do you transform tragedy into comedy? Right. And what we've been doing lately is not only looking at when something's too soon, but also when it's too late. So how there's this sort of sweet spot to comedy. Right.

And related to that idea is this notion of coping. So how humor is this emotion regulation system that people have. So it's one way that they deal with the stresses and strains of being human. Right. And to whatever degree, that's where you get gallows humor. That's where you get funny stories in concentration camps or in the face of tragedy. These darker stories can help people find a little relief in the grief. That's right.

And also how you can speak truth to power, right? So if you're oppressed, that you can use comedy to point out what's wrong with your oppressors. As long as you speak as the oppressed. Yes, that's right. You can get away with more because you can say, hey, it was just a joke. So you almost get more leeway. Right, but also the voice of the oppressed, there's a point where it does become threatening to power.

If the voice of the oppressed is rallying, then power says, well, that's very funny. You're going to be shut in this room for a while. And there's a long history of this in, in Nazi Germany, in Russia, during the Stalin era. And,

and so we actually went to Palestine to the long history of what? Of you can get so far. And then eventually the government says, and what happened? No more jokes. Right. What happened in Palestine? So we went to Palestine to like,

look at this very concept. Like, why would you find comedy in these places of trouble and turmoil? How else are you going to get through it? Yeah. And so while we were there, we met with this show called Watan al-Watar, which was Palestine's first political satire show. And actually, it was on a Palestinian state television. These guys made fun of everyone.

Osama bin Laden, President Obama, the Israelis, Palestinian government television. These guys made fun of everyone. Osama bin Laden, President Obama, the Israelis, Palestinian government officials. And so these guys were doing great. And we actually went during Ramadan. And as it turns out, Ramadan is like sweeps because everyone goes home at night, eats a big meal, and they sit in front of the TV. Right.

So they're having a show literally every single night during Ramadan. It was a big deal. Right. Halfway through our stay there, we were there for a week. This show's been on for three years. The government shuts it down.

Huh. And that two days before, they'd run a skit making fun of the Palestinian Attorney General. Yeah. Saying that he keeps getting complaints about Watanawatar.

And then they make fun of him in their skit. Two days later, the Attorney General shuts it down. Oh, really? Because he had that power? Yeah. And he couldn't take a joke?

Yeah, he couldn't take a joke. And that was that? Yeah, I think what happened was... Was there any backlash? Yes, yeah. So while we're hanging out with them, Al Jazeera came by and did a segment on this. And there were polls saying the vast majority of Palestinians were completely against this. And as you can imagine, these guys ended up okay, because this sort of controversy just made them more popular.

So I think now they're on some other- Getting a little bump in the ratings. Yeah, so now they're on some other show. I mean, now they're on some other channel. And they're talented, right? I mean, that's one of the things, too, is that- Yeah, you've got to have a certain skill. That's right. So that was your experience

in Palestine. So, like, your ultimate search during this book, The Humor Code, what were you looking for exactly? What's the secret? What's the secret sauce? Were you looking for some sort of universal thing? Yes. Okay. Yeah. So now where did the... Where were you most surprised? Like, that

Palestine thing, that sounds like it's a pretty traditional political comedy uh situation uh you know where else did you go where you were like holy shit for me one of the more surprising places we went we went to uh denmark and sweden right you think those people got their shit together well we went to look at uh the muhammad cartoon controversy where these dozen political cartoons published in a Danish newspaper in 2005 unleashed a global

controversy. Yeah, they wanted their next. Yeah, so we went and met with some of these cartoonists who now live under 24-7 security. Was it worth it to them? They said it was. Most of them said it was. Do you believe this? Well, I think they have to say that now, right? I mean, how do they

not say it was worth it? Because, I mean, what's done is done. Now, one of the cartoonists we met with was actually pissed off because he actually, so he was one of these 12 cartoonists, but the cartoon he drew wasn't of Muhammad.

It was actually just of this little kid who he called Muhammad making fun of this far-right newspaper for doing this stupid draw pictures of Muhammad. So he got caught up in the controversy and now he's got to be under security too, so he's not happy. Yeah, because I mean in some ways, these cartoons were meant for a local kind of far-right Danish

audience. All of a sudden 2005, the internet, global news, it goes global and all the context of like what these cartoons were, it's completely lost. Yeah, there's a problem with context on the internet. Yes. Yeah. Just a bit.

So what did you find out in terms of your mission there about humor? A big part of this is just to understand how humor can hurt. understand how humor can hurt, right? So even well-intentioned attempts at comedy can set people aside, can make people feel unwelcome, unwanted, can bully people in many ways. And so I think present day, we tend to think of humor as this largely positive thing, but through history, it actually has many more negative connotations. So we were talking about humor theories earlier. So one of the popular humor theories through time is this idea of superiority theory, that we laugh when bad things happen to other people, especially other people we don't like. Schadenfreude.

Schadenfreude. Yes, this idea of, so Hobbes called it that laughter rise from sudden glory. So being victorious over our enemies. Right. And so- And that's a short jump to bullying So being victorious over our enemies. Right. And so. And that's a short jump to bullying. Yes, that's right. And in Scandinavia, we wanted to look at that specific issue

and we used the Mohammed cartoons as the kind of backdrop. Really? Because that would seem to me an ideological issue. That like, I guess it hurt people, but ultimately I would imagine that there's got to be some muslims that said like yeah come on take it easy fellas i mean this was a leadership reaction wasn't it well so it ended up turning into a political tool right so in the middle east so um there's a small um muslim population in denmark and uh they're largely

segregated and there's a there's actually a good deal of discrimination there. And this certainly was used as a tool to sort of set these people apart. And they reacted actually quite well. They protested this, but in a way that was peaceful. Right. It wasn't until this was started to be used by a tool in Syria and elsewhere. It took like five or six months. And it was helpful that it was a country like Denmark,

which is, as one of the Danish reporters said to us, it's kind of like picking on the smallest kid in the playground. I mean, you know, it's easy to protest Denmark, you know, if you're Syria. So it helped. Yeah, but I mean, no one ends up looking good in this situation, right? So, you know, many of the cartoonists seem to act without conscience. Well, a lot of times guys who do that just want to push buttons. thriller right we're trying to find out who's responsible for this who's the good guy who's the bad guy and in many ways most people appear to be the bad guy um in ways that it would never would never have happened years ago in the sense that this would have only gone so far it would have been a short protest and then would have yeah the next day newspaper who have been off the stands

next issue i mean but right thanks thanks to the internet this this stuff sticks around and spreads forever yeah well i mean just as a comic myself and just as somebody who has grown up uh you know using humor as as a weapon a tool uh a career you know in all different ways i mean i know that that that if you are defensive you can be preemptively disarming with comedy. You can also sort of cross, you know, boundaries with comedy through diplomacy and sort of get acceptance from people that you may or may not have been able to get acceptance from. I mean, you can also hurt people. You can also relieve pain. I mean, there's a lot of things that happen. And I guess in something like this, when he starts separating what the negative and positive

elements of humor are, does it all end up... It seems to me that was this a justified exercise in comedy when you look at it that way? I mean, who am I to say? I think that what we want to do is take these case studies and use

them as a platform to understand these broader issues. So we could have picked some other controversy. So it seems like that- We could have picked another place. Right. Palestine and- Scandinavia. Scandinavia were similar. Well-

Yeah. I mean, in some ways, so when we planned out the book, we said, okay, there are certain kind of big questions that we want ask about humor you know um you know how can humor fail which is how we how we chose denmark we wanted to look at um but also but you're not talking about stand-up necessarily because you know humor yeah so yeah one of one of our first decisions was we didn't want the book just to be on stand-up because in some ways there's so much out there of course already But did it fail in the sense of did it not show the world how a type of violent and also quite frightening reaction on behalf of a political structure and a religious structure to actually threaten the lives of someone? Isn't it nice to know that that exists, that there is this type of intolerance? And then what do you do with that? So, I mean, can it be seen as a total failure just because, you know, this reaction?

I mean, that reaction also shows a lot about the oppressor, doesn't it? Indeed. Well, the idea is this, that at its heart, and as someone who does comedy, your first question is, am I funny or not? Have I made people laugh or not? And in that way, the cartoons did seem to fail and that they weren't particularly funny to anyone. But satire sometimes is not. I would argue that the best satire not only speaks truth to power, but also amuses and

entertains people along the way. Sometimes there's some pretty crass satire. Yeah. I mean, if you look at when Krasner wrote that piece, you know, in the back of the plane that was carrying JFK's body, you know, having sex with the neck wound. Is that hilarious? I mean, you know, that is, you know, above and beyond, you know, fucking a kitten. a kitten and but it it did certainly say something about the personality of lbj and about the possibility of of of how dark and horrible politics can get but i i would i would argue that it was not a laugh out loud bit of business yeah and that uh and but i would say that all things being equal the best satire is funny in addition to pointing out in a a way of not necessarily laughing, but definitely being cutting.

Being entertaining, creating some insight. And this is one of the challenges of trying to understand what's humorous is the difference between the ha-ha response and the ah-ha response. Right. The best comedy combines those two. Uh-huh.

Yeah, kind of mind-blowing and funny. It changes the way you see the world the way you think about things and you're being entertained in the process right now here's my question for you as a comic if you had to choose between those two which do you choose and do you think that your peers would would agree with your choice i think aha is always a little more um rewarding because i i think that that that more so than than haha uh you know haha can be you know very surface but do you get booked in the clubs and do you get specials and well i mean those are the kinds of things that i think that no i i think that you can you know obviously you do them both but to actually look at something differently and change

the way people think about something is in that, you know, can happen with both. But obviously those both components should be working. And a lot of times, you know, comedy is not about that at all. It's about revealing yourself. For me, anyways, it's about it's about being, you know, revealing. So, you know, the sort of discomfort of of genuine interaction for me is a place I like to go with my comedy that, you know, if you can, you know, share parts of yourself, you know, as a sort of means to, to sort of maybe make other people more comfortable. I think that is an aha thing, but I, you know, certainly I have a tremendous amount of respect for a good role, but I mean, but to have somebody walk out of a show and think, you know, I never thought of that that way before is more rewarding than, you know, that guy's hilarious. You want both, but to blow

minds is, is the way to go. And so you, you take this approach where you, you aim it at yourself. Sometimes. Yeah. A lot now. Yeah. And, um, in that way, that's, I don't say this in a pejorative way, but that's sort of safe in the sense that you let people in by pointing out what's wrong with you versus pointing out what's wrong with them. I don't know if I would call it safe because the thing is that when I look at the schematic or the Venn diagram that you guys have for, what is it called? The benign violation. The benign violation is that sometimes the benign violation in the center of this diagram

between benign and violation is the actual individual and what that person risks okay do you know I'm saying so like you know is it safer to point it at me no because you know I'm putting my heart on the line so you know as a performer you know outside of the humor itself you know I'm taking emotional risks right you know is that safe for me no but that's what I do so that that world it is not inherently safe because you don't know how you're going to be received if you really show yourself. So for me, and I don't do it like everybody else necessarily, you should have some distance,

but I've gone up there with no distance whatsoever from the pain I'm dealing with that I'm trying to make into funny. I mean, the title of my last CD was This Has to Be Funny. And that was actually a punchline to something that was fairly dark. And so I think that the one thing that I resonated with in looking at this diagram was that the risk is in standup can come down to the personality itself. So no, I think that what you risk is by taking the brunt is that you're going to martyr yourself for this joke.

Right. So on an individual level, I think it's very high risk. You know, anyone can say something shocking. And the only risk there is that it doesn't get a laugh. But if somebody doesn't, you know, you know, when I open myself up, if they don't want in. Right. Then the risk is, you know, being shut out and being isolated.

Yes. Right. And that and that was one of the things that kept coming up over and over again on our travels is the two ways that a humor attempt can fail. So you can have not enough of a violation and you bore people like I did at the Squire or you create a situation that's not benign at all. It's just a violation and then you upset people. I've done both those things.

Yeah. And I... Every day. Yeah. Since we started this podcast. Sure. Well, I mean, it's pretty subjective. I mean, that's the other thing you're up against.

I mean, you're trying to find some objective truth in something that is incredibly subjective, both on an individual level and a cultural level. Which is why we went to Japan. And what happened there. So we decided to look at the question of why do you find humor so subjective?

We decided to go to the place that we found the humor to be the most foreign from what we're used to. So we went to Japan. Not China? I think we talked about China. Well, the issue is

that you don't have those cultural references. So if you ask the average American, what's comedy like in China? They'll say, I don't know. But folks kept coming up to us when they first heard about us going and doing the book.

They said, can you please explain Japanese comedy to us? And those are people that had seen Japanese comedy or they challenged you? It seemed like the YouTube Japanese game shows and whatnot. And I said, can you guys explain this? It's all very excited, right? It is.

So we went to Japan and we met with our representatives of Yoshimoto which is the giant Japanese comedy company that runs all of Japanese comedy

it's like comedy all of Japanese comedy but it's not a state office is it no it's a giant corporation basically I think 80% of Japanese comedians are managed by Yoshimoto almost all Japanese comedians are managed by Yoshimoto.

Almost all the comedy theaters are run by Yoshimoto. Most of the game shows where all the contestants actually are these comedians because the producers think that the average Japanese person doesn't show enough turmoil in their face and their gestures for these shows. Most of these shows are produced by Yoshimoto. Sounds like professional wrestling.

Yes. It's like the studio system in Hollywood in the 50s. And similarly to wrestling, if you want to be a comedian in Japan, you have to go to one of Yoshimoto's training schools. Right. Where you have to go through and learn these very specific gestures, these very specific joke structures. Uh-huh.

And now, what was your experience with that? I mean, did you find that to be sort of a monopoly almost on the level of comedic totalitarianism women, as you can imagine, in this system. And so, and this system has been around since the 1920s, and it's based off vaudeville. Uh-huh. Basically. American vaudeville. Yeah. He looked at American vaudeville, looked at the two-man comedy structure, the straight

man and then the bumbling sidekick, and they borrowed that, and they've stuck with that ever since then. Wow. So, there's not a real alt comedy scene in japan no that's what i'm gathering yes and and so one of the things that's really striking about japan for us i thought was they have this it's very popular comedy scene people it's a big part of their entertainment television theater and so on but the average japanese person doesn't appear very funny right that. That is that you don't find people laughing on the subway.

There's very little humor within the classroom or in businesses. And so you get this perspective at first when you land in Tokyo or Osaka that the Japanese aren't funny at all. But it's just that there's a layer of cultural rules that we don't have to abide by as Americans, which is you're supposed to hide your emotions, even positive emotions. That's a cultural thing. That's a cultural thing. But if you go out to a karaoke bar with a group of Japanese folks and you have a few sake bombs.

It's okay. You can have a great time and they're really funny people and they really value this. I would think that having that type of cultural expectation, the relief would have to be pretty large. They go out big. Yeah. Yeah, really big. But at the same time, I mean, we have our own limitations around comedy here. Sure.

There are certain kind of topics that we just don't joke about. Most people don't joke about, like the bestiality stuff. It's not that common. While in Japan, the limitations are geographical. You know, you don't joke at school. You don't joke in the office. But in the places that you do joke, like at these comedy theaters, basically anything goes. Right, but anything in what way?

I would imagine that there has to be a context. I mean, what you're describing to me is that this is a sort of vaudevillian slapstick system that is designed to relieve intentional cultural limitations that are based on etiquette, politeness, and the need to behave a certain way culturally. But I mean, are they doing rape jokes? I mean, are they pushing any buttons other than, look, we're dead, blow some steam off? From what we saw, I mean, some of their jokes can get really topical. I mean, they also have routines and they, you know, they kind of make fun of kind of cultural taboos and stuff. The one thing that we're told that you don't see much of in japanese comedy is political jokes

it's political humor and one it's because the emperor is still considered very sacred and also there's just not much diversity in japanese politics to really kind of create the friction that we see in terms of humor here so what did you uh what did you come away with uh from japan well this idea i think that although comedy is really different, so it still feels kind of foreign to us to watch these shows and so on, even though we understand that they're comedians and they have this sort of place in society

as an entertainment form, is that the stuff that people joke about behind the scenes, we actually have a lot more in common than we had thought. We actually spent some time in a green room with all these comedians. After watching one of these Japanese game shows taped for about three or four hours,

we had no idea what was going on. They were dipping their faces in this hot boiling soup. We didn't get it. Then we went backstage, hung out in the green room. Our translator wandered off. We couldn't speak the same language. What was in two or three minutes, we were making penis jokes with each other. Right.

So. So that's a universal language. At least among men. The dick joke. Yes. Of course. So, but that seems primitive. I mean, how far back did you go?

Did you visit primitive cultures? Oh, well, so the research on this, actually, you should go even farther back in the sense that if you want to try to understand humor, you have to look for it in other mammals. So in non-human primates and chimps, monkeys, bonobos, etc. So the farthest back we went, in a sense, at least from an evolutionary standpoint, is we looked at rat laughter. Can rats laugh? And under what conditions do they laugh? That's non-primate, so that's going to be very simple. That's mammal. Yeah, that's right. But if you can find, I mean, this is a critical element,

if you can find the same conditions that makes a rat feel positive emotion and quote unquote laugh as the same set of conditions that exist in an ape and exist in humans, now you've taken a big step to cracking the humor code. Okay. So what'd you find out with the rats? So we went to this, uh, this lab at Northwestern university, uh, who, um, they've been looking at this, this issue for a long time cause they're trying to identify a positive emotion in rats cause they want to actually, actually uh use these rats to create basically

happiness pills so um so it's like the first step in a long yeah it sounds tricky yes yeah okay they're gonna crack the soma code we're heading for huxley exactly and so the idea is that they they tickle these rats so they sort of roughhouse with these with these rats and and although you can't hear it with your ears you can pick up it up with this equipment, these ultrasonic chirps. That when you're sort of roughhousing and tickling these rats, they make this chirping sound. And as we like to say is these are situations that are wrong yet okay. These are benign violations to rats. And it's physical.

And the most primitive form of comedy is physical think about slapstick it's not unlike that right so you're threatening someone you're hurting someone but you're not really hurting someone in the same way that tickling a rat like playing with a puppy exactly right so what do you learn there that that rats do laugh that well so so they're reluctant to call it laughter, but it's a signal. Laughter is a signal, if you think about it. What I believe is it tells you, if I'm laughing, it tells you that what seems to be wrong is okay. But you're saying that all humor is a violation.

That is okay. That's benign. A benign violation. All humor. I do believe that. All right. So where else did you go? So to look at this concept of laughter, because we recognize that it wasn't the same thing as humor, we went to Tanzania.

Because we had read accounts of this 1962 laughter epidemic where more than a thousand folks started laughing uncontrollably right and it spread from person to person and village to village and it lasted for months and we you know that to us seemed just a just a good context to then look at what is laughter okay what'd you find out we found out as most people might expect i mean it wasn't like there was some really funny joke going on in tanzania in 1962 yeah now this really did happen they they actually have accounts we actually met with some of the people who are part of this yeah yeah and what most people believe happened was it was an episode of mass motor hysteria things were happening at the time these people reacted it was mostly episode of mass motor hysteria. Things were happening at the time.

These people reacted. It was mostly young school girls, which is actually where we see most of this mass hysteria. A lot of these girls had left their villages and were in these strict Catholic boarding schools, and all of a sudden they kind of felt a need to release this stuff, to kind of express themselves. this stuff to kind of to kind of express themselves and laughter was one of the uh the effects that that they saw and some people said well then you know why is this part of the humor code because

it wasn't about humor but then if you think about what well laughter just is its most basic concept it's just it's just a social signal right it's just really basic way yeah it's well it's a basic way that we can we can kind of signal something is okay right or or or or something is at least uh a shared experience yeah i mean one of the problems with laughter is you have some control over it so i could be polite and laugh at your jokes, even though I'm not amused by them. Yeah. I might laugh at your joke from a contagion standpoint because Joel's laughing at it. And then some of it is that because laughter helps smooth social interactions, it's been co-opted by language more generally where people will punctuate a sentence with a laugh outside of their awareness

and seemingly in a way that's not expressing true amusement. Nervous laughter. It could be that or it could just be that. Or morning radio laughter. It's just a way to kind of help smooth this, help you accept what I just said. Sure, I'll give you an example of morning radio laughter. You just told me that. Yeah,'s right yeah so that's a so and and of course people in morning radio oh watch it now watch it oh yeah okay or can laughter having a studio audience i mean what one of the things that we want to do with this this book was to to basically use these places as a way to make the science go down a little easier

right so to explore these sort of perplexing uh phenomenon and to to pick provocative things and also who doesn't want to go to tanzania um and just to see it to to see this part of the world yeah you know i mean in many ways that's a part of the world. Yeah. You know, I mean, in many ways, that's a part of the world where humanity originated, where you could argue that our ancestors created comedy. Sure. Now, what about the idea that laughter is healthy? Yeah. So that was one of our big questions was, you know, is laughter really the best medicine? So for that, we decided to go to the Amazon

with Patch Adams and 100 Hospital Clowns. Really? Yeah, because, I mean, once again, it seemed like a fantastic scene. So we actually flew in a... The Amazon is where a lot of interesting chemical things come from, too, as well. I mean, like, you know, plant...

Oh, that's interesting. Drugs and so on. Yeah, we actually flew to the city called Iquitos, which actually was part of, like, the rubber boom. So it's actually flew to the city called Iquitos, which actually was part of like the rubber boom. So it's actually this, it's this massive city and there are no roads to it

because it's literally in the middle of the jungle. We actually flew in a Peruvian Air Force cargo plane, like strapped into the cargo plane surrounded by 100 clowns. And it was a trip actually, I think both of us

were actually dreading. It was one of our last trips and we just couldn't imagine. Sounds like a big ordeal. Yeah. I mean, like literally we're going to be in the jungle with clowns for two weeks. Yeah. It's hard to be anywhere with a clown.

Yes. For a half hour even. Well, that's actually not true. I mean, so I had that, I was like, oh my God, this is going to be terrible. Yeah. But it was, it ends up being one of our most enjoyable trips because these are not the stereotypical clowns that people are scared of and find horrifying. But these are young, energetic people. A lot of them work in hospitals.

And they were just fun and funny and generous in ways that most people are not. And even though we were in this hot, sweaty place and we were faced with extreme poverty, like the saddest of situations in the slum that we were working in, we found ourselves having a really good time. And in many ways, supporting the idea that not laughter is the best medicine, but laughter is medicine. The science behind laughter is a good medicine just isn't there yet. I mean, the folks who've done the studies that said, you know, can laughter humor do all these things that Norman Cousins promised or whatnot? The science just hasn't really backed that up yet.

There's good reason to believe it. It's just it hasn't been studied deeply enough. You'd have to go one step further with the rats, I guess. But the one place that the research does seem to back this up is as humorous coping, as we've talked about. Humor really does seem to have both physical and psychological coping mechanisms. And so it fit really well with us being in this horrible place

and having to quote-unquote cope with it. But the fact that we're surrounded by clowns all the time, these really positive, kind of encouraging clowns, we actually had to clown ourselves. That's what they said. You guys can come with patch atoms, but you have to clown yourselves. And I think that really helped us. Yeah, so if you think about it from a theoretical standpoint, you get these benefits.

So one is humor is this positive emotional experience, and there's a good deal of evidence that positive emotions help buffer us from stresses and strains in life. Another thing is that if you have a good sense of humor, it helps rally support. So when you're in times of trouble, people won't abandon you if you're funny in the sense that they want to be around you. You're not a downer. You're not bumming them out all the time. You're not a downer. You're not bumming them out all the time. And then the last one, which I think is the most important one, and I think it's related to what you were saying earlier, is that the act of creating comedy from pain can fundamentally change the way you think about your pain.

Right. And so it can rob stress of its teeth. So it not only changes you emotionally emotionally but it changes you cognitively and so satire can do that it can make an oppressor seem less scary and it can make your problem seem more trivial right if done well done successfully it can also reveal certain truths just by by almost subtracting the bullshit like the the idea of like you know i guess satire would be the the example of that that the whole movement of modern satire was to to sort of um suss out hypocrisy and and reveal you know what's at the the core of it i mean i think you know if you look at you know lenny bruce or george carlin and even even bob d in some ways, that to sort of humanize the entire undertaking of maintaining power

sort of takes some teeth away in that way. I'm sort of hung up on the idea that all comedy is a... Oh, I know you. I want you to be. All humor is a benign violation. Yes. I mean, I understand that because that can be physical boundaries, emotional boundaries. L violations, nationalized boundaries, government boundaries like that. It's it's a it's it's sort of it's why comedy is everywhere because there's things that are wrong with everything that we do because we're human. that it's a it's a violation you have to be violating something and that can be as simple as as as finding a a door in that you know that you're either you're going to kick the door down

or you're going to unlock something uh but you know i don't know why it all has to be a a violation so so my best argument for this is that if you if you treat this as a psychological experience akin to other provocative emotional ones things things like embarrassment, anger, regret, pride, and so on. Each one of those you can boil down to a small set of conditions. And they all fit within an evolutionary framework and they all fit within a psychological framework. But the interesting thing is that humor can appropriate all of those things you just said. Yes, that's right. thing is is that humor can appropriate all of those things you just said yes that's right and i think that's that's okay because um what i'm just looking for are this small set of conditions

and i don't in many ways i i am intentionally provocative when i say this um can a benign violation account um and and joel will quickly agree with this. Can it explain 100% of instances of amusement? No, but it'll do better than the next best theory. Yeah. And it'll create new predictions that other theories can't. So we talked about this idea of tragedy, that some jokes are too soon. But for instance, a benign violation account

can explain when a joke's too soon and when it's not. It can explain this sort of sweet spot in comedy between being boring and being offensive. And it can also explain why jokes are sort of too late. Because with the passage of time, those violations just become not threatening at all. Yeah, old reference. Exactly. And so in that way, it's the best of what we got. So now, now that you've written this book and now that you've done all this research, I mean,

what was your, what was your ultimate agenda as a scientist? Uh, well, so a big part of this is just to make this part of the, the, the public discourse. So humor is such an important part of our lives. In academia, it's sort of been pushed aside. It's sort of the redheaded stepchild. I mean, I've had people describe to me that my research program is a career killer because I'm sort of studying something that is sort of seen as trivial within the science community at times. So for me, what I want to do is do very good science, but then also, you know, working with Joel helped get this message out in ways that ends up, you can have these kinds of conversations that we're having today. Well, what exactly is your background as a scientist?

I'm a research psychologist. Oh, okay. So I'm a research psychologist. Oh, okay. So I'm an experimentalist, basically. Okay. I do research on emotion and decision making. What are your hopes for this idea? The next step is to go back to the laboratory and see not only can we take this idea, how far can we take it? So the next big thing is going to be, can you use a benign

violation account? Can you use science to make people funnier? That's where we're headed in the same way that the positive psychology folks are trying to understand curiosity or gratitude. And then once you have those insights, can you prescribe those to make people's life better? Did you try? We're not there yet. Oh, I tried to be funnier in the book. Yes. Yeah.

So at the end of the book, so the first chapter of the book, you know, describing his attempt at the Squire Lounge and embalming his first time in stand-up. Yeah. The last chapter is his second time doing stand-up, which is at the Just for Laughs Comedy Festival. That's when I saw you. So when you saw us, I think we were kind of collecting notes, trying to see what it was like. As you know, it's quite the scene. And then we went back a year later after we did all the travel.

He tried again. And how'd that go? It went better than The Squire. Why? Which isn't saying much. Was it applied science, or was it just that you learn more about stand-up? Yeah, it's a little bit of art and a little bit of science so so what part of it was just we had all these great stories to mine right so one of the best ways to um to be a good comedian is to to have a perspective that

the audience doesn't have to talk about things that the audience uh will find new novel and so and so we had lots of you know yeah calamities along the way that you could talk about and some of his I just had understood we understood a lot more about what goes into being funny on a stage with a microphone where'd you learn that hanging out with guys like you hanging out in the green room in the back of comedy clubs you know spending time with what was the difference between like what did you went to New York? Went to New York. We looked at, actually, the New Yorker cartoon,

the New Yorker's cartoons there. Yeah, how'd that go? Well, Joel was in heaven. Yeah, I mean, this was the New Yorker, which for me as a writer is like the Valhalla. Right. So I walked in there really, really nervous. Yeah, and what were you trying to find out there?

Bob's actually a student of humor. He actually started a PhD and he's published papers and so on. And so he really challenged us on these different ideas. And he pointed out rightfully that the funniest cartoons don't make it into the New Yorker.

That he's often looking for the aha kind of cartoon. And so for instance, a benign violation approach doesn't do a good job with aha. It does a much better job with haha. And so the idea I think is that the insight, that we gain pleasure from insights, this sort of moment of inspiration of putting two things together that we didn't expect. And that may accompany a laugh. That may be part of comedy, but it doesn't need to be.

So solving a puzzle can give you that moment of insight and the pleasure associated with solving that puzzle. And in some ways, what you find is this difference that good New Yorker cartoons have both, but most New Yorker cartoons is more interested in that pleasant insight where someone learns something or recognizes something that the cartoonist brought them to in a way that was sort of mildly surprising. Yeah, but why can't, like it seems that the idea of violation here would encompass surprising.

Yeah, no, of course. So many, many things that are benign violations are surprising. But even solving a puzzle, you violated the puzzle. Yeah, but it's not really, you're not in a threatening situation. Oh, so it has to be threatening. There's something amiss or something threatening. Like if you solve the puzzle, you would blow up. Well, if, like, for instance, the solution to the puzzle,

something taboo, perhaps, that you could create some laughter. We talked with Louis C.K. in Denver. Uh-huh. He wasn't super fond of the benign violation theory. Yeah. Are you surprised to hear that? Yeah, because I think that the word violation is a problem. Yeah, so, I mean, we're very careful to define it.

What did he say? So, basically, this was at the Paramount Theater in Denver. I assume Louis had been on the road at this point for three weeks. It was like a Sunday night. He's eating a ham sandwich by himself. Yeah. Getting ready for the show. And in walks this guy, Pete.

He's wearing the same sweater vest he's wearing now. Yeah. And he starts going into his theory. He starts going on. And maybe like a minute in, Louis says, well, I just don't think it's that simple. Yeah. And as soon as you say something like that, I mean, it kind of cuts off the conversation. So then I'll let Pete.

So you didn't have time to explain yourself and you violated Louis' space. Yeah. Well, actually, Pete continued to violate Louis' space because actually this was the point when I realized I could probably write a book about this guy because what he did next show that, you know, it wasn't just him and kind of spouting about science. Before we met backstage with Louis, we've been hanging out in the lobby of the Paramount and Pete started telling people like,

look, we're going to go backstage to meet Louis C.K. Like, what should we ask him? And this one drunk woman says, well, you should ask him his penis size. Yeah. So fast forward, we're backstage. Pete's theory has been shot down. All of a sudden, Pete goes,

so before this, I was talking to people about what I should ask you. And I'm thinking in my head, he's not going to say what he's going to say. And then he says, one woman wants to know your penis size. Yeah. And Louis kind of smiles.

Not really. Yeah. And says, well, I'm not going to answer that. And then I said, well, I wouldn't answer it either. But if you won't, it means it's small. Uh-huh. And that didn't get a positive response. He's a tough audience.

Yeah. And I think, you know, what I realized once we went to la i realized um what bad taste that kind of behavior is with regard to comics because as a comedian i think people are always trying to prove themselves as funny around you and that sort of fits that stereotype it's tough to violate a comedian well i mean it should be it should be hard to it should be hard to offend comedians. But you often try to converse with comedians using jokes. One of the things that was really fascinating about studying this topic, and especially hanging out with comedians here in LA, is we started to be transformed in a sense.

So we would sit in the back of the club with these comedians, and someone would be up on stage killing, and the audience would be roaring with laughter. And we had this sort of detached perspective where we were like, oh, that's very funny. And I think it's a little bit of a curse of this profession is that you can recognize that that is humorous. So cognitively, you know, it's the case. you can recognize that that is humorous. So cognitively, you know it's the case. But because you're not caught up in the moment,

you don't end up having that kind of emotional reaction. Well, I think all of us have different tastes. I think that the weird thing about stand-up is that using the benign violation is that that is essentially, whether or not the theory holds up in the minutiae of how humor works, but a benign violation that is extended over the course of an hour is really the relationship you have with an audience

in a way that you have to warm them up, you have to sort of lube them up somehow, you have to gain trust, and they know that they're lube them up somehow. You have to gain trust. And they know that they're going to be shocked. They know that they're going to be surprised. They know they have to sort of let you in. So I think that dynamic of being let in by an audience, knowing that there's a safety to it because of the context,

but you're kind of a crazy guy or a dirty guy or whatever the hell your guy is. I do think that the benign violation is sort of an apt metaphor for a relationship with an audience. But I've seen that violation get pretty gnarly. I mean, the weird thing is that just as a metaphor functioning for a stand-up relationship with an audience,

I mean, I've seen that go horribly wrong where benign violation, the problem with using the word violation is that it does not necessarily connote pleasure. The idea that you're going to volunteer for a benign violation, it's a tricky word. I understand, but I don't have a better word at this point for it. We kicked around benign threats. We kicked around a lot of different ideas here, but it's actually not as, uh, it's actually not as, um, much of a problem as you think. Cause if you start to look at human behavior more generally, you can start to find a whole class of behaviors in which people pursue

unpleasantness. Um, so if you think about like eating spicy foods, or if you think about things like, uh, people who are into bondage. These are extreme sports. Extreme sports. Right, but, you know. They're putting themselves in unpleasant situations that in some way they find a way to transform into a pleasurable and it may be. It's a challenge.

Yes, that's right. Initially. And, you know, in terms of sexuality, I mean, then you're, I mean, you're being awfully general. And, you know, as a research psychologist, you know you'd have to go deeper to find the roots of that but yeah i could see how you you court that no well i mean i think the idea of this is that that um people's comfort and pursuit of comedy and its risks start to make a lot more sense when you when you look at how they pursue pleasure in negative situations.

They go and watch horror movies, for instance. They watch sad movies. Getting out of your comfort zone or putting yourself in a position where you will be challenged on some level to overcome, I think is part of the human drive. I know that just getting on stage is going to be risky and that like, you know, I don't always know what's going to happen, but I know that if I get through it and something surprising happens and, you know,

then I grew somehow. Right. Right. Yeah. Isn't that part of growth? Yeah. That's part. I mean, certainly that's the, and you see this within art. I mean, that to me is the part of comedy that's more like the process of creating art. So making a song, creating a painting, composing, you know, classical music is a process by which you entertain people. But the person who's made this thing is transformed by it. Joel and I have been transformed by this. It's funny. I mean, at the beginning of the book, in some ways, we had to come up with some kind of conceit for me.

Like, why am I going on this journey other than the fact that, hey, I got a book deal. I can go travel around the world. Right. And so the beginning of the conceit was, oh, you know, I had to get from beyond my reporter's notebook, which is in some ways kind of a bland conceit. But the nice thing was literally we did kind of find that. As Pete said, one of our last trips

to the Amazon, for me especially, that was really just a powerful experience. I mean, in some ways, you know, I had to strap on a clown nose and kind of put down the notebook, kind of get out there, you know, in many ways more than I had the rest of these trips. You know, and, you know, I'm a dad, so I used my little, my dad training out there, you know, in many ways more than I had the rest of these trips, you know, and, you know, I'm a dad, so I use my little, my, my dad training out there. And then in the final chapter, right after kind of Just for Laughs, a friend of mine said to me, you know, I think you've gotten funnier. And he really said it. And that really struck me because I really hadn't been thinking about, you know, my place in all of this.

And as I say in the book, you know, maybe it's in part because of the benign violation theory. Maybe I've learned to look for these violations and make them benign. But at the same time, I think, you know, as Pete said, all of a sudden I have that much more comedy material. I mean, I travel, I think we traveled 91,000 miles around the world to all these round trips back and forth. We'd done all these things and so all of a sudden I had all these new stories.

Sure. And at the same time, one thing I was just thinking about, for the longest time I refused to go on roller coasters. I think since I was like first grade, I had a bad experience

on like Thunder Mountain. I refused to go on it. Yeah. Then a few weeks after we finished the book, I went to amusement park with friends and I just jumped right on the roller coaster. And I think it's like you said, it kind of forces you out there. All of a sudden, you know, it forced me to put myself out there that I hadn't before. I mean, like right now I'm on your podcast.

This is stuff that wouldn't have happened if I didn't go exploring these concepts. And Joel actually has helped me with that with the book because the book's written from his perspective. So I'm a character in the book. And it took some – how do you say this? How do you say this? I had to stop myself from censoring him from saying things about me that were bad or even talking about some sad things. So my mother dies while we're writing the book. And he wrote about that experience and how I dealt with it and what my sister and I did in terms of scattering her ashes. And, and, you know, it's, these are things I'm not necessarily proud about my childhood and so on, but that, that idea, uh, he, he made that happen because that wasn't, if I was writing the book alone, I might've decided to set that aside. That sounds like where we should have started. I figured that would be the case. That's why I'm ending on it.

It's good talking to you guys. Good luck with the book. Thank you. All right. Well, you know, do with that information what you will. Check out the book. It's interesting. It seems it could be practical for people that may want to regulate or develop the sense of humor that they may or may

not have or just uh here's some interesting stories about the journeys around the world with the funny funny oh my god listen folks there was i had a thought I'll just share this with you the other day I was on a Southwest flight and they made an announcement that there would be no peanuts on the flight I didn't even want peanuts but this is to add a respect

for the health of people with peanut allergies which can be pretty nasty not something you want to deal with on a plane or anywhere for that matter but when they said that i the part of my brain was like are you fucking kidding me no peanuts that we that's the only thing we get on these flights no p i don't like pretzels what kind of bullshit? No peanuts. Is that a real person that complains like that? That's a deeper issue. That's why I didn't honor it.

When it came up in my head, I just said, who's that guy? That guy is out of his fucking mind. I said that to the guy in my head. Okay. Rest in peace, Rich Sisler. Boomer lives!

You can get anything you need with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get an ice r need with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get an ice rink on Uber Eats. But iced tea and ice cream? Yes, we can deliver that. Uber Eats. Get almost, almost anything. Order now.

Product availability may vary by region. See app for details. It's a night for the whole family. Be a part of Kids Night when the Toronto Rock take on the Colorado Mammoth at a special 5pm start time on Saturday, March 9th at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton. The first 5,000 fans in attendance will get a

Dan Dawson bobblehead courtesy of Backley Construction. Punch your ticket to Kids Night on Saturday, March 9th at 5pm in Rock City at torontorock.com.