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In my research on humor theory I was unable to find a definition of humor that worked for me. But the research did help me fine-tune a theory that I have been developing over twenty years, a theory of humor that meets my needs.
The definition I have come up with is "Humor is surprise without threat or promise."
To develop this definition I first analyzed all of the types of humor I could think of, trying to discover anything they had in common. And I did, like several humor theorists, find that all humor has in it an element of surprise. I began there.
To be surprised, you must have an expectation of how the world works. When something happens contrary to that expectation, you are surprised.
What surprises you depends on your experience and knowledge. Since everyone has different experience and knowledge, everyone has a different expectation of how the world works. Therefore what surprises you might not surprise someone else. Your expectation of the world might not include an event that another's expectation might include.
Everyone's expectations of how the world works includes fields of ignorance, where your expectation is that anything can happen because you don't know the field well enough to know what can happen. Most people will not be surprised when a nuclear physicist makes a scientific error because they don't know enough about nuclear physics to know that it is an error. Most babies are blissfully ignorant of the "surprises" going on around them because their understanding of the world includes mostly fields of ignorance.
So if one person is not surprised by an event that surprises another, it might be 1) because their expectation of the working of the world includes that event, or 2) the event might be in the person's field of ignorance. (Although 2 is actually a subset of 1, because in a field of ignorance, you expect anything, and therefore are not surprised when anything happens.) What if the physicist, however, in discussing a theory of physics, starts talking about how dancing ducks determine the movement of the planets? Then we might be surprised, because though the physicist is working in our field of ignorance, by bringing in dancing ducks, he has overlaid other fields that we do have understandings of, and therefore can be surprised in.
Another problem with humor and surprise comes when everything is surprising. When everything is surprising, eventually the expectation is for surprise, and therefore, ironically, the surprise is no longer surprising. This might be why wacky, intense humor works best in short spurts and is harder to pull off in longer works. Wacky picture books are common. Wacky novels are rare. Saturday Night Live sketches work well for a few minutes, but have a much harder time carrying over into a full-length movie. Jim Carrey was hilarious in his short "In Living Color" sketches. But when he tried to carry his mugging and facial contortions through an entire full-length movie, they became tedious and it wasn't until he began doing character-driven movies, where the trademark Carrey insanity was only occasional and not constant, that he began to be more successful.
Once I'd determined what all humor had in common, however, I began looking for exceptions, situations where there was surprise, but no humor. I found many. I studied these situations to see if they had anything in common, and they did. One thing that many non-humorous surprises had in common was a sense of threat.
If I'm walking down a dark street and a mugger jumps me, I am surprised, but I won't find the situation funny. Along with the surprise there must be a lack of threat. Several humor theorists have suggested this also. A common theme in some humor theories is the idea that the surprise must be in the context of "play". I believe they were getting close. Not all humor has to be in the context of play. When Bill Clinton, in his 2000 inaugural address, uses the word "liberal" when he meant "literal", there was no sense of play, yet it was surprising and funny. When you are playing, however, you are free from a sense of threat.
Humor is Surprise Without Threat. Surprise With Threat is not humor.
Bombs falling out of the air are a surprise, but they are not funny. Pizzas falling out of the air would also be a surprise, but they might be funny, unless they fall on you (in which case it still might be funny to a viewer, unless they were concerned about your well-being), or in case they're falling on something that you will then be required to clean up.
Ethnic jokes can be funny if told by a teller of the ethnicity. Eddie Murphy can tell black jokes. Leo Rosten could tell Jewish jokes. Paul Rodriguez can tell hispanic jokes. (It's the same with ethnic epithets, but that's a whole 'nother issue.) Our society has grown more conscious, however, of other cultures, and there is less and less tolerance for a person of one ethnicity telling jokes about a person of another ethnicity because a person of the ethnicity of the joke will feel an implied threat. Even if the listener is not of the ethnicity, the listener might value members of the joke's ethnicity and feel a sympathetic implied threat, thereby not finding the joke funny. If the listener not of the joke's ethnicity is listening to an ethnic joke told by a person of the joke's ethnicity, however, even if the listener is sympathetic, he might find the joke funny because the teller, being of the joke's ethnicity, does not imply a threat. One way that a person can tell a joke about another ethnicity is if the joke puts the ethnic group in a positive light. (This has to go beyond a joke that portrays blacks as having rhythm or Jews as being good with money, because these traits, though generally positive, are common stereotypes that have been used in the past to subjugate, and are therefore implied threats.)
What applies to ethnic jokes applies to jokes about any group. Insiders telling jokes about the group represent less of a threat than outsiders telling the same jokes.
"Low brow" humor might threaten our sense of maturity, of dignity.
Humor in a chaotic setting, or written in an uneven style can threaten our equilibrium, our need for order in the world.
Practical jokes are only funny to the brunt of the jokes if they don't feel offended or hurt, and even then usually only in retrospect since a successful practical joke usually involves some initial feeling of threat on the part of the recipient.
"Offensive" humor is not funny to people who take seriously the topic of the humor. Sexual humor is not funny to people who believe that the loose morals the humor represents threaten a way of life. Making fun of religious beliefs is not funny to people who hold those beliefs sacred. Anyone who takes something very seriously might be offended by humor directed at that something, if the humor is seen as threatening the importance of that something.
Humor and threat cannot coexist. Introduce threat, and you destroy the humor. But the opposite is also true. Introduce humor, and you destroy the threat. We understand this principle and use it frequently.
We make fun of people, things and ideas that threaten us. In doing so we lessen the sense of threat.
If we feel a threat to our self-esteem we might make fun of who or what is threatening that self-esteem.
When we're in a situation that feels uncomfortable, we might fight that threat to our comfort and sense of well-being by laughing nervously, or by telling jokes or making wisecracks.
Sometimes we invent and tell jokes about things that are so horrible that we just don't want to face them seriously, and so we end up with Challenger jokes.
When we meet someone new, before we've developed a rapport and understanding with them, we might use humor to lessen our sense of threat, and to let the other know that we aren't a threat.
Dentists are trained to use humor to reduce the fears of their patients.
When I had accounted for the threatening surprises, however, there were other surprises that remained. What about the surprise of winning the lottery? What about the surprise of hearing that your daughter is getting married? (Okay, if you don't approve of her choice, this could be considered a threat.) What about discovering the keys that you'd lost a month ago, or finding a dollar on the sidewalk? All of these are non-humorous surprises, but they are also non-threatening. I analyzed these remaining surprises to see if they had anything in common. And what I saw in all of them was a sense of promise, a promise of wealth, of happiness, of prestige, of life becoming better in some large or small way.
Bombs falling out of the sky are threatening and therefore not funny.
But what if the Publishers Clearing House shows up at our door and tells us we're their new ten million dollar winner. Is it a surprise? Yes. Do we find it funny? Probably not. When the surprise shows us promise, fulfills hopes, resolves problems, we are satisfied, delighted, overjoyed, hopeful, but we do not find it funny. When the detective discovers the criminal, when the doctor discovers the cure, when the archaeologist discovers the unopened tomb, again, there is surprise, but not humor.
And so I have my definition. Humor is surprise without threat or promise. I have accounted for all of the examples of humor I've analyzed so far. I do, however, accept the possibility that I will eventually encounter non-humorous surprises that are neither threatening or promising. When this happens I will analyze those surprises and try to redefine my theory further. In the meantime, this theory helps me in my attempts to write humor.
When you are writing humor you need to surprise your reader. To do so you must understand your reader's level of knowledge and experience so you will know what will surprise them. To help set up the surprise you might set your reader up by leading them "down the garden path", toward an expectation, and then throwing in the twist. Or you might rely on the expectations that the reader already has.
But while writing your humor you also keep in mind what will threaten your audience. You don't surprise them in ways that will make them feel threatened. You don't make fun of them. You don't belittle their deeply held beliefs.
But you can effectively surprise them in ways that will lessen their sense of threat. You can show the picked-on kid getting the upper hand over the bully, or like Mercer Mayer did, show the kid frightening the nightmare in his closet.
And you must also understand that the happy ending and other types of promising surprise, though possibly very satisfying to the reader, are not humor. Louis Sachar's Holes has humor throughout it. But the principal surprises at the end of the book are not humorous, but promising, and delightfully satisfying to the reader. They leave you in awe, but they don't make you laugh.
Writing humor for children can be tricky. If an adult writes humor for adults, he knows what might surprise other adults, because he knows what will surprise him. He is aware of the common knowledge and experience that adults share.
Children, however, have different knowledge and experience than adults. And their knowledge and experience are rapidly changing. To write humor for children you must be aware of what children the age you're writing for know and have experienced. Preschoolers will not understand jokes about kindergarten. Two-year-olds will not get bathroom jokes. Kids who are just learning vocabulary will not get puns.
There is a great deal of psychological research on the cognitive devlopment of children, and while such research might help someone who has no experience with children understand what children do and don't know at different ages, such research is not essential to understanding how to write humor for children. And it would also not accurately portray how I write humor for children. When I write humor I do not keep in mind the psychological research on cognitive development. Instead, I just take what I have learned about children by having been a child, having children of my own, and interacting with children in school and other settings, and compare it with what I know about humor. And in most cases this works for me.
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