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Serious People Often Lack this Thinkin’ Funny Fundamental
A frog by itself isn’t all that funny.
Neither is a bank.
But a frog bank… well, now.
You can already picture the potential hilarity:
- The Frog Bank uses flies and crickets and worms as its currency.
- A Frog Bank would hire a bulging eyed bull frog security guard and give him a mini-security-outfit complete with a mini-hat and holster.
- The Frog Bank interior has décor from the swampy green collection.
Not exactly knee-slappers, but the potential for humor is suddenly there.
Why?
Because combining unlikely worlds is funny.
Our brains love it when someone cleverly combines incongruent worlds for us.
The second we “get it,” meaning the moment we see how those two worlds do connect, our brain rewards us with a smile, or a chuckle, or a laugh, depending on how clever and surprising the combination is.
For example, when the Frog Bank Teller asks, “Sir, would you prefer your withdrawal in all crickets, or would you like some flies and worms, as well?”
We chuckle if our brain enjoys making that connection, that at the Frog Bank, insects are currency. Crickets are like the twenties, flies and worms are like the smaller bills.
“I get it. Ha ha.”
The more sophisticated our world-combining gets, the more surprising it becomes, and therefore the bigger laughs it produces.
Combining worlds is the basis of Thinkin’ Funny, and it’s often where serious people come up short.
Serious people see the bank. They see the frog.
But serious people see no reason to combine the two.
That’s because technically, there is no logical reason to combine those two worlds.
Unless your goal is to crack yourself or other people up by Thinkin’ Funny.
Let’s look at some popular examples of combining worlds for humor.
Brian Regan used to talk about dogs from different yards that bark at each other.
Not that funny all by itself.
But to give that random back and forth barking more meaning, Regan combines it with the world of humans reminiscing with each other.
What comes out is a hilarious and surprising combination of the world of dogs from different yards barking and the world of reminiscing as Regan interprets their barking for us:
“Hey, do you remember when we were chasing that cat?”
Pause.
“Yeah.”
Another pause.
“You got him mixed up with a stick.”
Pause.
“Yeah. I was thinking about that. That was fun.”
Pause.
“Yeah.”
Thanks to Brian’s brilliant ability to combine worlds, our brain now makes the connection between people who we’ve heard talk like that and dogs barking back and forth and we “get it.”
Meaning we see how those two incongruent worlds can connect and that mental visual of that combination makes us laugh.
We can now picture those dogs having an inane conversation through their barking and that’s funny.
If combining worlds seems like a familiar concept, it’s because it’s basically the same thing as “playing the game.”
If you recall, that’s one of the three “secret weapons” I shared in the previous post:
In that post, we talked about ‘the game’ being “a repeated pattern of funny behavior with escalating emotion.”
The example I gave was Bob’s good buddies busting his balls for saying something dumb.
The game became “How dumb is Bob?” and everybody takes a turn.
Bob is so dumb…
… he has to strip naked to count to 21.
… it takes him an hour and a half to watch 60 Minutes.
… he took an IQ test and got a letter grade.
Really, the “How dumb is Bob?” game is actually the combining of two incongruent worlds:
- The world of Bob
- The world of being DUMB
Each time the game is played, someone is combining those two worlds for us.
For example, “he has to strip naked to count to 21” combines:
- the World of Bob with
- the World of Using Your Digits to Count and
- the World of Being DUMB
Out brain makes the connection between Bob and the DUMB need to use your fingers, toes, and ‘extra digit’ to do something as simple as count to 21 and we “get it.”
When we get the connection – Bob needs to use his penis if he has to count past twenty – it causes us to laugh because we can now picture our friend combined with that situation.
Combining worlds works in a broader sense, too.
For example, when you combine:
- The World of Being a Caddy at a Prestigious Country Club
With…
- The World of the High Society Rebel
You get the hilarious movie Caddy Shack.
Most every joke in that comedy classic comes from combining those two worlds.
Another example is when you combine:
Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood
Inner City Criminal
You get Eddie Murphy’s classic SNL sketch, Mister Robinsons Neighborhood.
Have some fun and practice finding different ways to bring two incongruent worlds together.
Thinkin’ Funny involves a willingness to combine worlds in a playful way so that you can ‘play the game’ of connecting them.
The more you practice, the easier it becomes.
Here are some suggestions you can try:
- Combine the World of Cars with the World of Fish.
- Combine the World of Computers with the World of Feet
- Combine the World of Food with the World of Aliens
Write down what you come up with and share it down below.
In the next post, we’ll go over the difference between saying funny things and saying things funny.
You’d be surprised at how much humor mileage you can get out of understanding both.
Plus, you’ll get to enjoy some of the hilarious examples I give from some popular TV shows and movies.
Until then,
Mike
