Researchers try to find out in the context of gag theft

Joke theft is often considered the biggest sin in comedy – but it’s almost impossible to prove.

Now one academic study is looking at one part of the equation by trying to determine what makes two gags similar in the first place.

Researchers at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania aim to uncover the ‘logical mechanisms in joke creation’ to see what constitutes a different idea, and what is just a variation on the same one.

Brittany Maronna, one of the students conducting the study, said: ‘We are ultimately interested in considering whether concern about joke theft changes the understanding of what makes two jokes versions of the same joke.’

Their first stage is to ask comedians to fill out a questionnaire using old-school jokes – even including a racist ‘dumb Polack’ trope – to say whether they think different takes on a similar premise are fundamentally different gags.

Similar research using the same jokes was previously conducted by Swiss psychologist Willibald Ruch, but using members of the general public, not comedians.

‘We want to replicate his test using a sample of professional comedians to see if the results are any different,’ Maronna said.  ‘We hypothesise that comedians would see the structural and verbal differences in jokes more than someone who doesn't make their livelihood from them.

‘While acknowledge those jokes are not common these days that doesn't necessarily matter as we're not rating funniness of the joke, rather semantic structure.’

The team are looking at six constituent parts of a joke, which are – in their words:

1) language: the actual words in a joke, all the linguistic components
2) ‘narrative strategy’: the way the joke is framed, eg whether it be as a riddle or question and answer,
3) target: the 'butt of the joke' ie. blondes
4) situation: the situation of the joke, ie. changing a lightbulb
5) logical mechanism: the way the two scripts/parts of the joke are brought together, eg false analogy, figure-ground reversal
6) script opposition: the way the two scripts of the joke overlap, ie. blondes and being stupid. 

Ruch said jokes were most similar at the 1 end of this scale and differ most at 6.

While the research aims to form a framework to determine how similar jokes are, it will not address concerns such as whether two comedians can independently come up with similar gags.

Published: 10 Apr 2019