Clown College

    Now, Clowns aren’t complete replicas of their ancestors. From appearance alone, about the only thing they share are inconsistent body shapes and a horrendous taste in fashion. Even on paper, the average intelligence of a Clown is much—much—less than the reported average intelligence of a Jester. Some have theorized that the average brainpower of Jesters was actually much higher than they let on, maybe even higher than that of Philosophers and Scientists. No one, however, has ever proposed such a theory about Clowns.

    But if you take all of that away—the looks, the brains, the personality—still, the glowing, beating core of both groups is the same: a deep, longing, spiritual desire to be one with humor.

    This is probably hard to swallow for a lot of you, since I know most people assume that Clowns are too dumb to have any sort of goal greater than to remain breathing, if that. But, believe it or not, there is an actual school—a university, even—out in the rural outskirts of Townville, founded and run almost entirely by Clowns. Of course, if you go to this school, you’re not going to learn much about silly stuff like, say, basic math or literacy, but you will get a top-tier education on funny, I can guarantee you that.

    Actually, every great theory of humor has come out of this college. Weaverly’s Superiority Theory (we laugh when we feel like we’re better than others), Dr. C’s Relief Theory (we laugh to relieve psychic tension), and Janet’s Incongruity Theory (we laugh when our expectations are subverted). Even among Scientists, those theories, all of which were created by former chancellors of Clowntown University, are regarded as the Big Three when it comes to most-likely-to-be-onto-something in regards to the phenomenon of humor. And even though all three have their flaws (If we laugh to feel superior to others, then why do we ever laugh at ourselves? If we laugh to relieve tension, then why do we laugh at things that are completely unexpected? If we laugh at things that are unexpected, then why don't we laugh at non-funny surprises, like watching your gerbil get run-over by a car?), even though the creators of all three admit that their theories are not perfect, the scientific community reluctantly recognizes the legitimacy of the results that Clowntown University has produced, even though they have yet to come to any conclusion on the importance of it.

    Even now there’s some great stuff coming out of that school, stuff that has the potential to blow away the Big Three. 'Cause those old theories are mostly just philosophical ideas, conclusions that were reached through elaborate mental exercises and extensive soul searching. But students these days don’t put much stock into those methods. They seem to care more about silly stuff like “evidence” and “research”. Pft.

    I once met these two kids, a pair of twin brothers who somehow both managed to graduate from CTU top of their class (who are not Clownish, I feel obliged to note), who claimed to have cracked the Humor Code, so to say. When I met them, they were still in college, reading jokes to lab rats and prodding the brains of dead frogs in search of the proverbial “funny bone”, but now they’re touring the country to thunderous applause from academics of all types, proclaiming their Play Theory to be the long-awaited One True Theory of Humor. Now, I don’t know about all that, but I do have to admit that what they're saying is pretty fascinating.

    Essentially, they propose that laughter is a means of communication that predates language. They discovered that some animals create sounds that are very similar to human laughter, and that these animals almost exclusively produce this noise when they are goofing around with one another. Why would animals need a separate noise designated just for play? Well, think about it. Imagine a laughing husband and a laughing wife hitting and kicking each other. Now imagine that same couple hitting and kicking each other, not laughing. Small change, big difference.

    Here’s another thing to imagine. Think of a prehistoric child who has wandered away from her parent. Lost and afraid, she sees the bushes shake, and she envisions some horrible predator pouncing from the shrubbery. A scream for help begins to form in her belly, but then she sees that it’s actually just her mother returning from the bathroom, and that scream turns into a laugh of relief.

    Both of these scenarios have the same function: to communicate to others that This is fine! There is no threat! Don’t take me seriously right now! I am safe, trust me.

    This explains why we can’t help but laugh when we are tickled, and why we can only be tickled by those who we trust won’t hurt us. It also explains why certain tragedies cannot be laughed at until a safe distance has been put between the event and the observers of said event. Get it? Yeah, it's a pretty neat thing to think about.

    The brothers say that this instinct to communicate safety evolved as society evolved, until it eventually became what we call humor, and that comedy is, in essence, just a way to safely toy around with things that might otherwise be dangerous. It is an elegant blending of the Big Three, with double-blind studies and large-scale polling to back it up. But there’s still something not quite...there...if you ask me, at least.

    ‘Cause like I was saying. Even though this might explain why tickling makes us laugh, is tickling really...funny? And even though there’s a lot of jokes that can maybe fall under the umbrella of combining something safe with something off-limits (Doctor: You need to stop smoking. Patient: Why? Doctor: Because I’m trying to check your tonsils. Hurdy-hur. [Visiting your doctor (safe) + blowing smoke in a doctor’s face (not so much) + hearing this joke rather than experiencing such a thing yourself (doubly safe)]), there are still other jokes that are more difficult to cram into this formula (First atom: Are you sure you lost your electron? Second atom: Yes, I’m positive.).

    Even if you put all that aside, there’s something else that I just don’t like about that approach. I know this is going to sound stupid—like, aggressively stupid—but maybe, at least in this one instance, being scientifically objective really isn’t the best way to handle the challenge of understanding humor. I mean...one day, and maybe one day soon, after running all the computer simulations and cross-checking all the numbers, a group of logically-minded people might be able to scientifically, and definitively, distinguish between things that are “funny” and “not funny”. And let’s say this group designates what is technically the “funniest” possible joke, and you personally don’t laugh at said joke or find it to be the least bit funny. Well...tough spit. This group has hard evidence to back up their assertion, and you just have...what? A gut non-reaction? Sorry, pal. You’re wrong, you’re a loser, and we can prove it.

    I know, I know! It makes me sound like I’m bitterly denouncing facts and knowledge and reality itself. But...I don’t know. Maybe I am. Maybe that’s kind of the whole point of having a sense of humor, you know? To deny reality.

    Man, I’m not making any sense, am I? It’s just...I have a hard time believing that we can objectively observe something that by its very nature is subjective. It’s like trying to convert a painting into numbers. Yeah, maybe it technically can be done, but when you take out the completely human variable of appreciation, then there is also technically no difference between an oil-painting and a spreadsheet of equivalent, translated data. The two are technically the same, but any living observer can tell that they are obviously not...you know?

    Ah, dougdammit. What am I going on about? Maybe this book was a mistake. Do I really know what I’m talking about? I just...there’s something there! Something that simply can’t be seen logically. I feel like if we went down that path, down the road of quantifying emotion, we would simply turn ourselves into a bunch of Nothingners, and that just doesn’t seem right to me. I mean, look at how things turned out for them, you know what I’m saying?

    ....

    What’s a Nothingner? Aw, spit, my bad. I’ve been hanging around Clowns too long. I forget that not everyone has been sucked as deep into their culture as I have. Not trying to be all smarter-than-thou, just saying. Sometimes I forget to see things from the outside, is all.

    I suppose we can go ahead and talk about that then, since I brought it up. It’s topical, anyway.

    You know how everyone’s got their own story they tell about Doug? About why he was so great and what made him such a legend in the first place? Like how Firefighters think he took all of World’s forest fires and turned them into volcanos, or how Maids think that he was the first person to discover cleanliness, which brought us all virtually next to godliness? Well, not that I believe any of those stories or subscribe to any one theory, but I do have to admit that the Clownish take on Doug is by far my favorite. Alright, yeah! That’s what we’re doing, then! Storytime. Let’s hope I can do it as much justice as the person who told it to me.