Dan O'Shannon > Quotes

“If we hear a joke so awful that we laugh at how bad it is, we are taking part in the irony; in other words, the joke did not contain irony; irony was provided by our response. Why is it ironic? Because the intent of the joke was to get laughter, and it did—but for the wrong reason.”
― Dan O'Shannon, What Are You Laughing At?: A Comprehensive Guide to the Comedic Event

“The mind can find the information so shocking or threatening that it rejects the truth of it, rendering the information nonsense. The brain then tries to make sense of the nonsense by filing it under comedy – just”
― Dan O'Shannon, What Are You Laughing At?: A Comprehensive Guide to the Comedic Event

“Imagine us as simpler beings, wired to be on the alert for incongruity because anything out of the ordinary might kill us. When incongruity is recognized—a shadow at the wrong time, an unfamiliar noise in the jungle—all our red flags go up, our hackles are raised, our bodies are flooded with adrenaline, and our pulses pound. Fear and/or aggression surge as we prepare to fight, flee, or die. And then the incongruity turns out to be harmless. Suddenly, all the switches are shut off and we are awash in the release of tension. The sensation is a chemical rush, an exciting physiological change which our bodies experience as we come down. We associate this feeling with relief, triumph, celebration. We look at our fellow pre-language, proto-humans as we vocalize our gasps of relief—do you feel this too? Did”
― Dan O'Shannon, What Are You Laughing At?: A Comprehensive Guide to the Comedic Event

“We not only experience the joke, we experience the experience of the joke. We do this in multiple aspects of awareness, any of which may trigger an array of feelings. We are aware of the joke’s internal reality (a man walking into a bar, a sitcom scene, whatever), while we are simultaneously aware of the joke’s existence in our own reality. We have a critical appreciation of the joke and its execution. We may even have a response that is shaped by our awareness of other receivers’ responses. Any strong feeling in any of these aspects of awareness can make or break the experience.”
― Dan O'Shannon, What Are You Laughing At?: A Comprehensive Guide to the Comedic Event

“In the old days, when people wrote letters to each other on paper, they would occasionally write “ha ha” after a joke, to make sure the recipient knew the writer was being funny. When email took over the world in the 1980s, there were millions of instances of people writing jokes in their mail and the recipient being hurt or offended, not realizing that a joke had been made. Without standard verbal and visual cues, people had trouble consistently recognizing comedy as comedy. Thus the smiley face started appearing after any line that was meant to be a joke. This was joined by the winking face and a host of other expressions designed to give the reader a sense of the attitude beneath the words.”
― Dan O'Shannon, What Are You Laughing At?: A Comprehensive Guide to the Comedic Event

“It’s not enough to tell the joke. You gotta sell the joke.”
― Dan O'Shannon, What Are You Laughing At?: A Comprehensive Guide to the Comedic Event