Scott Adams' Recipe for Humor

The guy who writes Dilbert, whose blog is much funnier and more interesting than his strip, has set out to analyze humor. And even though I think he's not in much of a position to do so, the results are quite interesting:

I wrote on this topic more extensively in my book, The Joy of Work. So I’ll just give you the highlights here. The core of humor is what I call the 2-of-6 rule. In order for something to be funny, you need at least two of the following elements:
Cute (as in kids and animals)
Naughty
Bizarre
Clever
Recognizable (You’ve been there)
Cruel

I invented this rule, but you can check for yourself that whenever something is funny it follows the rule. And when something isn’t, it doesn’t.

An interesting framework. It is probably a better rule for analyzing humor than creating it, and in some ways it may be a good way to figure out why a good number of stupid folks out there find some things funny (e.g., why Bil Keane of "The Family Circus" seems to think that cute with occasional bursts of recognizability is enough even with an utter and complete absence of cleverness, and why America lets him get away with it).

I think that you can deconstruct these concepts further. I think that "cuteness" has a lot more to do with the expectation of innocence and purity than the visceral "awwwww" you hear from teenage girls pretty much all women, that bizarreness and cleverness as well as cuteness are actually quite similar in that they play with expectations in similar ways, that "cruel" has a lot more to do with the presence of discomfort than actually being mean (witness the incredible comic depth of the cringeworthy moments in "The Office" and "Curb Your Enthusiasm"), and that there is something of a pecking order within the element of recognizability depending on the degree of departuree from expectation--we find things from the 80s funny because we expect we're won't confront them on a given day.

I think that, if you do refine Adams' concepts a bit and then accept them, you can fairly plausibly establish a heirarchy of humorous elements, or at least pairings. Genuine cleverness + anything else is more potent than genuine cuteness + anything else. Cuteness and recognizability (The Family Circus), particularly recognizability with little detachment from expectations, together represent the lowest form of effective humor. Lower forms of humor exist overall, those that operate on only single dimensions, with cleverness being the most tolerable of these. "This is a cute kid" is not funny on its own. Penis humor can hit or miss, depending on whether the context provides other elements of humor. Sumo Florist works because it goes beyond the realm of mere cock humor (naughty), but gives you singing cats and a cheery, gospel-sounding musical (cute/innocent), is clever in its rhyme scheme and musical structure, is utterly bizarre (its head is Jamie Lee Curtis), it is at least somewhat recognizable albeit in fractured senses (sumo wrestler, Jamie Lee, musical elements), it is cruel (to Jamie Lee Curtis, who has chromosonal issues, issues that I recognize)--really, a perfect storm of humor. And that's why I click that link when I need a laugh.

Over the past few days, I've thought a lot about the funnier things in life. Great movies, as wholes and individual scenes. Television shows. Books. Strips. And I've seen different combinations of these elements, and another that flows like ether through a few of these other elements, the forever-venerated element of "timing." The model, as a whole, works. And I think that so long as the methodology of this doesn't kill everything, I may well be on my way to remaining hilarious for years to come. Just not on this blog.

I may return to this topic in future posts, as it fascinates me.