Analysis Of Us Laugh By John Mulaney: A Stand Up Comedy

Humor is an instinct that evolved to serve a distinct purpose in everyone’s lives especially to stay healthy emotionally. The passage, What Makes Us Laugh by Leon Rappoport thoroughly analyzes the different theories in people’s reactions of humor. Rappoport discusses how certain jokes succeed and fail, why we laugh when we don’t think we should, and why sometimes we might not react to humor. Humor can range depending on the person listening and their perspective or beliefs. Following that, there can be a number of responses whether it is laughable, not laughable, or a bad/good joke. I chose to analyze a section of a stand up comedy piece by John Mulaney entitled “Real Estate”, in which it states “Craig and Stacey are looking for a two-story

There are many theories that Rappoport describes that pertain to this piece. The first utterance in which states, “Craig and Stacey are looking for a two-story A frame that’s near Craig’s job in the downtown, but also satisfies Stacey’s need to be near a beach which is nowhere near Craig’s job” is contradicting because they want one that is convenient to Craig’s job in the downtown area, but also near a beach for Stacey, which you can’t have both of them (Real Estate). The fact that they could not have the best of both worlds is what makes this funny. This punchline also applies to the incongruity theory that is where things that do not normally go together replace logic, making that humor arise. Mulaney utilizes this in the way that you were not expecting John Mulaney to mimic the voice of a real estate agent on HGTV and be so exaggerated about it. It is so blatantly not in line with each other and not a realistic situation. In this case, the incongruity theory overlaps with the surprise theory with the focuses on sudden and unexpected events. Rappoport noted that French philosopher René Descartes described the surprise theory as “a mixture of joy and shock at the occurrence of a happy surprise that provoked laughter, and both Hobbes and Darwin also mentioned surprise as an important basis of humor” (Rappaport 17). Lastly, this

In which, the parts of the jokes he is splitting up are the utterances that are broken up with pauses, which allows it be more funny. The joke is organized in a way that is funny because if it was all said all at once and there were no pauses or distinct utterances, it would not have as much humor. The whole of the utterance includes semantic content, style, and compositional structure, with them all being linked while speaking. Mulaney consistently implies that he is finished throughout his skit, but actually keeps going, adding to the