What's so funny?

Matthew De Abaitua on why the rules of cinematic comedy were made to be broken

The Aristocrats is the dirtiest film ever made. Out later this year in the UK, it features over 100 comedians all taking turns to tell the same joke, a joke that has been a secret between comedians since vaudeville and is only now being aired for the public. The joke basically involves the description of a stage act with the punch line that the act is called 'The Aristocrats'. The humour comes in the extended filthy description of what the family performing the act get up to; juggling flaming elephant cocks, shitting on stage in unison, sticking burst haemorrhoids on their noses.

Philosopher John Morreall theorises that human laughter may have its biological origins as a shared expression of relief at the passing of danger. Taboo-baiting gags like 'The Aristocrats' take us into cultural danger. When we smile, we bare our teeth, a violent warning expression. Again, a response to threat. Still, humanity is a long way from such primitive origins and our humour has similarly evolved. In fact, constant evolution is the key to comedy. As it relies so much on the unexpected, on surprise, humour constantly rewrites its own rules to stay one step ahead of expectation. Yet, certain constants can be spotted in the greatest comedies, and as Channel 4 lines up its '50 Greatest Comedy Movies' and FilmFour launches a month of comedy films throughout August, now seems a good time to explore a few of them.

Animals
A horse is not funny. A horse with a hat on can be hilarious, although it depends on the hat. To be really funny, an animal has to be anthropomorphised. My favourite comedy animal is the Labrador in Steve Martin's Bowfinger, which is made to trot through a car park in red high heels. Sure, it comes from the same school as the early 1980s poster of a chimp on a toilet, but the devil is in the details. Runners-up in the comedy animal moments include the neat little jive the gopher performs at the end of Caddyshack and the toilet-trained cat in Meet The Parents.

Comic Timing
So what is comic timing? How does it work? Some people have it, some don't, like rhythm. And, like rhythm, comic timing is as much about the space between the notes as the notes themselves.

Silence is very important in comedy, as anyone looking for laughs in a silent movie can appreciate. In his book 'The Whole Equation', David Thomson acutely observes how it was only with the advent of sound in movies that films could really use silence. Or rather, stillness. When you think of the Keystone Cops or Charlie Chaplin, the first trait that springs to mind is a manic energy. Sure, this is a consequence of the different frame rates for silent films (16 to 20 frames a second rather than the modern 24), but unless Buster Keaton was going to put up a dialogue card that read "Um...er...", the finely-tuned hesitation was not part of his armoury. Without sound, it was harder to design a pause. Is this why we find them so unfunny now?

Repetition
Any rule of comedy immediately gives rise to its opposite, like matter and anti-matter. Comedy works against expectations, so it will often be unsurprising when you were expecting surprise. Following this odd logic, since old jokes are not meant to be funny, they are funny. The finest example of this repetition is in Airplane!, which keeps about five gags in a constant holding pattern, from the "Looks like I picked the wrong day to give up drinking/smoking/sniffing glue/amphetamines," riff to the "hospital? What's that? It's a big white building with patients but that's not important right now" groaner.