Quote Originally Posted by JDiz
I just discovered the reason people laugh. When what people see in their mind as the best possible scenario for a given situation and what they see with their eyes match closely enough, some people will laugh. Obviously there are different responses from different kinds of people in different situations, this explains people being classified as enjoying morbid humor, slapstick, british, etc. When this happens, nerves in the brain fire "laughter neurons" that stimulate laughter. Early on in human evolution, this was a primitive way for humans (and indeed some chimps and other members of the great ape category) to signal to each other that a given situation that they're experiencing is not dangerous. [this was well before human speech had evolved and is the key factor in ā??the missing linkā? as well and thusly the main thing blocking today's chimpanzee from developing into the more advanced species] These responses were crucial to early human's survival, and are at the very basis for our need to establish societies and civilizations. That laughter affects humans this way is the primary reason why women list a sense of humor as number one in their list of desirable personality traits. For example, the reason that saturday night live is no longer funny is that writers are trying to write a skit, instead of just tell a story and let the skit match what your mind's eye would imagine best for the situation, as they did in the early years. If they would just tell the story and let it flow then the comedy would naturally happen, instead of saying ok: we got an idea, now lets expand on it and develop plot. Just let it flow and you will bring the funny every time! Go back and watch earlier shows and this will become very apparent to you. What they ought to be doing (such as the cases of the early simpsons and current family guy) is just let it flow, make crazy and random things happen in the show and have tragic consequences and make those wild and weird circumstances be the center of the storyline. And if you end up with a strange and random solution to the conflict, then you'll know you have succeeded. Some vague warning of not learning any lesssons is also a good end point. Lorne Michaels is ruining SNL because he hires shitty comedians (who suck and are scared to just let loose, go nuts and be crazy) and writers who try to write out skits with some kind of mathematical formula instead of telling the story. Seth McFarlane is a genius and matt groening was too before he lost his creative driving force (no money! same reason as lorne michaels) it will happen to seth mcfarlane too, sadly. Gets the best of them in the end.
SWED
Makes sense to me, and Family guy is amazing