What is comedy and what makes something funny?

Check out this site:  http://www.thinctanc.co.uk/words/comedy.html 

Use vocabulary from this site in your work.

What is funny?
Comedy is not a science, it's art. Therefore there are no rules and it can be very subjective. What one person finds funny another might cringe at. 

One thing worth noting is that when analysing comedy and what is funny, it is almost like it is only visible out of the corner of your eye. As soon as you try and look directly at it and analyse it too much... all of the funniness disappears... 

Why do we find things funny? Why does this reaction force us to convulse and make that noise? 

I have no idea. 

There is no simple answer to why something is funny... Something is funny because it captures a moment, it contains an element of simple truth, it is something that we have always known for eternity and yet are hearing it now out loud for the first time. 

I think that our need to feel intelligent comes into play a lot in finding things funny... maybe humour is actually the overwhelming joy at feeling intelligent. Somebody tries to put on their shoes standing up and falls over in the process. They look foolish, we therefore feel intelligent as we are not the one falling over trying to put on shoes. 

We laugh. 

Someone makes a clever joke and only a few people get it. If we get the joke we recognise the person as being clever and feel clever ourselves as we understood the concept. 

We laugh. 

So is humour partly to do with self congratualtion at being intelligent? 

Comedy is full of opposites and contradictions. 

Something is funny because...

1. ...It is expected
A woman buys white coat she has been saving up for for ages. She tells the shop keeper she has dreamed of wearing it for months and been saving up. The shop keeper says that this is the last one in stock. We see the woman's gleeful face as she tries on her new lovely white coat.

We cut to a scene of a park keeper painting a bench black... oh and let's really overstate it... he's painting the bench black by the zebra enclosure in a zoo. We know what's going to happen already. The comedy is in the anticipation and expectation as we build up to the inevitable moment where she sits on the wet black bench in her new white coat and ends up with black stripes across her back.

2. ...it is unexpected
A hunter is out hunting rabbits. He finds a rabbit hole and sends his dog down. After five minutes of nothing he sticks his head down the hole to find the rabbit and dog playing cards.

Or let's go for a twist... That same woman buys her white coat and approaches the wet black bench.

"Look out!" yells the zoo keeper.
" Oh thanks," says the woman, "I almost sat on that."
An escaped lion leaps in from the side and mauls her.

3. ...it is familiar
A woman places a tin in her trolley and turns to fetch another. While she is not looking, her trolley rolls away sideways. We laugh a knowing laugh as we recognise the age old problem of shopping trolleys rolling sideways.

4. ...it is unfamiliar
A woman places a tin in her trolley and turns to fetch another. While she is not looking, her trolley floats up into the air out of sight. We laugh a shocked laugh as we didn't expect that.