Lessons in Laughter: Insights from a Comedy Veteran

Logline: A glimpse into the classroom of comedy presents the roles of teacher and student learning together how to craft material and create the substance of humor.

Synopsis: Students from varying levels of experience are enrolled in a stand up comedy class to introduce or reacquaint themselves with the craft of comedy. Guided by veteran stand up comedian/actor/writer etc. Rick Crom,  in the safety of an educational environment, Rick finds value in sharing his skill, experience, and knowledge with newly budding comedians. He puts his efforts toward developing the material of others and giving them a foundation of knowledge so they can be confident in their work. The students and teacher are observed birthing ideas, playing with concepts, and discovering what will work in triggering laughs from an audience. This spectator’s view of the instruction behind the business of funny offers a perspective of laughter seldom seen by mainstream audiences. This process gives evidence that creating laughter is an art of precision, timing, and purpose.

From the Mouth of a Babe: The Bond of Love Through Laughter

Logline: An exploration in how babies/children discover and experience laughter and to what effect it has on the children and parents alike

Synopsis: Parents of young children and babies individually recall the first time their children laugh and what the sound of their child laughing does to them internally. What currently fascinates and makes their child laugh? Why is it important to stimulate, develop, and reward this behavior? These parents share their thoughts and anecdotes during a period of time most thought as stressful and frustrating. Does the laughter of one’s child help calm and heal the stresses inherent in new parenthood? Is the relationship between parent and child mutually bonded and smoothed through the exercise of laughter? This slideshow dares to express exactly that.

Gendered Laughter: The Man’s Emotion

Tagline: Three men of varying lifestyles share their individual and communal thoughts on expressing oneself as men through laughter.

Synopsis: The stereotype of men evading emotional expression is one worthy of speculation. The stoic, non-emotional trope seems to be tied to masculinity, however, the world of comedy is disproportionally represented by men. Is laughter the only sociable emotion granted to men today? This audio sampling of three men presents their day-to-day lives and how laughter can be used to express themselves.

Laughter: What Makes Us Tick (or Tickle)

Giggle, chuckle, cackle, and chortle. The sounds of these synonyms are as igniting as the behavior itself. It has many names, and is composed of many unique sounds, but the phenomenon of laughter is a uniting feature of humanity. Parenting guides introduce it as an emerging behavior at about 3-4 months, and further as “one of the first and most fun steps to socialization and communication”, but research is showing new ways to view and utilize laughter as a conscious tool for health.

The Cancer Treatment Centers of America prides itself on finding innovative approaches to fighting cancer in traditional and non-traditional ways. Upon a patient’s request, they began to research and implement a whole branch of their mind-body medicine practice, called “Laughter Therapy”. On a physical level, they have found laughter to present many benefits such as: boosting the immune system, enhancement of oxygen intake, stimulation of the heart and lungs, and triggering the release of endorphins, just to name a few. As innovative as this approach may be for fighting illness, The CTCA is not the first organization to study the effects of laughter on people.

Stanford University professor William Fry is credited as being a founder of gelotology (the study of laughter), and his work continues to awaken the science world to the many possibilities of healing from a source of humor (Liebertz). Many sources also note the work of Saturday Review editor Norman Cousins who, “After years of prolonged pain from a serious illness, …cured himself with a self-invented regimen of laughter and vitamins” (cancercenter.com). By all accounts, the effects of laughter appear to be a fool-proof health benefit, but in some rare cases, the excess of laughter has given scientists reason to further prod for understanding.

In 2014, Science Daily reported about a six year old Bolivian girl who was stricken with uncontrollable laughter and she was viewed as being “devil possessed” by her community. Doctors were able to study her brain and discovered the result was a small tumor on her temporal lobe. After removing the tumor, the girl was reportedly “healthy and developing normally. She has not suffered further seizures — and now only laughs for normal reasons.” This incident gives reason to study laughter from multiple vantage points and assess its impact on not only physical health, but also how it reverberates on mentally, socially, and emotional arenas.

Psychoanalyst Paul Marcus has harnessed the study of laughter and cites it as a primary way to find balance in life. In his book “How to Laugh Your Way Through Life: A Psychoanalyst’s Advice” Dr. Marcus utilizes anecdotes and experiential insights in relating the importance of building laughter into one’s consciousness. When asked for comment, Dr. Marcus responded:

“A tragicomic sensibility is one of the best ways to create the ironic distance that one needs to reasonably navigate this mad and maddening world. Even though one’s heart is breaking, the capacity to see the comic in the tragic and the tragic in the comic can make the difference between feeling utterly defeated or at least slightly hopeful about the future.”

Indeed, the spontaneous vibrations of excitement and amusement come from many forms of stimuli, and the methods of examining this behavior are continuing to grow. There are entire careers and fields of study dedicated to producing the reaction of laughter, evermore revealing how vital laughing may be to truly feeling connected to other human beings. While being one of the few positive associations of the word “infectious”, laughter just might be the one “infection” that keeps us all feeling alive.

Sources:

ecancer. “The girl who couldn’t stop laughing.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 15 June 2014. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/06/140615143612.htm>.

“Laugh.” Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com, n.d. Web. 19 Feb. 2015.

“Laughter Therapy.” Laughter Therapy: Cancer Treatment Centers of America. N.p., 01 Jan. 0001. Web. 11 Feb. 2015.

Liebertz, Charmaine. “A Healthy Laugh.” Scientific American Global RSS. Scientificamerican.com, n.d. Web. 19 Feb. 2015.

Marcus, Paul. “Question.” Message to the author. 12 Feb. 2015. E-mail.

“Your Baby’s First Laugh.” Whattoexpect. What to Expect.com, n.d. Web. 18 Feb. 2015.

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