User:Jaydavidmartin/The Naked Jape

The Naked Jape: Uncovering the Hidden World of Jokes is a 2006 book by British comedian Jimmy Carr and writer Lucy Greeves, in which the authors analyze the history, theory, and science of jokes, with a particular emphasis on stand-up comedy. Additionally, the book contains 450 "of the best jokes [the authors] could find".

Table of Contents

 * 1) Joking Matters: Why jokes are important
 * 2) Tickling the Naked Ape: The science of laughter
 * 3) Send in the Clowns: The early evolution of the stand-up comic
 * 4) Only Kidding: How children learn to joke
 * 5) Nuts, Bolts and Hydraulic Brains: Dissecting the joke
 * 6) No Way to Make a Living: How to be a professional joker
 * 7) Take My Wife...No, Pleas: Take My Wife: Joking across the gender divide
 * 8) Beyond the Pale?: Offensive jokes and why we laugh at them
 * 9) An Englishman, and Irishman and a Rabbi...: The chequered history of ethnic jokes
 * 10) Sometimes the Joke Gets Elected: Why we need political jokes
 * 11) Knock Knock. Who's There? The Police.: When jokes get taken to court
 * 12) The Last Laugh

Why we laugh
The authors argue that laughter, as a universal phenomenon among humans, must be an evolutionary adaptation. According to the authors, the generally accepted evolutionary explanation for the development of laughter is called the "threat diffused theory of laughter", which posits that laughter evolved out of human's threat response, i.e. out of the adaptive behavior of baring teeth at predators and yelling to alert other members of the tribe emerged the smile and verbal laugh. In short, they say, "laughter is a release of tension in discovering that a perceived threat is not, in fact, a threat at all".(20)

While laughter is not unique to humans, the authors note that purposefully telling jokes is.

Reception
The book has received mostly positive reviews. Steve Bennett, writing for British comedy website Chortle, calls it a "well-researched,..brisk but fascinating tour through all the often-contradictory theories surrounding comedy", noting it "covers pretty much all the issues surrounding comedy now, and puts them in proper context, taking in everything from Shakespearean jesters to humour in Nazi Germany along the way." Brandon Robshaw, writing in The Independent, claims that while the "jocular journalese" gets "irritating", Jimmy Carr is "demonstrably an expert"; he praises the joke curation and singles out the chapters on offensive humour and ethnic jokes as particularly interesting. Sam Leith, writing in The Daily Telegraph, states that the authors cover the history of the theory of jokes "efficiently and with style" and have assembled a "very good" collection of jokes. British newspaper Metro gave the book 4 out of 5 stars.