Obama and McCain Walk Into a Bar ...

NY TImes ^ | Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2008 | John Tierney

[Hadean]

While Americans choose their next president, let us consider a question more amenable to science: Which candidate's supporters have a better sense of humor? We began by asking nearly 300 people in Boston to rate the following three attempts at humor:

A) Jake is about to chip onto the green at his local golf course when a long funeral procession passes by. He stops in midswing, doffs his cap, closes his eyes and bows in prayer. His playing companion is deeply impressed. "That's the most thoughtful and touching thing I've ever seen," he says. Jake replies, "Yeah, well, we were married 35 years."

B) I think there should be something in science called the 'reindeer effect.' I don't know what it would be, but I think it'd be good to hear someone say, "Gentlemen, what we have here is a terrifying example of the reindeer effect."

C) If you saw two guys named Hambone and Flippy, which one would you think liked dolphins the most? I'd say Flippy, wouldn't you? You'd be wrong, though. It's Hambone.

They expected conservatives to like traditional jokes... And because liberals had previously been reported to be more flexible and open to new ideas, the researchers expected them to get a bigger laugh out of unconventional humor, like Jack Handey's 'Deep Thoughts' about the reindeer effect and Hambone.

Indeed, the conservatives did rate the traditional golf and marriage jokes as significantly funnier than the liberals did. But they also gave higher ratings to the absurdist 'Deep Thoughts.' In fact, they enjoyed all kinds of humor more.

"I was surprised," said Dan Ariely, a psychologist at Duke University. "Conservatives are supposed to be more rigid and less sophisticated, but they liked even the more complex humor."

Do conservatives have more fun?

[Kudsman]

Awww. No fair that was supposed to be rhetorical!

[S.O.L.]

Can someone please explain how B and C are jokes?

[N. Theknow]

This guy is just figuring out now that Socialists are humorless prigs? What, does he think the Soviets painted all of Eastern Europe gray because they ran out of the other colors?

Don't you remember....?

The main purpose of the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain were to keep the Soviet Komedy Klubs from being overcrowded and violating the fire codes.

[nkycincinnatikid]

B and C truely lower the bar for sophomoric humor, but they are better than the proverbial poke in the eye with a sharp stick. Even a seriously deficient attempt at humor made in good faith can be pleasing, don’t ya think.

[Helotes]

Thanks, I just saw your new joke.

Kids.....

[solfour]

There has never been the slightest indication that the Obamessiah has any kind of a sense of humor.

He laughed at some of his own jokes at the Smith dinner when he read them for the first time.