The Whatever Files

The History of Humour: Part One

Today being the start of a Jubilee weekend I've had a day on. That is, instead of my usual Thursday off, I went to work, which was just as well because it was twice as busy as a normal Thursday.

Therefore I have had little time to write anything witty, clever or amusing to advertise the Whatever Contest. So you'll have to make do with this instead:


THE HISTORY OF HUMOUR
PART ONE

Recently Professor Ashleigh Percivel Goggins announced that he had discovered and translated the world's earliest known joke. Prof. Goggins has been exploring some Bronze Age joke mines in the countryside surrounding Budleigh Salterton, which he has now named the Cradle of Humour.

Ecstatic at the discovery Prof. Goggins got regrettably drunk, leading to an initial translation that read.

"Grunt, Grunt, Snort, Wheezy laughter, Bloaaarrgh!"

A somewhat soberer translation subsequently emerged:

"My wolf has no nose."

Admittedly not especially funny, but this is Professor Goggins is certain, the Ur-Joke.

In a news conference he also revealed that he had discovered a laughing staff. These were stood upright in the ground whereupon cavemen or women would run up to the staff and strike it open palmed. They would then fall over and laugh themselves silly. This unsophisticated amusement was the origin of slap-stick. As Prof. Goggins observed, it wasn't any funnier then than it is today.

from the Ur-Joke or Proto-Joke, a direct line can be drawn to early Chinese comedy:

"Dog Rose Blossom
Has no Scent.
Olfactory elegance lacking?"

Egyptian humour was recorded in the pyramids and showed a similar linear descent from Budleigh Salterton.

Hieroglyph indicating Mr. Tetris, that being me.
Hieroglyph of Anubis noticiably lacking a nose.
Hieroglyph of Confused looking Ibis.

Whatever the Romans did for us, they didn't add any humour to the world.

As you can probably tell, early jokes were lacking something, and it wasn't until 734 A.D. that this lack was resolved in a Saxony village called 'Vartsjuk' somewhere in the dark, cold bits of Europe. One Wulfgang Amadeus Muzzret was watching an Edgy Komodian who told the following 'joke'.

"Mein Hund hat keine Nase."

Wulfgang obligingly asked "Wie riecht er?"

Seeing the smug look on the Komodian, Wulfgang violently struck him with his fist, prompting a terrible cry.

Oh, sorry, that should have read a cry of 'Terrible'.

And thus the punch line was born.