LISTENING PRACTICE

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Unit 10, Recording five.

P: Hi there.

Welcome to 'Mind Games'.

Today, we're talking funny.

What makes people laugh?

How far does humour differ between countries or is it (1)_________?

Here to discuss all of this and more is Professor Thomas, who (2)__________ in the
study of humour, and German comedian Gerd Mueller.

So, if we go by what I see on my travels, I'd say one thing that unites us is
(3)_______

There are things like 'Mr Bean' and the Canadian programme 'Just for Laughs',
where they play practical jokes on people, and that's shown in over a hundred
countries and over 150 airlines include it as part of their in-flight entertainment.

PT: Yeah, I think there is something in that theory.

(4)__________of some kind or another seems to be common to most cultures.

GM: Well, my girlfriend certainly always laughs when she sees me (5)_________.

P: So long as you don't hurt yourself, I guess.

GM: No.

Sometimes even then!

PT: 'Just for Laughs' and 'Mr Bean' also have the advantage of not having language
issues, so they travel well.

When it comes to films, most don't work well outside of their countries of origin.

GM: What about films like 'Home Alone'?

That was(6)__________ when I was a kid.

PT: OK.

There are Hollywood comedies that do well, but it doesn't seem to be the same for
films from other countries.
I mean, take China's top comedy 'Qian Ren 3' – apologies if I'm not pronouncing it
right.

It took 308 million dollars at the box office, but only one million of that was
international sales.

P: I suppose translation becomes an issue and maybe there are

(7)______________.

PT: Exactly – word play is particularly difficult.

Take this joke from Japan: Translated into English it goes: 'What's a panda's
favourite food?'

P: I don't know.

What is a panda's favourite food?

PT: 'It's bread!' Get it?

P: Err no.

PT: So, in Japanese it's a pun – 'pan da' literally means 'bread it is'.

P: Yeah. OK.

You've actually just reminded me: my friend Liam, who's just starting out as (8)-
___________ … and who's clearly never going to be big in other countries, I mean,
the last gig I saw, he started by saying 'I burnt 2000 calories this afternoon … That's
the last time I leave chocolate brownies in the oven while I have a little sleep.'

Ba–boom!

GM: Ha ha!

Very good.

P: Yeah.

He's quick – sometimes even too quick for me and, you know, of course you can
explain things, but that just kills the joke.

GM: Yeah, I guess it'd be the same with my material.

I mean, some of it relies on the (9)__________ we have of people from different

regions or the characters of people in the public eye, or news stories, you know.

PT: Yeah – that kind of thing can be very difficult to translate.

P: But does that mean you can say it's a national sense of humour?

I mean, I know some jokes get lost in translation, but are they really different?
We all (10)_________ or irony or whatever.

PT: Yes.

So, they have done studies which, for example, show that people from the UK like
dry humour more than people from the US …

P: OK – but that still means some people in every country laugh at dry humour.

PT: That's true.

From that point of view, humour is universal.

Individually, we may laugh at different things, but everyone does laugh.

P: And why is that?

PT: Well, (11)___________ have been discussing that since the time of Plato.

P: And what have they decided?

PT: Well, there are about 15 competing theories at the moment, so I guess you could
say they're still discussing it!

P: 15?

Such as?

PT: Well there's the ontic-epistemic theory or the computational-neural theory…

GM: … they sound like good ways to (12)___________ in the room.

PT: They're actually quite interesting.

P: But, sadly, we're out of time.