The clashing sense and nonsense elements that make up humor kernels take many forms. In ordinary jokes and wordplay humor the kernel elements are words, but humor can be constructed without any words at all.

Sight gags are visual humor, slapstick is humor based on exaggerated physical motion, and impressions create humor in part through mimicking physical mannerisms. The Harlem Globetrotters create humor while playing basketball. Jackie Chan cultivates humor during hand-to-hand combat.

The substance of humor can also be sounds. A musician blows a saxophone and we hear the sound of birds chirping. The visual comedy of cartoons is enhanced with humorous sounds and the vocal effects of voice actors like Mel Blanc.

As we’ll see, humor kernels can also be formed from abstract ideas like behavior norms.

Sometimes words are funny merely from the way they sound. In English, words like ‘schnoz’ or ‘thingamabobber’ sound funny even apart from what they mean. The sound of these words subconsciously and humorously clashes with the abstracted generic sound of more ordinary words like ‘people’ or ‘window’. The comic archetype of a chronically unlucky person is known by the Yiddish word ‘schlimazel’, and the word persists in part because the word itself sounds funny.

Accents and dialects can sound humorous if the pronunciation patterns are noticeably different than what is typically heard (if it’s very close, it’s not detectable as nonsense).

Something can look funny and sound funny at the same time. It’s easy for humor kernels to materialize together when they have different forms. Multiple humor kernels are called Humor Notes.

Return to to Kernel.

Continue to the second Kernel component Humor Notes.