Colorado: the humor research capital of the world

What’s so funny about Denver?

We are broadcasting today and tomorrow from our member station KUVO in Denver, Colorado, which just so happens to be the humor research capital of the world. There are academics at the University of Colorado who make it their business to figure out what makes things funny. (Tough job, but somebody’s got to do it.)

Peter McGraw is an Assistant Professor of Marketing and Psychology at the University of Colorado. He is the Director of the Humor Research Lab, better known around campus as McGraw’s theory on humor centers around the violation of some moral or social norm. If the violation is benign and there’s a psychological distance between the person telling the joke and his or her subjects, chances are, it’s going to be funny. McGraw likes to use Sarah Silverman’s brand of comedy as a classic example of a comedian who uses a benign, childlike voice to break moral and ethical codes by making jokes about racial and other oft-targeted groups. Take this Funny or Die video as an example.