The History of Humour

Humor has evolved over history. These days people are able to say things that were unthinkable and might even have gotten someone in jail just a few decades ago. There are however some trends in humour that have always been around. On this page we will dive into the recent history of humour and the ways it has changed over the last century.

Cinema and television

In the early 1900s new media were on the rise. The popularisation of radio and the introduction of cinema revolutionised the spread of information and entertainment like never before. This allowed comedians to become world-famous for the first time. Legends like Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy and the Three Stooges used cinema to their advantage and became world-famous for, mainly slapstick, humour. As the television was introduced, more and more comedians found their way into people’s homes. The situational humour has proved particularly successful, mainly in the shape of the sitcom. Sitcoms are now available both in animated (The Simpsons, South Park, Futurama) as well as in live-action forms (How I met your mother, Married with Children, Californication). Besides the sitcom, popular television comedy includes satire (The Colbert Report, The Daily Show) and sketch shows (Monty Pythons Flying Circus, A bit of Fry&Laurie). Also stand-up comedians are often broadcast in order to reach a larger audience. Some stand-up comedians have even made a successful transition from stand-up to sitcom, such as Jerry Seinfeld, who created hit sitcom Seinfeld.

Radio

Along with cinema and before television, radio quickly moved into people’s households. This led to several radio comedy shows being created such as The Cuckoo Hour in 1929 and Stoopnagle and Budd in 1931. Even after some of the big radio names made the move to television, radio comedy managed to survive and radio comedy productions are still being made by organisations such as the BBC and CBC. Some notable radio comedies include the CBC Festival of Funny, The Irrelevant Show, Le Show and Dead Ringers. Dead Ringers is among the radio comedies that moved to television. Other shows that managed to make a successful television version include Have I got News for You, Red Dwarf and The League of Gentlemen. These days many premium radio stations around the world feature some sort of comedy or humour programming and several (mainly online) radio stations are focussed on comedy entirely. Radio has also paved the way for many of today’s parody comedians like “Weird Al” Yankovic, who has also appeared on television, in cinema and now performs at venues around the world.

Stand-up

Stand-up comedy takes its name from the fact that the comedian is generally standing up on a stage, in front of a crowd. This type of comedy started gaining momentum in the 1970s. Generally the comedian comments on the current state of affairs, politics, or takes experience from their own life for comedic purpose. Stand-up is a very broad type of humour, which can include other types and subtypes of humour. In a way, stand-up can be considered a medium like television, radio or internet which is used to convey the humour. Some people don’t consider stand-up a medium, but purely a type of humour, as it often utilizes other media such as television and the internet to broadcast the stand-up performance.

Internet

The internet revolutionised the world in a way never seen before. The easy, fast and low-cost spread and exchange of information gave rise to a huge number of new comedians and comedy groups. Platforms like Youtube and Funny or Die are full of parody, original humour, home-made sitcoms, comedy reviews and much more. Some notable names in online comedy and humour include Channel Awesome, Nerd3, Smosh and Bo Burnham.

As humour has evolved over the last century and has learned to use multiple media to broadcast itself, people worldwide have been exposed to humour from other regions. This is beneficial to the mutual understanding of peoples and individuals. It can however also cause outrage, when people see their culture or religion being made fun of abroad. This has even caused riots on occasion. Still it’s interesting to see how humour has evolved over the years and there will be more on the history of humour elsewhere on this blog.