Absurd Humor

Two muffins in an oven. The first one goes: “Hot in here, isn’t it?”
The other one says: “AAAAAAH! A TALKING MUFFIN!”

DEFINITION OF A JOKE: “A joke conveys information in a funny way.”

Content of the Joke: A muffin is surprised that there are muffins who can talk.

In a funny way: Yes.

MECHANISM OF A JOKE: “A joke adds information in a way that triggers a sudden cognitive shift.”

The information that triggers the cognitive shift are the words “a talking muffin”. The rules that in this story it is normal that muffins are capable of a speech, turned out to be wrong.

THE FORMULA: “Disappoint an assumption by fulfilling a second assumption in a surprising and satisfying way.”

Assumption: We assume that talking muffins are normal in the context of this joke.

A second assumption is fulfilled: Yes. Not every muffin seems to know of the existence of other talking muffins. And because of our prior knowledge on how jokes and their realities work, we simply accepted the absurd reality of talking muffins.

Surprising: Yes.

Satisfying: Yes. Because it fulfills all three conditions (Humorous, Harmless, Compatible)

Humorous: Yes. Because

1) Behavior (The tendency to laugh or to grin): Yes.
2) Cognitive (Something is intellectually perceived as “funny”): Yes.
3) Emotional (The positive feeling of amusement): Yes.

Harmless: Yes. The scenario is strictly fictional.

Harmless according to the Benign Violation Theory: The norm of how an absurd joke normally works, gets violated. That fictive worlds are beholden to their own rules gets violated. It is a meta-joke and plays on how absurd jokes normally work. But the violation is harmless.

Is it still in a way compatible with the original assumption: Yes. It is an absurd joke, so we accept that it even plays with the form of the joke.

Unexpected Change that turns out to be benign: Yes. That we assume that all muffins can talk in this joke but then it turns out to be untrue is an unexpected change that turns out to be benign.