Planet Funny: How Comedy Took Over Our Culture

Jeopardy! champion Jennings (Maphead) examines the evolution of humor, asserting that “today, in a clear sign of evolution totally sliding off the rails, our god is not strength, or efficiency... but funniness.” Rather than going down the rote historical path of key performances, movies, and sitcoms, Jennings goes deeper, attempting to nail down the slippery definition of “funny” and track how it’s evolved even though jokes often don’t age well or hold up to scrutiny. It’s a philosophical conundrum Jennings expertly navigates throughout the book, turning over concepts like the miasma of hipster irony (taken too far and “you wind up with a society so cynical that caring about anything seems suspect”), absurdity (a fragile and subjective sensibility “because we scarcely know what we’re laughing at ourselves”), and the accelerated frequency of jokes in modern sitcoms. He colors his narrative with fun and surprising asides, noting that Lincoln read a long-winded joke about a traveling salesman before introducing his revisions to the Emancipation Proclamation and the first celebrity roast was held in Athens in 423 B.C.E. Jennings’s remarkable research and clever hand make an impressive and highly entertaining work that pop culture enthusiasts will not want to miss. (May)