Fatal Jokes: Form Lord Dunsany to Monthy Phyton

Jokes are lyrics that trigger laughter in the listener due to a "mental short-circuit" of expectations of what is heard versus the ending, or that touch on themes related to modesty that trigger laughter as a form of defense against embarrassment.

Resisting a joke is a real challenge (as in shows such as Documental or LOL - Who's Laughing is Out), since laughing is a natural stimulus that can be suppressed with difficulty.

Because of their ability to make the victim laugh against the will of the victim, jokes are often compared to tickling, or it is said that it is necessary to tickle serious guys who do not laugh at jokes.

In Lord Dunsany's short story "The three jokes" there is an emissary from hell who buys the virtue of the protagonist, that of deeming women all ugly, in exchange for three jokes, seemingly trivial, but which will literally make the recipients die of laughter, but only the first time they are read. Very funny and sinister at the same time.

In "Dragon Ball Z" King Kai asks his potential students to force him to laugh with a joke. These tell bad jokes that the master, however, finds irresistibly funny and cannot help but laugh.

The most famous example is probably the sketch "The Funniest Joke in the World" from Monty Python's Flying Circus.

Ernest Scribbler is an author who invented a tremendously effective joke: he himself, after writing it, dies of irrepressible laughter.

His mother, though saddened by the death of her son she has just witnessed, no sooner does she read the paper than she starts laughing unrestrainedly and dies in turn.

The joke is so powerful that even associating it with a sad melody is not enough to leave the listener unharmed.

The joke then is developed by the British army as a weapon against the German army. A British soldier is tortured by the Germans to reveal it, but when he does they are left stone dead.

When the war ended, for security reasons the joke was buried with a plaque that read "The Unknown Joke" ("The Unknown Joke").

These tales or skits expand, to grotesque levels, the ability of jokes to make the listener laugh against his or her will, even when he or she decides not to, with comic or tragic effects depending on the situation.