School For Good Living Podcasts

Peter McGraw is a professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, but he’s also been a stand-up comedian, humorist, adventurer, game show host, and author. All this came about when he developed an itch to solve the age-old question: Why is comedy funny? He found the age-old answers problematic, and so embarked on a journey to discover the true answer that entailed traveling 91,000 miles, trying his hand at stand-up comedy, and hosting his own game show Funny or True. He’s written two books about the experience: The Humor Code, in which he and Joel Warner document the journey, and Shtick to Business, in which he presents the value of his findings in a business context. Today Peter joins me to talk about his journey and what he’s learned from it. He talks about the common denominator of all comedy, what makes a good comic, and the “benign violation” theory. He discusses the previously accepted theories of comedy and expands on his own. He presents comedy as a universal art form, notes its link to both confi