So This Irishman Walks Out of a Bar

The words in the title of today’s blog are emblazoned on t-shirts in some of Key West’s infamous tourist trap shops on Duval Street. The punchline, in smaller print, is a favorite of mine: “No, really. It can happen!” I still laugh every time I see it. I’m thinking of this shirt now because of the “walks into a bar” humor I brought up in my last blog.

Alcohol, or rather its stupefying effects on humans, has been played up for humor since the days of W.C. Fields (“I cook with wine, sometimes I even add it to the food”) and Shakespeare’s Falstaff way before that. Didn’t he [Falstaff] say something like “Sack. More Sack. My kingdom for some bloody sack!”? (If you’re not familiar, and I was not, sack is a sweet wine “fortified” with brandy.)

We seem to think drunks are funny. Witness the careers of Charlie Chaplin, Joe E. Brown, Red Skelton, Tim Conway, Foster Brooks, Marie Dresler, Jackie Gleason, Dean Martin, Chevy Chase, Amy Schumer, and the list goes on and on. Also witness “Drunk History,” a show whose reason for existing still escapes me.

Part of the reason we find inebriation hilarious at times is pure slapstick. Drunk people–especially comedians portraying drunk people–stumble, fumble, and slur their words. So, pratfalls like Chaplin and Buster Keaton and others made famous amuse us. The official reason behind this behavior, at least according to Psychology Today, is that “alcohol causes Purkinje neurons [PNs] in the cerebellum to become discombobulated.” PNs apparently “play a pivotal role in orchestrating motor movements and are the seat of muscle memory.” Alcohol “alters the firing rate of Purkinje neurons by inhibiting each neuron’s sodium-potassium pump.” This results in the aforementioned discombobulation, I assume. (In one movie scene, a very intoxicated W.C. Fields had to use a funnel to get a key into a keyhole.)

So, drunk people fall down, and we laugh. Why? Scientific American says this happens when a “play frame” has been established, that is, when a real-life event happens in a nonserious context, which allows for “an atypical psychological reaction.” Another says we laugh due to “a sudden radical deviation from expected patterns of behavior in a situation that concludes by being nonthreatening to the perceiver.” A big part of that nonthreatening bit is that no one gets hurt. The Little Tramp falls down and pops right back up.

Expanding on the Scientific American notion, Slate tells us that “the majority of humor experts today subscribe to some variation of the incongruity theory, the idea that humor arises when there’s an inconsistency between what people expect to happen and what actually happens.” Another researcher came up with the “benign violation theory, the idea that humor happens when something seems wrong or threatening, but is simultaneously OK or safe.” Or, in simpler terms, it’s wrong to laugh when someone falls down but, again, okay to do so if they’re okay. (This is something, if you haven’t seen it, that Chive TV thrives on.)

You may be wondering where all of this is going. I am, too. Perhaps our enjoyment of watching falling down drunks (or others plummeting into canyons or being blown up or run over by a truck, e.g., Wile E. Coyote) comes because their imperviousness to harm imparts an unconscious sense of immortality or perhaps their “never say die” (literally) attitude inspires us not to let adversity get us down, as in “I’ve fallen and I can get up.” Or perhaps I’m overthinking it. Maybe it’s just funny.

I could spend more time trying to figure it out here. Or I could go downtown and stand in front of Irish Kevins and see if anyone actually does walk out (being carried out does not count). That seems the more productive activity. Should someone exit the bar, I’ll be sure to ask them about the discombobulatory state of their Purkinje neurons.

(Published originally on RatBlurt™, April 18, 2022.)