What's So Funny?

Overview

Objectives/Goals My project looked at how humor in cartoons changes with age for children in 3rd through 8th grades. The goal of this project was to try to understand why kids laugh and what they think is funny in popular cartoons. Methods/Materials I asked students, and some adults, about their cartoon reading habits, and to rate 12 cartoons for their degree of humor and answer why they thought the cartoon was funny or not. Results I analyzed 172 questionnaires from grades 3 to 8. The results generally support the hypothesis that younger children find humor in cartoons because of the drawings and expressions, while older children and adults look for humor in situations, meanings, and implied jokes included with the drawings. Conclusions/Discussion Lower school children (grades 3 to 8) definitely enjoy reading comics because they find them funny. I hypothesized that younger kids that are in 3rd-5th grade would like cartoons more for the drawings and expressions on the cartoon characters# faces. This was clearly true for Peanuts, but also for Calvin and Hobbes and Garfield. I also hypothesized that kids that are in 6th-8th grade would enjoy cartoons more for the meaning and joke, along with the drawings. This was shown in responses to Garfield, Zits and Lukovitch, and to a lesser extent in Baby Blues and Hagar. Thus, my hypothesis seemed to be mostly correct.

Competition history

• CSEF 2010 Behavioral & Social Sciences · Entry J0315

Resources

• CSEF project summary ↗

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