Surreal humour

's 1885 lithograph Edward Lear, Aged 73 and a Half, and His Cat Foss, Aged 16 Surreal humour is the effect of the illogical and absurd being used for humorous effect. Under such premises, people can identify precursors and early examples of surreal humour at least since the 19th century, such as in Lewis Carroll's ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass'', both of which use the illogical and absurd (hookah-smoking caterpillars, croquet matches using live flamingos as mallets, etc.) for humorous effect. Many of Edward Lear's children's stories and poems contain nonsense and are basically surreal in approach. For example, The Story of the Four Little Children Who Went Round the World (1871) is filled with contradictory statements and odd images intended to provoke amusement, such as the following: == Relationship with dadaism and futurism ==

's Fountain (1917), an inverted urinal signed "R. Mutt". In the early 20th century, several avant-garde movements, including the dadaists, surrealists, and futurists began to argue for an art that was random, jarring and illogical. The goals of these movements were in some sense serious, and they were committed to undermining the solemnity and self-satisfaction of the contemporary artistic establishment of the time. As a result, much of their art was intentionally amusing. One example is Marcel Duchamp's Fountain (1917), an inverted urinal signed "R. Mutt". This became one of the most famous and influential pieces of art in history, and one of the earliest examples of the found object movement. It is also a joke, relying on the inversion of the item's function as expressed by its title as well as its incongruous presence in an art exhibition. == Etymology and development ==

The word surreal first began to be used to describe a type of aesthetic of the early 1920s. Surreal humour is also found frequently in avant-garde theatre such as Waiting for Godot and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. In the United States, S. J. Perelman (1904–1979) has been identified as the first surrealist humour writer. Surrealist humour appeared on British radio from 1951 to 1960 by the cast of The Goon Show: Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers, and Harry Secombe. The Goons' work influenced the American radio comedy troupe the Firesign Theatre (1966–2012). The Firesigns wrote sophisticated comic radio plays, many of which were recorded on albums. Surrealist humour is predominantly approached in cinema where the suspension of disbelief can be stretched to absurd lengths by logically following the consequences of unlikely, reversed or exaggerated premises. Luis Buñuel is a principal exponent of this, especially in The Exterminating Angel. It is a prominent feature in the television and cinematic work of the British comedy troupe Monty Python (1969–2014). Other examples include The Falls by Peter Greenaway and Brazil by Terry Gilliam. Surrealist humour in the United States of America has become increasingly popular in American animation for both children and adults; examples occur on Cartoon Network and its adult oriented programming block Adult Swim, and on Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, Disney Channel, Netflix, Hulu, and Fox Broadcasting Company. Noteworthy American animated shows include Space Ghost Coast to Coast, Drawn Together, The Amazing World of Gumball, The Simpsons, Family Guy, American Dad!, Regular Show, South Park, Ren and Stimpy, ''Rocko's Modern Life, SpongeBob SquarePants, Adventure Time, Rick and Morty, Futurama, Phineas and Ferb, Chowder (TV series), The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack, Wander Over Yonder, Gravity Falls, Looney Tunes, Robot Chicken, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Million Dollar Extreme Presents: World Peace, Beavis and Butthead, The Owl House, Bojack Horseman, Fantasmas (TV series), and Smiling Friends''. Contemporary Internet meme culture, such as Weird Twitter, Skibidi Toilet, and YouTube poop, is also influenced by surreal humour. == Analysis ==

Mary K. Rodgers and Diana Pien analysed the subject in an essay titled "Elephants and Marshmallows" (subtitled "A Theoretical Synthesis of Incongruity-Resolution and Arousal Theories of humour"), and wrote that "jokes are nonsensical when they fail to completely resolve incongruities," and cited one of the many permutations of the elephant joke: "Why did the elephant sit on the marshmallow?" "Because he didn't want to fall into the cup of hot chocolate." "The joke is incompletely resolved in their opinion," noted Elliott Oring, "because the situation is incompatible with the world as we know it. Certainly, elephants do not sit in cups of hot chocolate." Oring defined humour as not the resolution of incongruity, but "the perception of appropriate incongruity," that all jokes contain a certain amount of incongruity, and that absurd jokes require the additional component of an "absurd image," with an incongruity of the mental image. == See also ==