From the brains behind brains on, this is the Moment of Um.

Moment of Um comes to you from APM Studios. I'm Nico Gonzalez Whistler.

Um. I produce a kids history podcast you might have. I'm Nico Gonzalez Whistler.

I produce a kids history podcast you might have heard of called forever ago.

And I love jokes.

Knock-doc jokes, riddles, harmless pranks, and especially fart jokes.

Here's one of my favorites.

What do you call a farting fairy?

Stinkerbell.

Or, or, okay, what about?

Knock, knock, who's there?

Figs.

Figs, who? Figs, the doorbell. It's broken.

Tough crowd. Anyway, I was so excited when an absolutely toe-tickling question about jokes came to us from one of our listeners.

They wanted to know how jokes first started and why. Well, this is a question I love, and it's also a question where we know a lot more about the why than the when.

My name is Anna Goldfield, and I'm a producer at Brains-on, and I'm an archaeologist.

So laughter is a behavior that humans have evolved, along with other animals.

There are other animals that

laugh like rats and primates. And it is kind of a stress relief thing. It also provides a way

to bond with everyone around you. If you share a joke with someone, you sort of feel friendlier

towards that person. So it kind of feel friendlier towards that person.

So it kind of relieves tension in that way.

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