The Ha-Ha’s

The 2007 HA-HA’S

La Jolla, CA – With apologies to Oscar, we’re sorry to eclipse the Academy Awards, but in the tradition of the Nobel Prizes and the Darwin Awards . . . we present the first annual HA-HA’S.

No joke!

• “Talladega Nights” raced by “Borat” for Best Film Comedy.
• Newcomer underdog “Entourage” beat the popular favorite “Ugly Betty” to an ugly pulp for Best Sitcom.
• Robin Williams (“Man of the Year”) beamed past William Shatner (“Boston Legal”) for Best Comedic Actor.
• America Ferrara (“Ugly Betty”) broke away from Jennifer Aniston (“The Break-Up”) for Best Comedic Actress.
• The real-life improv guys on “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” stole Funniest Non-Sitcom TV Show from the pseudo-real-life reporting of “The Daily Show.”
• Researchers Ronald Berk and Joy Nanda, of John Hopkins University, won one of the HA-HA’S in the category of Serious Research on Funny Topics for their study “A Randomized Trial of Humor Effects on Test Anxiety and Test Performance,” (soon to be a major motion picture!) [Note: Real, honest-to-goodness, scientifically-valid, verifiable—you could look it up!—research.]
• “SpongeBob SquarePants” is more real than “Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends,” and made off with the HA-HA’S for Best Kids’ TV Cartoon.
• And Aaron Chwatt, a.k.a. Red Buttons, passed (away) Alfred E. Newman for the coveted Lifetime Achievement Award. [“He would find it hysterical that a dead guy beat a fictional character,” observed a Button family member.]

“The HA-HA’S is not a statue, it’s more a state-of-mind,” explained a HA-HA’S judge. “And besides, we didn’t have a budget to make a statue. Maybe next year.”

The HA-HA’S are the creation of Karyn Buxman, a speaker, author and freakin’ funny nurse that studies the art and science of humor. (“HA-HA’S” stands for the “HumorLab Award for Humor in Arts & Sciences.”)
“The HA-HA’S honor excellence in the world of humor,” says Karyn Buxman. “They cover all aspects of humor, in all of its forms.

“On the art/performance side of humor, the awards recognize acting, expressing and creating humor. On the science/research side of humor, the awards recognize the neurological, biological and psychological research into how humor works, and why it is important.”

Buxman takes humor seriously (no, that’s not an oxymoron). She is a researcher and practitioner in the field of applied humor. As a researcher she conducts original studies (most recently on “How Humor Goes to the Bottom Line” in corporations); and as a practitioner she presents what she calls “insights cleverly disguised as humor” in keynote speeches. Even her background foreshadowed her lifelong calling: She was born and raised in Hannibal, Missouri, the home of that other great American humorist (Mark Twain).

“The difference,” smiles Buxman, “is that I’m not afraid to use my real name. And, of course, that I’m still alive.”

Buxman received a masters degree in mental health medicine by studying the effects of humor on hospital patients. (“It may really be true that ‘laughter is the best medicine’,” she says seriously.) She is a recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Association for Applied & Therapeutic Humor (a real organization: www.AATH.org).

Karyn Buxman has offices in La Jolla, London, Tokyo and Kazakhstan—although rumor has it that some of those offices may be virtual. The organization employs an indefinite number of professionals and an even more indefinite number of non-professionals.

These additional HA-HA’S were awarded this week:

• Demetri Martin stood up and walked away with top honors as Funniest Stand-Up Comedian.
• The Iraq War won a special Anti-HA-HA’S for the Least Funny Thing of the Year. (Edging out Donald Trump’s hair.)
• “Over the Hedge” skated past “Ice Age: The Meltdown” and “Happy Feet” for Best Cartoon Film.
• And George W. Bush won the coveted category of Something That Just Cracks The Judges Up, with his ongoing and masterful mangling of the English language. [“The White House had no comment,” observed one of the judges, who seemed genuinely surprised.]

Categories & Nominations for the 2007 HA-HA’S

Nominated for “Best Film Comedy”:

• “Talladega Nights” (winner)
• “Borat”
• “Little Miss Sunshine”
• “Man of the Year”

Nominated for “Best Comedic Actor”:

• William Shatner in “Boston Legal”
• Will Farrell in “Talladega Nights”
• Robin Williams in “Man of the Year” (winner)
• Sacha Baron Cohen in “Borat”

Nominated for “Best Comedic Actress”:

• Jennifer Aniston in “The Break-Up”
• Teri Hatcher in “Desperate Housewives”
• America Ferrera in “Ugly Betty” (winner)
• Emily Blunt in “The Devil Wears Prada”

Nominated for “Serious Research on Funny Topics”: [Actual scientifical research; statistically valid and all that stuff. Hey, look it up!]

• “A Randomized Trial of Humor Effects on Test Anxiety and Test Performance,” by Ronald Berk & Joy Nanda; at Johns Hopkins University; published in the “International Journal of Humor Research” (2006, vol. 19-4, p. 425-454) (winner)
• “Humor and Leadership Style,” by Janet Holmes & Meredity Marra; at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand; published in the “International Journal of Humor Research” (2006, vol. 19-2, p. 119-138)
• “Effects of Humor-Centered Activity on Disruptive Behavior in Patients,” by Antonio Higueras, Hugo Carretero-Dios, Jose P. Munoz, Esterh Idini, Ana Ortiz, Francisco Rincon, David Prieto Merino, and Maria M. Rodriguez del Aguila; published in the “International Journal of Clinical and Health Psychology”
• “Learning to Laugh (Automatically): Computational Models for Humor Recognition” by Rada Mihalcea (University of North Texas) & Carlo Strapparava (Istituto per la Ricerca Scientifica e Tecnologica, Italy); published in “Computational Intelligence” (vol. 22 (2), pp. 126–142)

Nominated for “Best Cartoon Film”:

• “Happy Feet”
• “Ice Age: The Meltdown”
• “Over the Hedge” (winner)
• “Open Season”

Nominated for “Best Kids’ TV Cartoon”:

• “SpongeBob SquarePants” (winner)
• “Ed, Edd n Eddy”
• “Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends”
• “Mr. Meaty”

Nominated for “Best Sitcom”:

• “The Office”
• “Desperate Housewives”
• “Ugly Betty”
• “Entourage” (winner)

Nominated for “Funniest Non-Sitcom TV Show”:

• “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno”
• “Late Night with David Letterman”
• “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” (winner)
• “The Daily Show”
• “Saturday Night Live”

Nominated for “Something That Just Cracks the Judges Up”:

• Paris Hilton sans panties
• George Bush’s mangling of the English Language (winner)
• Donald Trump’s hair
• “Mentos in Diet Coke” videos on YouTube
• Pluto demoted; reclassified as “dwarf planet”

Nominated for “Lifetime Achievement in Humor”:

• Don Knots, a.k.a. Barney Fife
• Al Lewis, a.k.a. Grandpa Munster
• Aaron Chwatt, a.k.a. Red Buttons (winner)
• Art Buchwald, a.k.a. Art Buchwald
• Alfred E. Newman

Nominated for “Funniest Stand-Up Comedian”:

• Sarah Silverman
• Dane Cook
• Demetri Martin (winner)
• Rickey Smiley

Nominated for an “Anti-HA-HA’S”—representing the least funny thing of the year:

• Airport security
• The Iraq War (winner)
• Mel Gibson’s drunken faux pas
• Violent protests over comic depictions of Muhammad
• North Korea’s nuclear weapons test
• ALL of last year’s Academy Awards nominees for Best Picture: “Brokeback Mountain”; “Capote”; “Good Night and Good Luck”; “Crash”; “Munich”