"Jokester" is a

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imagination, imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, Paral ...

short story A short story is a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest t ...

by American writer

Isaac Asimov Isaac Asimov ( ; 1920 – April 6, 1992) was an American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University. During his lifetime, Asimov was considered one of the "Big Three" science fiction writers, along with Robert A. Heinlein and ...

. It first appeared in the December 1956 issue of '' Infinity Science Fiction'', and was reprinted in the collections '' Earth Is Room Enough'' (1957) and ''

Robot Dreams ''Robot Dreams'' (1986) is a collection of science fiction short stories by American writer Isaac Asimov, illustrated by Ralph McQuarrie. The title story is about Susan Calvin's discovery of a robot with rather disturbing dreams. It was writte ...

'' (1986). It is one of a loosely connected series of stories concerning a fictional computer called Multivac.

Plot summary

Noel Meyerhof is a "Grand Master", one of a small cadre of Earth's recognised geniuses, who has the insight to know what questions to ask Multivac. But a computer scientist is concerned that Meyerhof is acting erratically. As a known joke-teller, he has been discovered feeding jokes and riddles into Multivac. By computer analysis, the characters in the story investigate the origin of humour, particularly why there seems to be no such thing as an original joke, except for puns. Every normal joke is something that was originally heard from someone else. The computer eventually tells them that humour is actually a psychological study tool imposed on the human race by

extraterrestrials Extraterrestrial life, colloquially referred to as alien life, is life that may occur outside Earth and which did not originate on Earth. No extraterrestrial life has yet been conclusively detected, although efforts are underway. Such life might ...

studying mankind, similarly to how humans study mice. They needed to isolate the responses to their jokes from original ones, so they "programmed" us to react differently to puns. The characters of the story conjecture that figuring this fact out makes humour useless as a tool, so the aliens will cease using it. And suddenly nothing is ever funny again.

External links

* {{Authority control Multivac short stories by Isaac Asimov 1956 short stories Works originally published in Infinity Science Fiction