Watching someone falls over is arguably one of the funniest things ever. It is as if we are naturally inclined to burst out in laughter when someone experiences an accidental tumble. Legendary actor Charlie Chaplin probably pioneered the “fall over” comedy in moving pictures. But science also purports to have a theory as to why we find it so funny when watching some unfortunate person lose their balance and hit the floor. Peter McGraw is an associate professor at the University of Colorado Boulder and the director of the Humor Research Lab (aka HuRL). He and his colleague Caleb Warren have developed a theory that explains why it’s so funny when people fall down. Their benign violation theory proposes that something is funny if three conditions are met. First, ordinary life is somehow thrown off balance. They call this a violation — “anything that threatens the way you think the world ought to be.”  Second, this violation is benign. No one gets hurt. Finally, these first two conditions must happen simultaneously. So here is a compilation of people landing on their backsides.

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