More Reasons To Like Nordic Comedy

"Daddy! Look at the funny man!” exclaimed our four-year-old the other day while out shopping in our local branch of Morrisons (there are “more reasons” to shop at “Morrisons” after all – a pun of questionable quality which went undetected in our house for some time, despite the best efforts of Nick Hancock, Alan Hansen, Denise Van Outen, Lulu and, err… Barry George, probably…)

Anyway, looking directly to where his tiny digits were pointing, I spotted an average-looking chap going about his business filling his basket with bread, canned food and other sundry items.
“Why is he a funny man?” I tentatively asked.
“He’s got orange hair!” he replied.

Surely enough, the chap was a “ginger”, though I was baffled as to why would this render him instantly amusing to a four-year-old mind (which you have to assume is largely untarnished by notions of social ostracism of our carrot-topped brethren). On pondering this, it occurred to me that the comedic properties of gingers may be an inherited trait passed down through the generations. Is there an evolutionary reason why gingers are amusing?

Perhaps the “ginger jesters” that walk among us were necessary light relief to our ancestors as some kind of Neanderthal entertainers, while in the modern world is it coincidence that so many clowns have red hair? Historically, has the expansion of the human skull to accommodate the increased brain capacity necessitated a requirement for light relief, and have the ginger genes been allowed to pass down ancestrally in order to fill this void?

Everyone knows that red hair is indicative of the presence of Viking genes. Logic states, therefore, that Scandinavia must be the most amusing place on the planet. I’ve never witnessed any Swedish comedy, but I bet it’s brilliant.