Chatterbox: That's how jokes work

With the Laugh! Festival on us, let us examine the science behind these things we call "jokes." For that we ask visiting English comedian Adam Bloom for he is an expert in this field - his stage act often involves much amusing analysis of the mechanics of comedy. Sometimes the motormouthed Londoner adds a funny-guy parody of The Masked Magician programme, the one where the anonymous conjurer exposed the secrets of the trade. During his time here, Bloom is threatening to bring a variation on the theme, The Five Steps to Becoming a Comic. "I'm basically making fun of bad comedians, telling you how easy it is to make an audience laugh by simply applying a few cheap tricks."

But if you please, Mr Bloom: Why did the chicken cross the road? Analyse that.

"Before I do - and I'm prepared to have a stab at it that wouldn't be indicative of what I do - but it's one of the best questions a journalist has ever asked me."

Golly, thanks.

"Why did the chicken cross the road? It puts in your mind that there is a specific reason for crossing the road and the reason is to get to the other side, which is the bit that is taken as read. So it's taken as read to get to the other side.

"I remember Filthy Rich and Catflap, a Ben Elton sitcom, where they were trying to work out how they were going to get out of their problem. They ponder for ages and then one of them says, 'I've got it,' and other one went, 'What?' and the first one says 'We shall have to think of something else.'

"That's the same formula, isn't it? It's taken as read that the idea doesn't work, so his next idea was to think of something else but it's taken as read that you have to think of something else if the last thing doesn't work.

"So when the idea doesn't work we all think, 'Okay, let's think of something else, so that is an idea in itself. Why did the chicken cross the road? The question really is, 'Why did the chicken want to get to the other side of the road'? That's the original question but it's taken as read to get to the other side. But you just say, 'Why did the chicken cross the road?' So basically, it's just dissecting the language isn't it really? I would love to see that in print."

Well, there it is, and thanks for clearing that up for us.

UP FOR IT, DUDE: Where else can the guy from Dude, Where's My Car? bask in the respect of his peers? Why shouldn't Coyote Ugly's Piper Perabo get the recognition she so richly deserves? And when you think about it, Wilson the Cast Away volleyball did have a certain screen presence didn't he?

Well that's what this year's MTV movie awards seem to think. The always-amusing nominations - for films that the American multiplex nation actually watches rather than just the good stuff - came out this week. And while the above-named all figure in there somewhere, curiously many of the categories do resemble the Oscars. Though up for best picture against Gladiator, Erin Brockovich and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon are comic book actioner X-Men and the otherwise much unloved Hannibal.

Among the more unconventional categories are best kiss, best fight, best action sequence and best dance sequence. And in case you were wondering, Ashton Kutcher of Dude, Where's My Car? figures in the "breakthrough male" category, Perabo is up for the "breakthrough female" and Wilson is co-nominated with Tom Hanks as "best on-screen team." Hope they save him a seat. And we shudder to think what Bjork's going to wear to this one.

BOB A JOB: In the situations vacant of this paper the other day was an ad for "Bob Marley look-a-likes wanted to help promote the release of new album," with the Auckland box number of Universal Music which is releasing yet another compilation One Love The Very Best of Bob Marley on May 14 to mark the 20th-anniversary of his death on May 11. Quite what the stunt-Bobs will be asked to do - apart from lose their dignity - isn't clear. But if someone turns up at your radio station or record store humming No Woman, No Cry don't freak out, just gently remind them there's a fine line between tribute and insult.

WE'RE NOT HERE, RIGHT NOW: In almost related matters, when one TimeOut staffer rang the contact number for the pro-legalisation of marijuana organisation NORML to find out about the upcoming J-Day, they got very giggly when they heard an answerphone asking them to leave a message after pressing the "hash" key.

UNNATURAL GLOW: In case you were wondering why the disused Meremere Power Station in north Waikato had the lights on, it's doubling for the Hellman-Klein nuclear power plant in Bassett County, Tennessee in the telemovie Atomic Twister, being shot locally.