Peter McGraw

Evan Nix's top picks for the Laugh Track Comedy Festival

The Laugh Track Comedy Festival will descend on Denver tonight, bringing three days of comedy performers and films that are sure to make your sides split. To help you navigate the thirty short films and over forty comedians, festival co-director Evan Nix sent us his top ten picks of events not to mi ... More >>

Funny Things Happen

A Funny Thing Happened

Goodbye Westword, hello Humor Code: I'm off on a global search for what makes things funny

​After five years at Westword, I'm bidding you all adieu (at least for now). I'm taking a leave to work on the Humor Code, a book project in which I travel around the world with a humor professor in search of what makes things funny. Crazy? Yes. Foolhardy? Possibly. A damn good time? Definitel ... More >>

Peter McGraw, Humor Research Lab director, takes his comedy theory to the International Humor Conference

Peter McGraw.​As described in the cover story "The Nutty Professor," Boulder professor Peter McGraw, with the help of his Humor Research Lab (HuRL), has come up with a universal theory of comedy they call the Benign Violation Theory (BVT). Last week, McGraw and theory co-creator Caleb Warren s ... More >>

Peter McGraw's humor theory gets the artistic treatment at Fort Collins's Gallery Underground

Peter McGraw.​"The Nutty Professor" subject Peter McGraw's provocative Benign Violation Theory (BVT), which seeks to explain all of comedy, has been generating a lot of attention (including a story in Wired). But the award for the most unusual and creative response goes to the Gallery Undergr ... More >>

Rocky Flats Cold War Museum: Memories of the first (surreal) Rocky Flats museum

​As recently noted in Westword, plans are heating up to build a permanent Rocky Flats Cold War Museum in a onetime Arvada post office. It won't be the first Rocky Flats museum, however. That distinction belongs to an operation that used to exist on the grounds of the nuclear weapons plant -- o ... More >>

The Anthology of Rap: Co-editor & hip-hop professor Adam Bradley has epic rap of his own

​The Anthology of Rap caused a stir nationwide last year. The first scholarly compendium of rap lyrics drew praises from Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Chuck D, but also courted controversy over alleged mistakes. But coverage missed the back story of anthology co-editor and CU-Boulder professor Ada ... More >>

Marijuana patients get their humor tested by nutty professor Peter McGraw in Wired

Peter McGraw.​Last August, I detailed the strange story of Peter McGraw, a CU-Boulder professor dead set on explaining what makes things funny. Since then, the odd tale has continued: A piece I penned for Wired magazine describes McGraw's continued efforts to crack the humor code, a scholarly ... More >>

Quiznos' new commercials are the freakiest things we've ever seen -- but will they sell?

​The Denver-bred Quiznos chain is an odd duck. While its toasted sandwiches are now sold coast to coast, it's courted controversy because of its franchise practices. And its commercials, while memorable, are pretty damn strange, whether it's singing mutant hamsters, sexualized talking ovens or ... More >>

Dead Drop Denver: Guerilla tech project allows file sharing by downloading "from the wall"

​The Dead Drop movement/art project is tech-savvy variation on freedom of expression. All around the country, bare-bone USB keys are being affixed to walls, railings and trees so people everywhere can use them for offline, anonymous file sharing with their fellow techies -- poems, photos, reci ... More >>

Alex Bogusky and COMMON: Can the Boulder "consumer revolutionary" change the world?

Alex Bogusky​Alex Bogusky was the boy-king of advertising. Then, after moving much of his superstar firm Crispin Porter Bogusky to Boulder, he retired from the ad world last July, causing shock waves. Now, installed in his Boulder-based FearLess Cottage, he's launched COMMON, a community-foc ... More >>

FunnyPoliceReports.com: Humor professor Peter McGraw gets into the online meme game

​As described in the August cover story "The Nutty Professor," Boulder professor Peter McGraw is hard at work trying to crack the humor code. He and his team at the Humor Research Lab (HuRL) have subjected test subjects to Hot Tub Time Machine clips, dirty jokes and raunchy ads to see what, ex ... More >>

Westword readers praise Prayer One and comment on John Hickenlooper taking a shower

Laugh studies: Could Peter McGraw's "funny theory" power a controversial humor project?

​CU's Peter McGraw, subject of our feature "The Nutty Professor," has come up with a new general theory of humor -- the "Benign Violation Theory" -- that scholars say could be a major step forward in the field. Maybe it's time for McGraw to team up with a group of Northwestern University resea ... More >>

Funny stuff: Who should get credit for unlocking secrets of laughter with benign violation theory?

​As noted in last week's cover story, "The Nutty Professor," CU prof Peter McGraw has come up with what he sees as a new theory of humor -- the benign violation theory -- and some scholars think it's a major step forward in the field. Others, however, aren't so convinced, because they believe ... More >>

World's funniest joke & other selections from the silliness syllabus of nutty CU prof Peter McGraw

​As detailed in this week's cover story, "The Nutty Professor," CU-Boulder prof Peter McGraw thinks he's discovered the answer to what makes us laugh. His conclusions are based on lots of data -- i.e., jokes. Check out a sampling below of zingers collected from his friends and colleagues, as w ... More >>

What makes us laugh? Professor Peter McGraw thinks he's found the answer to one of humanity's greatest questions

Video: CU Prof Peter McGraw tries his humor theory at the Squire, Denver's toughest room

Peter McGraw.​This week's cover story, "The Nutty Professor," profiles Peter McGraw, a CU-Boulder professor who believes he's discovered the answer to what makes things funny -- a conundrum that's stumped academics for centuries. To test his theory, McGraw got on stage at the Squire Lounge's ... More >>