Trends in situation comedy have always been viewed and remarked upon by journalists and audience members. For writers hoping to pitch a pilot to the UK audience, observing them can be the difference between a full TV series and a firm rejection letter. As such, it's important to be aware of what the public turned onto and what they turn off for.

The current trend for sitcoms has been lurching towards the fly-on-the-wall ‘mockumentary' style popularised by the award-winning series, The Office in 2001, which achieved fame in the UK and the US before the show was sold to various other countries. Overall international viewership is now estimated to be millions worldwide. So it's no wonder that others have tried to copy its format, with varying success. Examples include Angry Boys and Summer Heights High, by Australian comedian Chris Lilley, as well as Little Britain and Come Fly With Me by award-winning duo Matt Lucas and David Walliams. The latest to joining these naturalistic fly-on-the-wall styles is Twenty-Twelve, which portrays the challenges met by the committees and individuals in charge of organising the London: 2012 Olympic Games.

This type of sitcom is modern, flash and often good viewing in today's age, as long as the script is well-written. But there is a more old-fashioned type of sitcom which is making a come-back to challenge it.

The old scripted studio-audience sitcom with a healthy dose of laughs and one-liners and slapstick has been through a long period of being written off by the critics as ‘out of date'. Ancient but classic comedies have made it work. Blackadder and Fawlty Towers regularly come up in ‘Best British Comedy' compilations, and more recent successful examples include Channel 4's Black Books and The IT Crowd, which have garnered almost universal praise despite the studio audience format and somewhat surreal inclusions. They tend to strike a fantastic contrast with the fly-on-the-wall mockumentary style – the ridiculous to the naturalistic, the surreal to the Stanislavski. The return of Jennifer Saunders' Absolutely Fabulous this year and the promise of more Miranda, which has been insanely successful, has only heightened the style and increased its chances for viewership.

A look at the release schedules for the coming twelve months should let you know that there is plenty of comedy on the way in 2012. As well as a slew of sequels (some expected, some not so expected) and remakes, there is also lots of original comedy movies on the way for laugh-fans to get their teeth into.

Fans of gross out fodder will be happy to know the kings of gross out Peter and Bobby Farrelly will be returning this year with their update of The Three Stooges. The Farrellys received some pretty rough reviews for last year's Hall Pass, so audiences will be hoping for a return to form. The Stooges were one of the most popular comedy acts in America for almost 50 years, beginning in the vaudeville era of the 1920s. Their raucous brand of physical humour and broad slapstick is considered a national institution in the States (though they are less well known here in the UK) so pressure is on the Farrellys to get it right.

The Men in Black franchise will also return with its third instalment this summer. Though both the first two films in the series were big time box-office hits, the second has generally being accepted as a big disappointment so it will be interesting to see whether or not Will Smith, Tommy Lee Jones and director Barry Sonnenfed will be able to return the franchise to its early form. 

Fans of Johnny Depp's early nineties youth orientated cop show 21 Jump Street will be interested to note that there is a remake on its way in March. Scripted by and starring Superbad's Jonah Hill early indications are that it is going to be heading in the cop-spoof direction as opposed to the somewhat more serious tone taken by the series.

Eddie Murphy is also due to return to the screen this March in high concept comedy A Thousand Words. The story of a Hollywood agent who is cursed to speak only 1000 more words in his life it certainly comes with an intriguing premise. Though Murphy has been in plenty of solid box-office features in the last few years he hasn't had much critical praise since 2006's Dreamgirls, so perhaps this film will turn the tide.

There is something about the sport of golf that translates into comedy gold. Just think about how many great movies and comedians use golf as the starting point from which they deliver all-time great laughs. Whether it's Rodney Dangerfield upsetting the country club elite in Caddyshack, Adam Sandler wreaking havoc on the PGA in Happy Gilmore or Bob Hope's classic golf material, the sport seems to touch a comic nerve. Perhaps it has something to do with golf's reliance on regulations, dress code, conduct and sportsmanship that makes it so ripe for lampooning. Perhaps it is the old ideas of golf being the sport of the elite which makes it such a soft target for laughs. Or perhaps it is just because it can be such a damned frustrating game to play! Whatever the reason, this collection of funny golf quotes proves just how much mileage can be got from the sport. 

It's contagious, hopefully.

It can be thunderous, reverberating, continuous and uncontrollable - with any luck.

And in recent years it has been prescribed as an ally in combating stress.

Laughter. The innate, enigmatic expression of happiness is, according to a researcher at the Brain and Perception Laboratory at the University of California, uniquely human.

‘Expectation, building tension and ending with an unexpected twist' is the fundamental logic structure of jokes, claims the four-page paper on the neurology of laughter.

Success rests on the elusive punch line says the author, and without it the listener will not experience the necessary ‘flash of insight' - and if it's delivered too early, the joke's life will end prematurely. Vilayanur Ramachandran points out that the best comedians know how to manipulate the timing of a joke perfectly, drawing out the tension to almost unbearable magnitude, leaving the listener throbbing for the explosion and subsequent relief the punch line eventually delivers.

Freud's view is that laughter serves to ‘discharge' pent-up tension. Perhaps the peculiar noise one cannot help but expel is simply the noise of a ‘valve' being opened – letting our emotions flood out.

Clinical evidence suggests laughter sits in the limbic system, as a seizure here can lead to uncontrollable laughter - one such case having resulted in a man laughing himself to death. Damage to the insular cortex has also provided clues to where laughter originates, but the neural basis of humour is still not fully understood.

Researchers at the Institute of Neurology at London University found certain areas of the brain activated when subjects were experiencing joke telling. The areas activated related to learning and understanding. Stanford University researchers pinpointed these regions to an area called the nucleus accumbens. It seems the body rewards the behaviour of laughing by releasing a dose of dopamine - a natural opiate.

A ‘witty' person has the ability to twist and manipulate words and play with vocabulary, they are exceptionally intelligent and have a good command over language. Often it is an inherent character, but it can also be acquired and developed by willful efforts. Making people laugh is an art and it has many advantages - impressing friends, reducing tension in social situations, making people around you have fun. To develop this habit one should have basic knowledge about wittiness.

Nobody knows why human beings laugh and what induces laughter because this varies from person to person and culture to culture. In general, there are a few basic situations that make people laugh. Exaggerating any situation and making it ridiculous induces a sense of fun. There is also the opposite of this that to understate. These are humble ways of being witty. Using words which have different meanings from the context, also known as puns, is another way - Murphy's Law has hundreds of examples of these. Putting down others is another way of creating humor, but the negative aspect in this is that it can often hurt the target's feelings.

The most popular comedians and humorous types of people create their own jokes and one liners. These jokes are waiting to be found in everyday life and exploited. Jokes and what is considered funny constantly changes from time to time. A joke such as ‘ours is a joint family, me and my wife live together' is funny because it is relevant in today's living style, but would not have been deemed funny in the past.

Humor and the human are like two faces of a coin. Humor cannot exist without a human and a human cannot exist without humor. Only humans are gifted with the ability of being humorous and only humans can truly smile and laugh. Humor when used properly lightens any situation and calms the mind.

There are many types of humor. Two of the most popular include slapstick and dry. Slapstick humor is generally more physical, which may include fights, accidents and dancing. This is generally popular with children who enjoy the visual side of things rather than more complex verbal humor. Dry humor, also referred to as deadpan humor, is more verbal and is appreciated by the older and more literate people as linguistic skills play a major role. Simple words used in everyday life are often twisted and presented in unusual forms. Sarcasm and mockery play an important part in this type of humor.

Humor plays a prevalent role in both theatre and art. Comedy plays and shows attract a bigger audience than drama productions. Laughter and humor are so popular because of what they do to the brain. You can escape, relax and forget about the stress and struggles of day-to-day life. Laughter is a clinically proven beater of stress, so it’s no wonder that people flock to watch a comedy show or movie after a long day at work.

Humor is not just the words, but way they are expressed. A script may cause laughter when read by a person with good acting and comedy skills, as it goes hand-in-hand with facial expressions and body language. There are people who create humor just by their body language and their presence and actions are enough to make anybody laugh without dialogue. Charlie Chaplin is perhaps the best example of this. He had such funny body language that he did not need verbal assistance to elicit humor from his audience.

Everybody wants to stay fit and healthy. But when people think of the words ‘fit’ and ‘healthy’, they generally presume that all the work is done below the neck. Not many people would think about the brain when it comes to keeping in shape. The controls all functions and emotions, and a healthy brain reflects a healthy body. To feel fit and healthy, both the mind and the body should be in good shape.

For the brain to stay healthy, your mind should be stress free and feel relaxed. But for the majority of people, this is next to impossible in today’s busy world. Everyone is stressed for one reason or another and stress has become part of life. In order to release this tension, it is important to do some brain exercises. There are several ways to do this, but laughter is the best.

Laughter has got therapeutic values and it can help to improve the immune system. Researchers have found that there is a specific pattern of brain wave activity when the mind is in a humorous state. Many psychologists have stressed the positive effects of laughter on human beings.

When in its humorous state, the brain releases cortisol and epinephrine, which are the stress-beating hormones. It is also known, though research, that laughter triggers the release of anti-bodies and endorphins, which are natural pain killers. When humor is involved, the brains also triggers dopamine, which is a neurotransmitter that regulates the mood, motivation and learning abilities of a person and this also triggers the feeling of pleasure.

Before knowing how to be funny to others, it is important that you can put a smile on your own face at all times. Being happy naturally puts a smile on anybody’s face. Unfortunately, making others smile is a much more difficult task. However, when this does happen, it produces a long-lasting satisfaction for the entertainer. There are many ways of making others smile and being funny is perhaps the biggest one. But what are the best ways to be funny?

Make sure that you get into the habit of always being happy, as this will inspire others to smile and join in the fun. It is worth having some jokes ready with you at all times, so you can tell them next time you are in a social situation and make others laugh with you. Old jokes are good, but often the best way to get laughs is spontaneity and instant jokes based on the situation. Once you have established yourself as a funny person, people will think whatever you say is funny and always laugh with you.

Body language plays an important role towards being funny and it is worth considering what body language is funny. Plenty of books, movies and articles are available; watching them can teach you all about humor and body language. The old Laurel Hardy films, Charlie Chaplin, tommy Cooper and other classic slapstick movies can teach you these secrets. For example, Laurel and Hardy don’t need to do much. For many, just their appearance and body language causes fits of laughter. You can read humorous books, such as ‘Murphy’s Law’, as well as cartoons, like ‘The Beano’, and pick up any more tips on jokes and body language.

Everyone is in a rush. Be it for money, family or work, the list goes on. With the rush of life, come stress, tension, health problems, and generally a lower quality of life. Many people are missing out on the simple joys of life; social moments with other people, spending time with pets and taking in the beauty of nature. These activities are certain to bring a smile to anybody’s face.

But why should we smile and laugh? Through extensive research, it has been proved that laughter is the best stress reliever. When a person laughs, it not only provides a good work-out for muscles, but also stress-busting endorphins are released. Many researches have looked at the positive effects of laughter. It has been scientifically found that laughing reduces the levels of stress hormones, namely cortisol, and also increases the number of natural killer cells – which attack virus and tumor cells.

Since the results of this research got publicity, people have started to realise the importance of laughter. Thousands of laughter clubs have been created and laughter is considered a part of therapy for physical and mental illnesses, as well as being used in mainstream therapy. Laughter tones the muscle, improves cardiovascular functions physically and it can mentally relax you. Laughter has also been found to be of therapeutic value in patients suffering from physical and mental illnesses, including diseases like cancer.

In 1995, the revolutionary idea of laughter yoga came into existence. This started with a few people joining everyday in a park and laughing spontaneously for a few minutes. The effect was spectacular, and there are now more than 6000 laughter clubs worldwide – a number which is growing every day. People from all walks of life, with a number of different issues, are joining courses which teach laughter therapy and the results are generally very positive.

The dictionary describes humour as the value of being funny or the ability to appreciate something that is funny. Humour is simply laughter and just like Milton Berle said, laughter is an instant vacation. A good laughter is medicine and it’s a cure. In fact people laugh even when they are sad as it is a way of expressing their frustrations. Humour is good for our health as well as our social life. It strengthens relationships and cements them. That is why the old saying states that when people are laughing they are definitely not killing each other. It is a sign of happiness and peace among people.

Having a sense of humour is a very important value that one should always have. We all agree that life comes with frustrations and sometimes you even feel like giving up. But with a great sense of humour we are able to overcome them all. That is the reason why somebody once said that losing your laugh is like losing your footing. It is part of our life and the lighter burden that a man ever carried. Taking to time have a very good laughter revives your strength to move ahead. It is strength to the weak and the voice of the voiceless. A great sense of humour creates a bond that cannot be easily broken among a couple. It has been proven that couples who take time to play together and laugh always succeed in their relationship. So as you can see laughter and a good sense of humour will never harm anyone. In fact laughter is like soap to the soul.