If you’ve been following my blog posts for any length of time—first, thank you—and second, you know that I love to write about certain patterns evident within humor. One of these is deception. There seems to be a lot of it showing up in a variety of humorous content, in jokes, true-life anecdotes, stand-up performances, and sitcoms of every stripe. Comedians relate stories about other people lying, as well as those times when they felt compelled to do the same.

We find this behavior to be a central theme in quite a few American sitcoms over the decades. There were shows like My Favorite Martian, Mr. Ed, Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, Get Smart, Bosom Buddies, and Mork and Mindy whose main characters led double lives that had to be kept hidden from those outside a select inner circle. Movies such as Tootsie, Mrs. Doubtfire, Weekend at Bernie’s, Superbad, The Bird Cage, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Wedding Crashers, and Fifty First Dates all had significant plot lines that centered on deception.

The Mutual Vulnerability Theory can help explain this relationship between lies and

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