Years ago, when I was first starting in comedy, I worked with a headliner comedian who said he hadn’t written a new joke in 11 years. Why do so many comedians and comedy writers have such a difficult time writing material? Are you one of those comedians? Do you write everyday? Do you have a difficult time coming up with stuff that’s funny? That might be your dilemma.
What?!
Yeah, that right there! That might be your dilemma; you are trying to come up with something “Funny.”
A comedian or comedy writer doesn’t just come up with something funny, he’s able to take just about anything and turn it into something funny. See the difference? When you sit down to write; you look at the news, read the N.Y. Times, look at the headlines on the internet. Do you ask yourself, “What’s so funny?” What’s funny? Nothing is funny, because most news reports the facts. (I said most because, well, there’s FOX). But what do you do with something that’s not supposed to be funny? The answer is: you do your job. It’s your job to turn it into something that is funny and you do that in comedy by applying comedic formulas.
Two guys walk into a bar:
I come from a large family:
My father was a bastard:
I’m Irish and American Indian:
I have five kids:
Millions of fish washed up in the harbor around Redondo Beach:
On the face of it are any of these lines funny? If you said yes, you’re either really damn funny or your need your head examined! Either way, both are great qualities for being a comedian:
At first glance, those lines are not funny. They don’t read funny. So, what’s so funny?
What’s funny is that you can take these lines and easily turn them into something that is funny. First, you have to understand the basics of what makes people laugh [link]. Once you understand that, you can start to apply the basic comedy formulas. They are basic, but they are so powerful that, when used correctly, they can trigger the laughter from an audience and that’s what you’re looking for as a comic.
I’ll take these lines and use two comedic formulas (Incongruity or The Reverse) to make the lines funny by doing a take-off (commenting on the sentence).
First, if we know that surprise is the number one element that triggers human laughter, then we know we have to try to get into the head of the listener. Let’s look at the first line:
Two guys walk into a bar. In the listener’s head, what are they thinking? What kind of bar? A bar that serves liquor would probably be the best assumption right? So let’s change the meaning of the word “bar.” What if we changed the meaning of the word bar to like a post or a steel bar that’s hanging so low that we would bump our heads on it if we didn’t duck. Now how does the line read?
Two guys walk into a bar:which is kind of stupid, cuz’ if the first one hits it, the next one’s gonna see it, right?
See what we did there? We shattered the audience’s assumption of the meaning of the word ‘bar.’ And came up with something funny. So if we look at the other lines we might have:
I come from a large family:four moms, five dads.
My father was a bastard:he wasn’t a bad guy, he just didn’t know his father.
I’m Irish and American Indian: you know what that means; I pretty much have V.I.P. seats waiting for me at any A.A. meeting.
I have five kids: so I’m half-Mormon:
Millions of fish washed up in the Harbor around Redondo Beach: There’s good news and bad news; The bad news is it’s going to take weeks to clean that up that mess. The good news is: Now the common man knows what it smells like when Kirsti Alley sunbathes nude.
So instead of looking for something funny to write, just find something and turn it into something funny.
Then when someone asks, “What’s so funny?” You’ll be able to say, “Me!”
