Comedy Writing Tips: Comedy Writin’ & Joke Tellin’

A recent medical study at the University of Maryland School of Medicine indicates that laughter appears to cause the tissue that forms the inner lining of blood vessels, the endothelium, to dilate or expand in order to increase blood flow. This is good news for most people, unless of course you have just suffered a nasty cut whereupon you could bleed out while you guffaw at a particularly hilarious pratfall or gag. And to date, there is apparently no form of joke, boner, slapstick or rib-tickler that can restrict blood flow, so if you’re a funny person already, then it’s probably prudent to be a bit glum and unfunny around hemophiliacs or the accident prone.

Writing comedy isn’t easy.

If it was, everybody would be doing it and nothing of a serious nature would get done around here. Thank goodness there are plenty of plain, dull and boring people to handle that stuff. And analyzing humor, it is said, is like dissecting a frog: Few people are interested and the frog dies as a result. So at the risk of boring the reader, or offending biology students, we can begin.

If you are like the majority of schlubs walking the street that have no comedy chops to save your life, then a few tips are in order. The first rule of comedy writing is:

1. There are no rules – Sure there are subjects that could never be funny, like, say f’rinstance a rash that won’t go away or a vicious dog bite. At least, they aren’t funny when they happen to you. Anybody else is fair game.
2. Keep it simple, Simon – It doesn’t matter who Simon is, as long as you don’t complicate your story, joke, sight gag with too much build-up or collaterol information. And don’t try to remember ridiculous acronyms like KISS, since Kissing really has nothing to do with comedy, unless you’re very bad at it, or you decide to kiss an animal like a monkey.
3. Humorous Subjects – Monkeys…they might be poor defenseless primates, but historically, they make people laugh. Should we ship them all back to the jungle just because they can’t seem to get regular jobs or hold political office? Two words: George Bush. Other subjects that lend themselves to natural silliness are, in no order of importance, breast implants, drunks, strange accents of speech and hats. A monkey that looks like a drunken French politician with large breasts and a fedora can’t miss.

THE BASIC JOKE

There are million jokes in the big city, and a few of them will kill every time. There are long drawn-out gags and there are one-liners, but The Zinger is my favorite, and sex is a popular topic:

A man goes to the doctor, “Doc, my wife complains about, you know…my sexual performance…” then he adds quickly, “But hey, it’s not been so good for me, either. For the last six months, I’ve been faking an erection.”

Good jokes come in lots of styles, but most of the best of them consist of three parts. The set-up, the act and the punchline.

The proto-typical ‘man walks into a bar’ joke is a good example:

The Set-up:

‘A man walks into a bar and sits down next to a lady and a dog. The man asks, “Does your dog bite?”. The lady answers, “Never!”

The Act:

The man reaches out to pet the dog and the dog bites him. The man says, “I thought you said your dog doesn’t bite!”

The Punchline:

The woman replies, “He doesn’t. This isn’t my dog.”

While this old gag might be funny to some, it’s a lot better when you change a few items around:

A man walks into a bar and says, “Give me a beer before problems start!” Again, the man orders a beer again saying, “Give me a beer before problems start!” The bartender looks confused. This goes on for a while, and after the fifth beer the bartender is totally confused and asks the man, “When are you going to pay for these beers?” The man answers, “Ah, now the problems start!”

For the English majors in your audience, there is this variation;

Shakespeare walks into a bar and asks the bartender for a beer. “I can’t serve you.” says the bartender. “You’re Bard!”

And as an example of how weirdness can be funny:

A grasshopper hops into a bar. The bartender says, “You’re quite a celebrity around here. We’ve even got a drink named after you.” The grasshopper says, “You’ve got a drink named Steve?”

Another great way to break the ice in a pre-comedic setting is the story-joke. But it’s important to try to keep the joke fresh. And jokes are like recipes; stale ones seldom go over well. So if the joke is old, instead of just reheating it, try to update it or change some of the ingredients.

A cop parked behind a billboard sees a car full of nuns was driving really slowly. He whips out and pulls them over and asks why they were going so slow. The head nun replies “Well, the sign over there says 23, so… I was going 23 miles per hour.” The officer chuckles a little and says “No, M’aam, thats the Route number not the speed limit, you can go 55 miles per hour.”

The nun then says “Well that explains why the nuns were yelling at me earlier today…we just got off Route 125.”

OFFENSIVE, RACIST AND DIRTY JOKES

Some comedians build their careers on blue comedy, pseudo-racist jokes or just plain offensive material.

But the payoff is difficult to justify.

Michael Richards’ recent fall from grace is evidence of this, and while someone like Chris Rock can get away with all manner of ‘white cracker/honky’ jokes and making fun of African-Americans, the laughter is generated mostly out of discomfort with the subject matter.

Still, many people regard Lenny Bruce as a comedy great and Bruce considered no subject untouchable.

Offensive jokes are more generalized and often offend across races or gender equally.

Examples are below, if you dare to try them, but for my money, there are plenty of funny things to joke about without crossing these lines.

The Dirty Joke:

Little red riding hood runs into a wolf in the forest.
She asks, ‘Mr. Wolf, why are your eyes so big?
The Wolf glares and says, “Get out of here kid, I’m trying to take a sh*t.”

The Racist Joke:

Why dont they have the Olympics in Mexico?

Because anyone who can run jump or swim is already accross the border.

The Offensive Joke:

What do you call a rape victim that doesn’t contact the police?

A good sport.

Simple jokes aside, you can write comedy for films, TV, print or for a stand-up act.

Writing a good, funny movie script requires much study and perseverance. But the rewards can be huge. The Coen Brothers stand out as exemplars in this.

TV comedy needs to be quick and to the point since TV audiences, equipped with remotes, generally have the shortest attention spans.

My experience is mostly in print, and it seems easier to stretch your legs in a written piece. It’s nice to be able to write a humorous short story because you can take your time and really tweak it for best effect. But for a quick fix, there’s not much that beats a comedian who is really on his or her game.

I once saw a clever, Seattle comedian named Matt Reidy do a thing called an ‘attitude switch’ which brought down the house:

A woman was sitting so close to the stage that one of her feet was resting on the raised platform. Matt stopped in the middle of a bit, focused on the woman and said sweetly, “Are you into comedy?…Studying to be a comedian?” The woman giggled and shook her head, no, whereupon Matt shot back, ‘THEN GET YOUR GAWDAMN FEET OFF THE STAGE!”

The element of shock worked so well that the audience howled for nearly five minutes.

(S.A.’Scott’ Robinson is an author, writer and columnist who occasionally has something to say that could be construed as humorous, which can often be found at http://eunoterpsia56.blogspot.com).