Joke-writing interests me.
I think up something I think is funny and usually find out later that it’s not funny to others. Or worse, it’s offensive.
What is humor anyway?
My working theory is that funny ideas have an underlying conflict (i.e. surprise, contrast, exaggeration).
I found this interview with Norm MacDonald where he talks about “writing” long-form jokes without ever writing anything down. Here is an excerpt I found interesting.
So, what I try to do now is whatever honestly interests me. I kind of try to ruminate on that subject for as long as I can, and if I can find some dissonance—like for instance just yesterday I was thinking about my friend who is a vegetarian. Now this is not very funny, but I know it will be very funny when I’ve figured it out. But I suddenly realized, as I was talking to this girl, who I always kind of thought was nuts, and I suddenly realized as she was talking to me that I agreed with her. Ethically, it’s not right to kill animals if you don’t have to to survive, but I will never be a vegetarian. I do now kind of believe it is akin to murder, but I’m willing to do it for a juicy Carl’s Jr.
I know that there is comedy right there in that dissonance between what I do and what I believe in my heart. I know there is comedy in there and I know that if I ruminate long enough, I know that I will have fifteen minutes of material on that exact subject, because there are things that are always percolating in the back of your mind that you are too lazy to catch and grab. It’s very hard to be aware of what you’re thinking of because you are just thinking of it in the moment.
As long as the subject is important enough—I shouldn’t say important—as long as the subject is interesting enough, then I can find variations on the theme. A thousand variations on the theme. Just attack it from every possible angle.
So what I do is I have the idea, and then I go on stage and just talk for as long as I can until they stop laughing. And then usually well beyond when they stop laughing. Then eventually it winds down and becomes very strong after that. I have to take a beating before I get there.
published .
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