The WHERE of jokes
Sure it’s important to
know WHO you’re talking to, so you can inject appropriate jokes and humor, but don’t forget to look at your surroundings and bring the WHERE into the equation. I just had an event for a health care group this week and it was held in a hotel connected to a casino. This gave me a great opening line – “it’s nice you’re holding this at a casino. . . like working in health care isn’t enough of a gamble.”
I’ve used the casino-gambling connection
in the past too, so that I can kick off some funny jokes about the group. Several years ago I performed my comedy for mushroom growers, and they had told me that the biggest mushroom grower had just bought 3 mushroom farms and then immediately went out of business. This was great for the remaining mushroom growers because that opened up the competition. So, since this event was at a casino, and I came up with a great comedy line to kick off the event. . “I was speaking to one of the dealers last night. And he said that the only way you can lose money faster than gambling is if you buy 3 mushroom farms.” The group loved it!
So next time you’re developing humor,
don’t forget the room/environment you’re in. I’ve performed in:
- a restaurant which was filled with statues – “it’s nice to be here, I’ve never performed at a yard sale before,”
- a cruise ship “the captain says you can renew your wedding vows at sea. . .or if things aren’t going so well, for an extra fee, you can become a widow at sea,”
- in a computer history museum “every time I drink wine around computers, I end up emailing one of my exes,”
and in a nursing home, in a bakery, a winery, a field outside next to a canal with HUGE barges going down it, a floating dock while the audience was on the grass embankment, a restaurant while people were eating (I was told the wait staff loved me as well as the audience!), a mulit-million dollar gymnasium with a $20 sound system, and other weird, odd or unusual venues. . .and I’ve had jokes for all of them.
Make a funny connection between your group and the environment, and you’ll create instant rapport.
Jan
Comedy Joke Buddy
- Wooly mammoth and me!
When I got into comedy almost 20 years ago,
my friends thought it was cool. I vividly remember a party in which people egged me on to “tell a couple of my jokes.” So I did. And guess what? I got no laughs. The jokes I told were getting laughs in the club, in fact those same people laughed at them sincerely when they heard the jokes in the club, but the jokes fell flat in front of friends at a party.
That’s because
I tested the jokes out on the wrong people in the wrong situation. What I’ve learned is that it’s very important to test jokes out and get feedback, but you have to find a supportive environment to do it in. That’s why I highly recommend that you find someone that connect with comically to write with.
Don’t think that your
friend or your spouse or your significant other has to be that person either. I haven’t found a ton of people I can write with – not all comics can mesh their joke writing well – But I have found a handful of comedians, and that’s more than I need.
A couple things you should look for:
- You need someone who thinks on your same wavelength in comedy.
- Someone you think is truly funny.
- Someone who truly thinks your funny.
- Someone you respect so you take what they say as truly constructive.
- Someone you trust – these are your joke ideas and you don’t want to have to worry about them being stolen.
These are the top things
I’d look for in a comedy writing partner. It’s fun to bounce ideas off of other people and get their perspective PLUS as you’re telling someone about a funny experience, it reminds you of other funny experiences you’ve had and you wind up with more joke premises! So don’t confuse your ski friends (like above) with your writing friends!
Jan
Remembering Your Funny Jokes
So you’ve worked and worked on
some killer material. Great! But you’ve got to REMEMBER the joke in order to, well, get people to laugh. I have a couple of memory techniques that I use.
-
Say it out loud FAST.
Run through your jokes fast, so that you can get them down to one second, but rather it sort of ingrains the joke in your head. THEN when you say it at regular speed, in front of an audience, it rolls off your tongue as if you’ve said it a million times. . .which you might have done if you said it fast.
-
Sleep on it.
Sometimes you can get ahead while sleeping. I knew someone who was doing research on sleep and memory. I don’t know what her research found, but my personal research has shown that if I go over the new jokes right before I go to bed, then I seem to remember them the next day. Maybe they roll around in my brain unconsciously for 8 hours while I snooze, who knows. But it works – and it’s an easy thing to try, anyway.
-
Group things together.
If I’ve got 3 jokes on the event, and 3 jokes on the industry, and 3 jokes on the food, then I just make sure they’re all together. Simple, but sometimes you forget the simple stuff.
-
End with a word that reminds you
of the first word in the next joke. If you’ve grouped similar things together, then that should be easy!
I’m also reading
“Moonwalking With Einstein” which is a book about how people do it when they win those memory contests by reciting 5000 decks of cards in perfect order in like an hour. It’s cool and I think they might just have something there.
Half of the battle
is writing a good joke, the other half is delivering it. If you can remember it, then you can deliver it!
Jan
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