Human Traits for the Joke
One fun, easy way to make a mundane noun (that’s person, place or thing) funny is to give that item a human trait. For example, this week I’m doing a show for a group in Austin, TX, and one of the unique things I was told was that Austin has millions of BATS. Yes, very unique – though I wish it were something a little less scary. But every night, apparently these bats fly out in formation from under a bridge to go scavenging for food. Now you could sit there and list out why bats would fly at night, but you could make it funnier but it’s easier to make it funner if you do a little research.
AND after watching a quick youtube video on them, I found out that most of these bats are FEMALE. So to come up with a funny joke about the bats, I could apply a human female trait to them, and then offer a few things that bats are doing when they fly out based on what a human female might do. . .hummm, what would make a woman leave the house at night. . . there’s a sale at Macy’s or their in-laws just moved in, or their husband’s college buddy is visiting or they found a great babysitter. . .. I can also turn it around and have some fun with why the guy bats are not flying out. . .it’s football season and they’d miss the game or just because THEY’RE GUYS.
So take the thing you’re trying to have fun with and make add in some human characteristics .. . then you’ll find the funny.
Jan
Joke Writing For Extreme Solutions
Jokes and joke writing are about taking things to the extreme. As I’ve said before, when you want to imply that someone is old, you don’t say 110 – because it’s plausible, you say 310 because it’s outrageous. So make sure in your joke writing that you’re taking things to the extreme. . . one way to do this is to come up with extreme solutions to issues. Many of my jokes provide extreme, ALMOST do-able solutions, which is where we get the funny. I talk about doing a show for architects who design hospitals. . .they are now designing new hospitals so that the patients’ window faces a garden because they say that makes the patient get well faster. I told ‘em if you want the patient to get well faster, you should have their window face a cemetery! Funny and extreme.
how to solve the problem
So when writing a punch line, think of how would you REALLY solve the problem? Look at your set up as a “problem” and then brainstorm a number of ways that, if you could do ANYTHING on the planet to solve this problem – regardless of legality or political correctness – how would you solve it. My spa joke is much the same way. . .all these spas have stupid “treatments” that are supposed to make you healthy and young. Most of the treatments involve food items. I was actually at a spa in which they offered a milk bath, a seaweed wrap, a raspberry relaxer, a vanilla been dip. I don’t have time for all this stuff, so I just went to Denny’s and rolled around in the buffet. It’s extreme – you almost could do it (okay, you could but you’d get arrested mess up a lot of people’s Sunday morning meal plans) – and maybe you wish you could do it – but you won’t.
Think of extreme solutions to common problems. .how would you solve the gas crisis, the banking fiasco, the war. . .or make up things to solve that aren’t really a problem, like the Denny’s example. And don’t stop with your first extreme solution – keep brainstorming and you’ll come up with some really hilarious stuff and maybe some real stuff too!
Jan
A show near Gettysburg this week
On Being Counter-Intuitive
Okay, I just talked about proving a premise, but another technique for fast humor is DISPROVING a premise. The easiest way to do that is to find a principal that we all typically agree on. This can be a phrase or a statement or whatever, and make it counter-intuitive. Counterintuitive means pretty much going against the grain and against what we normally stay is good advice. So for example you can decide to disprove that germs cause colds or for one of my jokes I basically said Diet Coke makes you fat.
I proved this by saying look, “I stopped drinking it because I realized that a lot of the people drinking it need to lose weight.” Ergo Diet Coke makes you fat. Of course a lot of people are drinking it to LOSE weight. . .but if you look at it from another point of view, I might be right???
It’s sort of the glass is ½ empty thing. So take a look at stuff that we just take for granted is true. We take so many things at face value, but if you want to find the funny, you need to start questioning these assumptions. I’m traveling and I see things that we just blindly assume all around me. . .squirrels eat nuts, not smoking on an airplane is healthy, McDonald’s food is bad for you, blah, blah, blah. . .are we SURE these premises are correct?
Jan
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