Crafting Appropriate Humor . . .again
Okay, so we’ve talked about what is not appropriate and subjects to stay away from. So what’s left that you can talk about? Actually a lot of things are still fair game. I write 10 minutes or so about the group that I kick off all of my shows with. I started doing this because when I got into doing humor for corporations and associations, I was a little short of appropriate material. I figured I was a fast writer, so I would just find out about the group and write some jokes specifically for them. I hadn’t heard the terms “customization” or “personalization” before, I just wanted to write about the group. I did it and enjoyed it so much, that I still do it today. There are many benefits, even ones you may not realize, for customizing your program.
For crafting customized humor, I have a 3-page information sheet that I go over with the client. I call it an information sheet, not a questionnaire, because a questionnaire sounds like something you have to fill out and I don’t want them to fill it out. I get a lot more information on them in a 20 minute conversation, then if they had to fill something out – where I’m guessing I’d get like 2-word answers. I can also follow up on different paths during a conversation if they give me an idea for a different line of thinking and sometimes even the way they word something is funny. If they had to fill out a 3-page questionnaire, you can bet all I wouldn’t get this detailed, plus all the questions aren’t appropriate for each group, so the client may think I don’t understand their organization. Contact me and I’ll share my information sheet with you.
With that said, one of the biggest questions I ask the client when I’m looking for material to customize some jokes – you can use these same questions when you’re writing humor for your speech or written document – is . . .
What are their daily activities? This is good to do if you’re speaking a group, such as an association, in which most of the audience has similar job titles, or 2 or 3 different titles at the most. It’s harder to do this if there’s a huge mix of jobs like in a big company-wide event. What I do is have the client step me through a day. . what would someone do during their day (minus the computer games!) who has this job? As the client and/or member tells me what it’s like to be at their job, they’ll give me some great wording for jokes and lead me to other questions.
I did a show for probation officers once and their day is hilarious. . .from a comic’s point of view. They actually have one guy in charge of watching the parolee’s take a urine test! Weird! And by the way, I can use the word “urine” in their show and it’s not considered being dirty, because that’s a word they use frequently in their industry. Using it in front of a group that doesn’t talk about it,is not good, but if it’s part of their vocabulary, it’s okay. I did a show for obgyn people and just about every booth in their exhibit hall had the names of body parts plastered on their walls. I had lots of fun making the connection between George Carlin’s 7 words you can’t say on TV and the fact that all of those words, and then some, were on their walls.
But I digress. Ask the client to step you through their daily activities so that you get a good feel for what the group deals with on a daily basis. And don’t just stop at “we have a lot of paper work” or whatever. Make them really dig deep and tell you what it would be like to be in their shoes. It’ll be a goldmine of material!
Jan
Using Appropriate humor … make sure it fits
ALSO, remember, what might be great for one group, might not work for another. I urge you to go through your material between each program and make sure the jokes are appropriate for that group. I have some product jokes and some jokes about certain businesses in my act. I don’t say them if I’m doing a Chamber of Commerce event because there is most likely someone there from that particular business. I also check the sponsors and make all of my jokes are appropriate for them. . including not promoting their competitor’s products.
And make sure you don’t bury product jokes midway into your program, and then forget about them. I did a show at a comedy club once, where I was joking about exercise and diet, and I said “everyone’s getting into fitness, even McDonald’s has a nutritionist. Isn’t that like wearing a seatbelt in a Geo Metro? What’s the point?” It got a HUGE laugh, and I thought to myself, well, that joke usually does well but wow! Later the club owner came up and said, boy, you have guts to do that McDonald’s joke in a room full of their CEOS. I FORGOT that it was a fundraiser for Ronald McDonald House. In my defense, I forgot because I wasn’t told about the group until I arrived (it was a comedy club, and Ronald McDonald House had bought out the room for a fundraiser that night), and the speakers ahead of me were doing these gut-wrenching stories about the kids at the house. My first 10 minutes of my act is on how I don’t want kids, so I was furiously editing those jokes out. I totally forgot about the joke buried 30 minutes into my act. It all turned out okay, but it could have gone very badly. That was a big lesson learned.
And finally, I would be wary of making too much fun of other states. There’s always the inclination for some comics to poke fun at Kentucky or Alabama and their education systems, for example. Both states have great education systems (I’ve worked for those groups), but comics seem to pick on them anyway. But remember, you may be considered for a show in those states and/or some of your audience may be originally from those states. So be conservative and don’t do it. Not to mention, that’s the mean-spirited humor that I warned you about in the beginning.
In summary, from my last few blogs about what is not appropriate humor and what subjects to stay away from, don’t:
Cuss
Do sex, religion, politics unless the client knows that that is what you do
Make jokes that are sensitive to the industry climate.
Do jokes at the expense of others that are mean-spirited – if you wouldn’t say it to the person’s face, it’s probably not appropriate.
Do jokes that aren’t appropriate for the group – such as product jokes or jokes about the sponsors
Do the obvious jokes; they’ve heard ‘em.
Make derogatory fun of states.
There are of course other subjects that you may want to avoid when addressing a business crowd, but these are some of the major ones that, in my opinion, you should avoid. Ironically, recently after giving a presentation on using appropriate humor, a guy in the group actually emailed me an anti-george bush joke AND told me how he was using some of my material around the water cooler at work. ..was that okay? – NO! Where was he during my talk?????
Jan
Customizing the Humor by Joking About People. . . Nicely
You also need to know when to pass on a great joke if it’s going to hurt someone – even if most of the people don’t know it’s going to hurt someone. I did a show for a group who had 4400 people in the room and they ran out of meals for 1500 people. It was a plated dinner so I’m not sure how that happened – somebody needs a math class – but it happened. Now as a comedian, I want to get on stage, look behind the curtain and say, “hey, I found ‘em.” Don’t do that. Even though the people in the room would have laughed – most of them had eaten, some who didn’t get dinner had left, so the remaining hungry people were there to have fun. However, the meeting planner was in tears backstage. No one would have made the connection right away that this was slamming her, but I would’ve known. So I didn’t do it.
Now I do have fun with people, and I will get more into that when I discuss crafting the humor, but again, it’s stuff that the whole group has joked about openly. For example, I did a show once where one of the managers had just bought a new Porsche and everyone had been goofing with him about it. So I felt comfortable ribbing him a little. . .”so Bob, I understand you have a new Porsche. The rest of us are curious. Is that pronounced Porch-a . . .or . . . Middle-aged-crisis. It got a great laugh and no offense taken by Bob.
In preparation for my shows I’ll have a phone conversation with the committee, and it amazes me some of the things they think I should joke about. People have told me that so-and-so has big hair – make fun of it, or Tom is going through a divorce, it’s a riot. Well, it’s probably NOT a riot to them. My rule of thumb is, if the committee goofs about it to the person’s face, it’s probably (not always) okay, but if they probably don’t say it to the person’s face, then I shouldn’t either. I doubt people make big hair jokes to that VP.
In general, people who are in the limelight with the group (the association’s president or the staff member that’s been there a bazillion years) are usually (again, not always) fair game for some light-hearted fun. They are used to it, they enjoy the attention (I mean they ran for office didn’t they), and even sponsors like getting some extra credit for their product. I did a show once for a bean group. . .as in beans you eat. The VP’s of Bush Beans were there and I had some fun with their talking dog Duke. After the show, as I was walking across the parking lot, a big limo pulled up and the window rolled down. Inside was one of the VPs. He said “hey, you’re the comedian? You were great! Thanks for having fun with our product. That dog has made us a lot of money!”
So that’s the long and short of it. You can have fun with certain people, if you do it NICELY.
Jan
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