The Ultimate Joke Writing Guide For Writing Stand-Up Comedy

1. Introduction: Welcome to the ultimate joke writing guide for stand-up comedy. In this course, I'm going to introduce you to all of the major job types for stand-up comedy. And what's really cool? The reason I really love teaching this program is because for each one of the job types that you're going to learn in this program. We're going to have four different pillars that we're going to be building off of. First, I'm going to give you this introduction into how the joke actually works. And so what that means is I'm going to teach you for each one of these joke types. I'm going to show you exactly what it is that the audience is reacting to, right? So when you tell that joke, why, why will they laugh? Or why will they not laugh, right? So understanding that makes your writing way, way more effective because you're not just trying to put words together in a structure that looks sort of like the joke that I wrote. When you go through this and you learn how the joke works, you say, okay, so here's all the words that I'm writing. But I know that the audience is going to react to this part of the joke. And so because you can see that you have the ability to be flexible, to have your own unique voice inside of your jokes. You don't just have to write something that looks similar to what I've written. And so that's why I think it's so important for you to understand how the joke works. So that is the first pillar that we're going to be building off of. The second one is I'm going to show you tons of examples for how each one of these job types work. So you're going to learn the theory for why the joke is funny. Then I'm going to jump in and show you examples so that you can compare the two and say, okay, I know the theory. And then here is the theory actually in real life, here are real comedians using these exact same strategies to get laughs on stage. And so you see the examples and you even know exactly why the audience's laughing. And that's really, really cool. From there. Step 3, of course, I am going to give you a step-by-step guide for how to write it yourself. So at this point you understand how the joke works. You've seen examples, and now we're going to start getting into exactly how you can achieve the same results. And when I teach you how to write the joke, I'm going to break it into a couple different parts. First, I'm going to give you the actual concrete steps for what you do. Then I will take some of the examples that we saw earlier. And then I'm going to show you how that comedian could have written that material using the steps that I just showed you, right? So you have the examples, you know why it's funny, but you also can see how it was written or how it could have been written. And so from there, I will go one step further and then I will do a walk through with you where I will go through the steps myself using a random word generator. So I'll start with a random word and then I will walk you through the exact process myself. And so we're going to do this with each one of the joke guides that are inside of this program. And so by the end of the program, you're going to have this really, really in-depth understanding of, of how each one of these jokes work. But also because there's so many of these joke guys here, there's a huge variety. And so it is this really, really good introduction for writing standard common. So before we jump into that, let me introduce myself. I already said I'm Jared vole, but I have been teaching stand-up comedy for over 15 years now since 2005. And in that time I've done a huge variety of shows. I have been at the very, very beginning of my career doing these tiny shows with one or two drunk people in the audience at one AM. I'm doing these Hell gigs, but I've also been performing at universities. I've performed in front of done shows with over, well over a 1000 people in the audience. I have opened up for famous comedians. I have been a finalist at the great American comedy festival. So I had a lot of success using the strategies that you're going to be learning here. And so I hope that I can bring some of that experience into this program for you. 2. Setups: So let's begin by talking about how setup lines work. So the setup line, there are only two major jobs that your setup line has. The first job and the most obvious one is to make sure that your audience understands the situation that you're setting up. And this means telling the audience any of the important who, what, where, when, why, or how information. So for example, onstage I might say something like, I was at the store last week. That is a very, very quick way of setting up a situation. And it's very, very clear as an audience member you here, I was at the store last week. There is no difficult thinking process that you have to go through to figure out what's, what exactly is going on. Every single person in the audience, even if they've been drinking alcohol at the show, everybody at the audience knows exactly who was doing the action and what the action was. We also know when the action was taken place. But what you will see as we keep going through and showing you that lots of examples of comedy jokes. The when is quite often left out. And that's because the when usually doesn't matter. So if you're watching a lot of stand-up comedy, you will see a lot of comedians use phrases like last week or a while ago, things like that. And that's a way of of kind of including the when information to make it feel more relevant. But at the same time, those comedians understand that the wind doesn't actually matter. And so you'll see a lot of that the other day I was type of sentences. So that is the number one job of the setup. Tell me very quickly and very clearly what is going on. So in my head I can construct this movie of what you want me to see, right? You are starting to paint the picture of your story. The second job of a setup line is to begin to structure how you want the audience to interpret your joke. And so this is starting to frame the joke in a way that's going to maximize the humor. And so here, when you're looking at the setup line, you're going to be thinking, how do I want the audience to feel about this situation? So let me give you an example from Rodney Dangerfield. The other day, my wife told me to put the garbage out. I said I already did. She said Go and keep an eye on it. So here if we slow down time, Ronnie Dangerfield hits the punchline. And then as an audience member, all of a sudden, the wife says, Go and keep an eye on it. And as an audience member, were confused at first, we don't know why would the wife want you to keep an eye on it? And the reason that this joke is confusing is because I changed the joke. This is not the original joke. So let me show you the original joke and how the, the first couple of lines inside the setup actually completely changes the quality of the joke. So if you look at this joke right here, we have a situation where he hits the punchline and you react by thinking, Wait, what, why, why would the wife want you to keep looking at the garbage, right? It doesn't make sense. So in your head, you're trying to problem-solve, but you can't do it because the punchline just doesn't make sense the way it's written, right? And that's the fault of the setup. It's not the fault of the punchline. So let's go and look at the actual joke. I don't get no respect. My wife is always trying to get rid of me. The other day my wife told me to put the garbage out. I said I already did. She said Go and keep an eye on it. Now, this joke actually does make sense. So look at the purple words that I have here. Those first two setup lines. I don't get no respect. And of course, if you know your comedy history, anytime with, with, with Rodney Dangerfield, You know that that's going to be his tagline. That was something that made him super, super famous. But what I really want you to look at is line number two. My wife is always trying to get rid of me. That is by far the most important setup line in this entire joke. So if you see that my wife is trying to get rid of me as an audience member. You hear that and you say, okay, there's, there's tension here between the husband and the wife. And that information is really, really important because when you get to the punchline, the wife wants you to keep an eye on the garbage. Now it makes sense because now we know that the wife just once the husband to go away. So she's giving him eight, uh, nothing task in order to get him out of the house. So just by including this one single sentence, the punchline goes from something that's more confusing to something that is actually hilarious. And so this is what I mean. There are two jobs with your setup lines. Number one, tell me the who, what, where, when, why, or how information. So of course, Rodney Dangerfield does a great job here. He says, he sets up with the purple lines. He tells you what you should be feeling about the situation, right? You should be feeling that there's tension between the wife and the husband. And then with the green lines here, with those setup lines, he says the other day, which again is a win when piece of information that doesn't actually matter. The only reason he is including the other day here, is to make it feel a bit more relevant to the audience, but it has no actual structural meaning behind those words. So if we cut it out, is exactly the same joke. So you can include when information but it is not necessary. So here she says the other day, that's the when information. My wife told me to put the garbage out. So now we already know we know where they are because they're almost certainly at home. We have to assume that, but we're almost certainly at home. And then we know that there's a wife and a husband involved and we know what the person's doing. So look, there's only a few words here, and this is not a long story. But yet with the setup, Ronnie Dangerfield, really quickly, two sentences tells you exactly how you're supposed to feel. And then with those three sentences, which are not three full sentences, there are more like tubes and lenses, but they're broken into three lines. But were those green ones right there? He's telling you the important who, what, where, when, why, how information. And then of course he gets right to the punchline, which is the video that we're gonna be talking about next. 3. Punchlines: In this video, I want to give you a general overview of how punchlines work. So later on in this program, we are going to be giving you a ton of different joke structures. And you're going to be able to see how each one of those jokes structures works in a different way in order to create humor. But what I want to do with this video here, with this lesson, is I want to show you general principles behind good punchlines. So even though each one of the punchlines that you're going to learn in future lessons is going to be slightly different. In this lesson, I want to talk to you about why they are all the same. All right, so what is, what is it that makes all punchlines, either all punchlines work or all punchlines better. And so that's what this video is. And then later on we will talk about the specifics of each type of joke. So you probably already know that the punchline is the payoff to your joke. The punchline is always going to be located at the very end of your joke. And the reason that is the case is because we want to make sure that once we hit the punchline, that we stop talking, which is going to give the audience room for first is going to give them room to actually problem-solve and to think about what the actual punchline means, right? So they need time to get the joke. And then once they get the joke, which takes about 0.3 to 0.5 seconds, somewhere around that, that, that amount of time. That's how long it takes an audience members brain in order to go from. Okay, I heard something a little bit weird to 0. I get it. It's a joke and I understand why it's, why it's funny. So that process takes about 0.3 to 0.5 seconds. And you need to give the audience time to go through that process, because it does not matter how funny the punchline is or how funny it is on paper. If you do not break it up and give them a some amount of time to think through your punchline and the meaning of your joke, then they're simply not going to laugh. They just don't have the time. The ideal length for a punchline. Now that varies wildly. Some punchlines are simply gestures. So there's not even, not even words that are being used is just simply like a hand gesture or making a funny face or something like that. So those punchlines obviously have 0 words. But for your conventional joke, for most jokes I would say they fall into the range of between maybe 59 words. And so like when you're looking at your punchline, if it's more than nine words, it's probably too long. And if it's less than, less than five words, that's probably okay. Most situations that that would be okay, just make sure that the setup has all the important information inside of it already. So I'd say, but on average, between 59 words, an even better way of thinking about how long your punchline should be is to say your punchline should be between 0.51 sentence long, right? And again, you can be, you can be shorter, you can be one word, two words, that's totally fine. But if you are longer than a full sentence, if you need more than one breath in order to deliver the punchline, your punchline is way too long. Your punchline should probably be about half a breath. That would be the perfect. Perfect. Because then you could really hit that punchline hard. You can get to it. And the way you say it will be more authoritative and more confident as opposed to like figure, you're halfway out of breath and you haven't taken a breath yet. And then now I'm going to hit the punchline. Like you have no more confidence like the audiences, like are you okay? So you have that breath, make sure that you can take a nice breath in. And then you have that punchline about 0.5 sentences long. So that is the length. The most important part of your punchline is what's called the key word. So the key word is the word or the set of words that really turn the joke into a joke. So let's go back to our Ronnie Dangerfield example. In the punchline. He says, she said Go and keep an eye on it. Now for a moment. Let's just take out the words. Keep an eye on it, right? Just erase that. And let's look at what is left. We have. Don't get respect. Wife wants to get rid of me the other day. She said put the garbage out. I did. And then she says Go. And so as an audience member, at that point, she said Go. And at that point we have no idea or no reason to laugh at all, right? It's not that when we take out the key word, the joke is less funny. When we take out the keyword, we have no joke. So if you look at it and you take out the keyword, keep an eye on it. All of a sudden, this is normal everyday life. So the keyword, super, super important part, at least for conventional, for conventional jokes like the ones we're going to be talking about in this program. For storytelling structure, that's different keywords aren't as important there. But for conventional jokes like the ones we're going to talk about in this program. That keyword is one of the most important ways that the audience recognizes that they've heard the punchline. So before that you're kind of easing into this joke where you're kind of getting to a point where the audience might start laughing. But at this point they don't yet know that it is the correct time to start laughing. You haven't given the audience a specific time to start laughing. And that is one of the jobs of the key word. The keyword is a very easy to identify problem that the audience recognizes right away, right? So it says, keep an eye on it. That's the key word, right? And then the audience goes, Wait, what? And so it's very easy for the audience to recognize that there's a problem there. And then once they recognize that there's a problem, they start to problem-solve. They look at everything inside of the joke. They put that altogether. And then if the joke is well-written, when the audience puts that information together, they say, Oh, this is the wife trying to get rid of the husband, right? And then so we have this humorous outcome and the audience is going to laugh at that, right? They don't laugh at the punchline. They laugh at what happens after they solved the joke. So that is the most important part of your punchline. And it also makes sure that the punchline or that keyword is at the very end of your punchline, right? So for the same reason that your punchline is at the end of your joke, your keyword is at the end of your punchline. So imagine if I change this joke. And I said, the wife says, she said though and keep an eye on it because I would really like to make sure that the trash is safe. Like okay. So that Joe should technically be just as funny, right? She said go and keep an eye on it. Own. The joke is finished because I really want to make sure that the trash is safe or whatever sentence comes afterwards. As an audience member, you hear that, you hear that keyword, keep an eye on it, and then you're going to start laughing. But then you hear the comedian still talking. And you don't want to miss what is about VSAT because I, maybe he's getting to an even funnier and even funnier line, right? So instead of starting to laugh, your attention gets pulled away from the keyword, from the punchline. And so by the time I hit that very end, go and keep an eye on the trash because I really want to make sure it's safe done at that point that the punchline is gone, right? It's it's like a train that has already left the station. You, you're done, right? So the audience is paying attention to here. And then instead of going all the way back and enjoying the punchline here, the keyword that you already had, the audience is going to be like, why did he say this part? This part didn't matter. And so the audience is going to end up confused. But if you cut out this part, you keep going and keep an eye on it. That keyword is the last part of the sentence. All of a sudden, you've got yourself a killer, killer joke. So one last thing before I finish this, this lesson on punchlines. Keep in mind your demographics whenever you're writing your punchline. And what I mean by that is, if you want to use dirty language inside of a punchline, that is totally fine. But if you choose to do that, you need to understand that you are also saying like, okay, I'm never going to perform in a church for sure. If you're using dirty language, you're probably not going to be performing for corporate, corporate gigs. And by the way, corporate gigs are by far the best paying gigs in stand-up comedy. But if you, any of your material polarizing, then the person who is in charge of booking those shows, they're going to be way too worried, right? If you're a famous comedian, then that person is probably going to take, take a chance and say like, yeah, you have a couple of dirty words, but you're a famous comedian and everybody knows who you are. So i'll, I'll accept the responsibility, come on in. But if you are not famous and you have a dirty word inside your joke, like think about it from my point of view, I can hire somebody that's safe and good. Or I can hire somebody that is maybe eat a little bit better, but could get me fired. So that is not something that people are going to take a risk on. If you want to make money inside of stand-up comedy, you can't include punchlines that have a lot of dirty, like risque humor or any kind of, of course like sexist humor, racist humor, things like that. Those are things that are just not marketable, right? So make sure that whenever you are writing your punchlines, that it appeals to the market that you would like to appeal to. 4. Taglines: In this lesson, we're going to talk about taglines. A tagline, you can think of it as a punchline that is on top of another punchline. So think about when you are with your friends, somebody is telling some kind of funny anecdote. And so they hit this really funny line. And then maybe a three or four other friends there. And they all want to jump in with their own punchline as well, right? So the original person hits the original punchline, and then other people want to chime in and jump in and throw in their own punchline. All of those, those friends that are listening to the original job and jumping in with their own. Those are all taglines, right? So taglines, they're very natural in normal conversations. And very likely you're already really good at them. As what I found with most convenience, they love jumping in and chiming in with their own, their own maybe like a sarcastic remark or something like that. Anyway, all of those are just our tagline. And the importance of the tagline is, comes from your ability to get more laughs inside of the same amount of time. And so let me show you how this works out. If we go back to our Ronnie Dangerfield joke, his setup line has 32 words, the punchline has nine words. And for all of that, so for those 41 words, we get to experience one laugh, right? So there's one laugh for every 42 words inside of this joke. Now let's compare that to a micelle head Berg joke. You know, when it comes to racism, people say, I don't care if they're black, white, purple or green. Hold on now, purple or green. You got to draw the line somewhere. The hell with purple people, unless they're suffocating, then help them. So here you can see I've color coded each of the setup, the punchline and the taglines. This setup here has a total of 22 words. The punchline, the original one is only three words long, and then the taglines have 17 total words. But for all of that, we have only 42 words. But if you see we have five laughs here. So five different punchlines for one of the original and then four of the taglines. And so if you do the math here, we have 8.4 words for each one of the labs that we get. So as a comedian, obviously, you would love to have only 8.4 words for every time the audience laughs. On average, that is a great, great ratio to have. Now of course, don't fall into the trap. A lot of comedians do this. They fall into the trap of thinking that only the math matters, right? The math is like, okay, so 41 words versus 8.4 words. If everything else is equal, of course you want the 8.4 words. You want only a couple of setup, setup words and then hit a nice punchline. But everything is not equal. If you go and you watch, especially with storytellers, they are really, really good. They will use a longer setups. But at the same time, those setups are so engaging that the audience is leaning forward. They're enjoying the actual story. So don't fall into the trap of saying 8.4 or 41. But one of those is clearly better. Know. It all depends on how you're using it. So only if everything else is average is that it should you really worry about the actual math. So one last tip about taglines and the reason that I really loved them as a storyteller. I still love using taglines. Because when you have, whenever you have a good punchline, so when you're testing out new material, you will go and you'll hit that original punchline. And then once they, once you get a laugh there, you already know that the audience enjoys that joke, right? So whatever is inside of that joke, you know, the audience already likes it, right? So what you can do is instead of just saying, okay, that was a really funny joke, throw it away and let's start a new joke. Instead of doing that, what I love, what I really love about storytelling is that we have this original joke. I know as an audience member, You like that joke. So what I'll do is maybe I will, I will take that story and I will keep it going because I know that your, if you like this one, we're going to continue the story. We have the same basic ideas going on. Maybe I change one or two things out. But the same basic principles, whatever you thought was funny here is still, is still going on. And so when you're testing out that joke, those new taglines, they're really, really easy. And oftentimes they're already really funny because they're building on something that already works. 5. Pauses: Timing is more of a performance aspect of comedy, but I think it's really important for you to have an understanding of how timing works while you're actually writing your material. And so that way when you're writing your material, you have a much better idea of how it's going to be delivered, which changes what you're writing. So there are four major ways of using timing inside of your writing. The most obvious one is that it gives you time to breathe. So this is your periods, your commas, et cetera. And so whenever you see me writing an example of some kind of material, you'll see that I, I, I break everything down into lines. And the reason I do that is because it makes it really, really easy for me to know when exactly I need to take a pause. So this is what I do with all of my material. I will write it. I will write it down normally inside of a paragraph first, but then I will break everything down into lines so that I can clearly see exactly when I am going to take a pause, breathe in, and then do line number 2 or even line number three, okay? And then also you, of course, you have some, some commas there where when I'm reading it, I can see like breathe in, say half of a sentence, short comma, pause, next part of the sentence, and then period. So breathe in again. And then writing the material that way makes it really, really easy for you to see exactly when, when, and how long you need to pause. So that's number one. Number two, this is less obvious, but it is taking a pause directly before you hit that punchline. So what you're doing here, you're building up the story inside of the setup. In ideally, once you're, when you're near the punchline, the audience is starting to lean forward. They love where this is going. And so you have the audience's attention. And so by giving them this really short pause we're talking about like maybe a half of a second long or so. But just that 2.5th, the audience starts to lean forward and they're like, Oh, here it comes, here it comes. And then when you hit that punchline, it makes the punchline work much, much better. And so that's taking a pause before the punchline. The third one is to take a punch, take a pause after the punchline. And I've already mentioned why this is important. Once you hit that punchline, you need to stop talking because the audience needs time to solve your joke. And then once they've solved your joke, it still takes time for them. They have to breathe in and then start laughing. Alright, so the amount of time it takes the audience to start laughing, it's, we're good at it. Offstage, right? Offstage. You know, you hit a punchline and you naturally wait for the person to, to understand and then react to your joke. Or the problem is when you are on stage, we have comedians that are, they have this, this performance anxiety. And so they get on stage, they hit a really funny punchline. But they don't have that confidence to, to let that punchline sit, right, give the audience a 2.5th to one full second. Maybe even more of my time in order for them to really let the joke click and then start reacting. So if you go and you watch brand new comedians, sometimes you'll see this a lot, especially at open mic level, where you have like a comedian that's very new. They hit a joke that was, That's pretty funny. But the problem is they don't give the audience time to understand and react to the joke. So that anxiety makes them want to push forward. And then they're like, Oh, that joke didn't work. Here's the second job. Let's see if the second job works. And so they lose confidence in the first joke. And it's not that it was, it was not funny. It was that they didn't, they didn't have the confidence. So they moved on before the audience could really understand what, what the joke was all about. So that's number three. Number four is a, I would say this is the least obvious of before. This is what I call micro pauses. And a micropores is grouping together words in order to make them easier for the audience to understand. So let me give you an example here. Let's go back to our Mitch head Berg joke. So we have the joke broken down here. And again, you can see what I'm talking about with the lines. Each one of those lines is a PaaS. So, you know, when it comes to racism, people say, I don't care if they're black, white, purple, or green. Hold on. So you can see there's a pause after each one of those. But what I've done is I've also have these black boxes here where you can see, you know, when it comes to racism. So what I've done here is, so we have set it seven words in that first line. But I've taken seven things that your brain needs to remember, and I've grouped them into two. So now it is super easy for you to say, you know, when it comes to racism, those are the only two things that you need to remember here. And so what you do with these micro pauses, just super short pauses, you know, when it comes to racism, like even that it just sounds more rhythmic actually. But what it does is it makes it super easy for the audience to, to take many, many words and then group them into something that is easy for them to remember. And then that's super important because once you hit that punchline, the audience has to go back in time, the setup, and to figure out what the punchline means, right? So they hit the punchline and they go wait a second, that's a little weird. And then in order to solve the joke, they'd go back to the setup. They go back through everything they've learned already. And if it's not easy for them to go through the setup, the go through the information, then your job is just not going to work. So thinking about how much easier it would be for you as an audience member to remember a few chunks of information as opposed to if I was talking like this with the same amount of a pause between every single sentence. And then I hit a punchline at the very end of the word, the very end of the sentence. And then you would have to go back through and figure out which, which was the bunny was. So you can see like, if I don't group those words together, it becomes really, really hard to imagine. I hit a punchline at the very end there. You would have to go all the way back in through all of this monotony of words that all just sounded the same. And you'd have to figure out which one was important. And that would be really, really hard. And so what microprocessors do, they group it together to make it really, really easy for the audience members to find the information they need. 6. Broken Assumption Jokes - How They Work: In this video, we're gonna talk about broken assumption jokes. So I'll begin by laying out exactly how they work and then we'll go through a non-combat example as well as a few comedy examples to see this in practice. And then finally, we're gonna talk about these six different types of broken assumption jokes. So how does he broken assumption joke work? Will broken assumptions rely on misdirection. So I like to think of them as a playful lie. Because as a comedian, you're playfully lying to the audience. You're getting them to believe something that is not true so that you can surprise them with a punchline that is playful. So the setups job is to make the audience believe that something is true. And in the punchline is a surprise that reveals that it is not true. The humor comes from the surprise that the audience gets when they solve the joke. Which in the case of a broken assumption joke, is them correcting the problem that is inside the setup. So the two key ideas here is this idea of explicit and implicit information. Explicit information is anything that you specifically say to the audience. And an implicit information is the assumptions that the audiences making based on what you say. So whenever you're talking, you're giving the listener information about the who, what, where, when, why, or how. For example, if I say I got caught in traffic, then I have specifically told you who was the person getting caught in traffic and what happened which is getting caught in traffic. The who and what is explicit information because I specifically told you. But the where, when, why, and how are all implicit because they require you to make an assumption that you cannot be certain about. As a comedian, we tell the audience explicit information, knowing that they are going to create these assumptions. And this is why I call them playful lives because we know the audience is going to make the assumptions and we know that that assumption isn't true. So let's use a non-common example. I went to the grocery store. This tells you the WHO information and it tells you where. It tells you that I am the person doing it. And grocery stores, the location it happened. This is the explicit information. From there. You can fill in the implicit information. You can take guesses about the what, when, why, and how of the story. So there are four pieces of implicit information here, which means that there are four opportunities to create a broken assumption joke. So now let's look at a stand-up comedy example. So here's a setup from Steve Martin. I gave my cat a bath the other day. He loved it. He sat there, he enjoyed it and it was fun for me too. So this tells you the who, what, and when. It says I am the person doing it, which is Steve Martin, he says what he was doing, giving the cat bath. And then he also mentions when it happened the other day. From here, we move on to fill in the implicit information. We say he was probably in the bathroom. The reason he did it was that he is probably because the cat was dirty. And then how he did it was he probably put the cat in the bathtub. So this gives Steve Martin three opportunities to create a broken assumption joke. He can change the where, the y, or the how. So we get to the punchline, the fur would stick to my tongue. But other than that, so when he says the firm would stick to my tongue, we can figure out exactly which one of these assumptions he's breaking. He's breaking the how. Instead of putting the cat in the bathtub, he reveals that he licked his cat clean. Let's take an example from Bill involved. So finally, on about the 15th t, I hit the drive of my life and I watched this ball go and go and kind of hit this guy in the head. And I felt bad. But he overreacted. I thought I mean, it wasn't like a square hits. I just kind of glanced off his head. But he goes Whip in his car off the freeway like, Here we go, Mr. Attitude. So this joke explicitly tells us the verb, what he was doing, which is playing golf. And it tells us where he was playing golf, which is on the golf course. What it doesn't tell us is who the person was that got hit by the golf ball. It doesn't tell us when it happened, why it happened or how he was playing golf. So there are four chances for a broken assumption. Joke. The who, when, why or how. And you can tell from the punchline that he's changing the hoop. It goes from assuming that he hit another golfer or he hit a pedestrian to going to, he hits somebody who was driving on the freeway. Let's take one more example. Not all chemicals are bad. Without chemicals such as hydrogen and oxygen, for example, there would be no way to make water of vital ingredient in beer. So in this joke, he explicitly tells you the who and the what. He talks about hydrogen and oxygen. And it tells you what those things do. They combine to create water. From there. You can make a lot of assumptions, but the only assumption that really matters is why he cares so much about water. In the setup of the joke, it seems like he's going to say water is a vital ingredient for life. However, with the punchline, What he does is he implies that the only reason he cares about water is because he wants to drink beer. So these are the six different ways that you can create a broken assumption joke. And every broken assumption joke will fall into one or more of these categories. So for example, a WHO shift is any punchline where the WHO information is what changes between the setup and the punchline. So go ahead and pause the video and read through yourself and make sure you've taken a moment to look at how each joke is shifting the information between the setup and the punchline. 7. Broken Assumption Jokes - Writing Steps: Let's talk about these six steps for writing a broken assumption JOB. Step one is where you begin with some kind of a writing prompt or with a short story. So a writing prompt is going to be the hardest one of these two, because a writing prompt, you don't have a setup or a punchline to work with. You're literally just starting with a random word. When you start with a short story, what you're doing is you're going back through and a short story. It can be as short as maybe one or two sentences. Usually I find about maybe two to three sentences is probably the best because it's very short still, but also it's long enough to create some kind of assumptions that you can break for the audience. So step one is all about making sure that you have material that generates assumptions in the audience, so that later on we can break them. Step 2 is where we decide what the surprise is going to be. The surprise is the most important part of any joke. In a broken assumption joke, the audience is not going to laugh simply because you broke their assumptions. When you break their assumptions, they're going to solve the joke. And when they get it, they're going to be rewarded with some kind of surprise. And that surprise is what's actually driving the humor. So early on in this process, we want to make sure that the surprise is worth giving the audience. We want to make sure that when they get the joke, they're rewarded with something special. Step 3 is where you identify the implicit information and this is the assumptions that the audience is going to be creating, that you're then going to break with the punchline. Personally, I find it a lot easier to skip the explicit information step and then just jump straight to the assumptions part. However, if you're just getting used to this, the steps of writing, then it could be helpful for you to first look at the explicit information and then come back and say, Okay, Anything that is not explicit is going to be implicit. And those are my opportunities to create a broken assumption joke. Step 4 is where you test out different punchlines. This is where you find the best combination between step 2 and 3. So step two, we want to give the audience a great surprise. And in step three, we only have so many opportunities for assumptions that we can break. So step 4 is asking us to find the best combination of surprises that we want to give the audience and the opportunities that we have to break the assumptions. Step 5 is where you go back and you figure out what the setup should be. So if this is happening in a short story, that is, The setup is already there for you. Then you can go ahead and skip this step. If you're beginning with a writing prompt, then you don't actually have a setup yet. At this point, you will only have the punchline. So here we want to go back and say, okay, now that I have a punchline, What is the best setup to get the audience laughing with this punchline? And then finally, step 6 is where we go back. We're going to rewrite the setup and the punchline to make sure that they flow well together. This is where you can go back and you can have a fine tooth comb and you can be a wordsmith, you can think about what is the best word choice for this specific joke. 8. Broken Assumption Jokes - Examples: So let's look at how you can apply the six steps for writing a broken assumption joke. Here's a great example that you can find on YouTube and the title is finishing each other's sentences by William and friend. In this sketch, the husband plays the straight character and the wife is going to play the comedic role. So let's go ahead and watch the video now, and then we'll break it down in a moment. Well, I think when he married for 25 years, you end up being an affinity each other's sentences. Sentences, yeah. I mean it's uncanny. We know each other so well we can read each other's text messages. Whatsapp, no Mines, read each other's minds when he spent so much time together, you get to this point where you're completely indifferent to each other in sync with the SEC. We could always tell what each other secretly plotting, thinking. And I always say, got to be a little off together. Great. We share a sense of foreboding humans. One thing What keeps me in Carol's relationships so fresh is that we've got this really strong man next door who exercises, need cycling. Show you some pretty strong bond. I mean, yes, my husband and wife, but more importantly, we're best off without HF. There's taken in separate rooms. So best ending this point is Sharon, best friends were actually very lucky because we both found our soul. Sat right, Carol, you say, well are two peas in a deeply unhappy marriage. So step one, begin with a writing prompt or a short story. This is the husbands entire job is to say sentences that should be easy to finish, and the wife's job is only to break those assumptions. Step 2, decide what surprised you want to give the audience. So what you'll notice is that each punchline has the same basic theme, which is, this wife absolutely hates her husband and the husband is blissfully unaware. So you'll notice that the early punchlines are very harmless and benign, while the later punchlines get very direct and aggressive. So this is the surprise at the writers are working with. When you solve the broken assumption joke, you should be left with this idea that, Oh my goodness, this woman actually hates her husband. Step 3, identify the implicit information. The implicit information or the assumptions is anything that the wife should have said. So think about the very last punchline. We're like two peas in a. Now, everybody that is familiar with that saying knows each should have said two peas in a pod. That is the assumption that is getting broken. So you can think about each one of these jokes as being a what shift, because what the person was about to say changes between the setup and the punchline. Step 4 is to test out different punchlines. Now if you go back through the script and he read the wife's responses, you'll notice that each punchline has the same basic surprise that she hates her husband. So there are many different punchlines, but all of them have that same surprise. So in step two, we decided we want the wife to secretly hate the husband. And then now what we're doing is in step 34, we're saying, what are the opportunities I have to create a broken assumption joke? And then how do I actually create that joke? So in step three, what assumptions can I break? In step four? What does this specific way I can break that assumption in ideally, we want to do it in a way that is going to lead to that surprised that we created in step two, step five, go back and figure out what the setup should be. Now I want you to think about this from the wife's point of view. The husband is creating the setup. And then as a writer or as the wife, her job is only to respond to the setups with some kind of a punchline. So if we want to think about ourselves from the wife's point of view, then here we don't have to rewrite the set-up because it is being given to us. So this is what I mean by storytelling. However, if you want to think of yourself as the actual writers of this sketch, then now we are actually responsible for both the setup and the punchline. So what we wanna do in step 3 and 4 is find the best combinations that can let us create the broken assumption jokes with the best punchlines. So to give you an example of this, as a writer, we can say we can read each other's, okay if that's the setup, what should the punchline be? If the husband says this, what should the wife say? You can go through the entire sketch and use that same pattern. If the husband says this, what should the wife say? So all we're doing here is we're looking for the best combination of punchlines. And in step 6, we're going to rewrite the setups and the punchlines to flow together better. So this is our chance to be a wordsmith and to think about these specific way we want to say the setup line or the punchline. 9. Broken Assumption Jokes - Writing Walkthrough: So here I'm going to go through three different walk-throughs. Where in each of these walkthroughs I take a random phrase and then I go through these six steps to create a joke. If you want to go through and do these steps as well, you can go to this website here, and then you can set this to ten so that you get a variety of phrases that you can use. And then go through and just look at the different phrases that might be interesting as a starting point. Here are my three writing prompts. Draw a blank. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth and the term play possum. So number 1, draw a blank. My first goal is to figure out what the surprise should be. And I settled on the idea that maybe I should literally draw nothing or draw a blank. So from there, I look at the implicit information. I have the word drying and I have how, the what and the how are my opportunities here for shifting and using that surprise? So if I want to surprise the audience with drawing a blank, then I probably need to do a watch or a how shift. Step four, I try different combinations to find a punchline. So I settled on this punchline here, I failed my art class. Now I like this punchline because it's indirect. When I say I failed my art class, then it should be really easy for the audience to solve the joke and then figure out that I actually drew nothing. Once I have that punchline. Now, I'll go back and I'll figure out what the setup should be. Now, earlier on when I was talking about storytelling and finishing each other's sentences, we already had a setup to work with. But since I'm using a random writing prompts, now, my only option is to come up with the punchline and then figure out what is the best setup for that punchline. So I settled on the last time, I drew a blank. Now that's just a super easy, quick way of getting to the point. And then I put those together and I rewrite it to make it flow. The last time I drew a blank, I failed my art class. It sets up the joke very quickly and it is very effective at implying the surprise that I want. So prompt number two, don't look a gift horse in the mouth. So step two, what is the surprise is going to be? What do I want to imply once the audience solves the joke? So I thought about this for a little while and I finally just settled on this idea here. Giving someone a horse is stupid. So moving on to step three, what is the implicit information? What assumptions do I have that I can use? So I decided that the what and the why are my best opportunities here for shifting. Step 4, try out different combinations to find the best punchline. So I settled on this punchline here, a more useful phrase is, don't give anyone a horse. Step 5, figure out what the setup should be. Here I decided to use the phrase. They say, Don't look a gift horse in the mouth. Now they say it's just the quickest possible way that I can get to the point of the story. In step 6, you'll notice that I changed the, the punchline here. I went from the punchline being a more useful phrase is too, they say this, I say that. So the reason I changed this is because it felt like it flowed better. It's a very easy pattern that I think it really easy for the audience to follow. So the full joke is they say, Don't look a gift horse in the mouth. I say, don't give anyone a horse. Walkthrough. Number 3, play possum. So here I started with the phrase play possum. Step two, what's the surprise going to be? I decided that the surprise should be me literally playing dead so that I can avoid some kind of uncomfortable conversation. So in my head I can see myself, somebody says something. And then instead of engaging in this difficult conversation, I'm going to literally play dead like a possum wood, which is good on the floor and then curl up into a ball. So using this mental image of this surprise, I want to give my audience, now it's time to think about how can I actually do that? So in step three, I think about the implicit information. I think about what assumptions I can use so that I can create the punchline. And so here I'm going to use eight what shift? So the joke is going to shift from meaning playing possum as being deceitful to playing possum as literally acting like a possum. Step 4, try out different combinations to find a punchline. So my punchline here is going to be a physical one. I'm going to curl up into a ball on the floor. So there's not actually any word choice here that I need to worry about for the punchline. Moving on to step 5, for the setup, try to figure out what would be the funniest setup if the punchline was meat curling up into a ball because I want to avoid and uncomfortable conversation. And so I decided I would have my friend asking me about paying him some money back. So the full setup would be my friend said, Don't play possum with me. So I inserted the phrase play possum here because when I curl up into a ball to avoid the uncomfortable conversation, the audience is going to be super confused. But if I mention in the setup that playing possum is a possibility, actually curl up, then the audience instantly knows why I'm doing it. So instead of getting confused, The instantly understand what's going on and the punchline makes sense. Putting it altogether, step six, I rewrite and I come out with this. My friend said, Don't play possum with me. And as I thought about it, that was all I wanted to do. So he's like, When are you going to pay me back? And then I curl up into a ball on the stage. So you can see from these three rock throws that it's quite easy to go from just a random prompt all the way to a finished joke. 10. Exaggeration Jokes - How They Work: Exaggerations create humor by using in congruity. There's a difference between what you expect and what actually happens. There's two factors that play a big role when you're talking about how funny and exaggerations going to be. The first factor is obviously how big of an exaggeration can you use? And what this means is, the bigger the exaggeration, the more potential you have to create humor. So if you look at this graph, what this is saying is that the further to the right you get the funnier it is going to be. So big exaggerations are funnier than small ones. However, second factor that is important is the believability of your exaggeration. You need to give the audience a reason to believe that your exaggeration is true or you're going to break the reality, you are going to break the joke. So what this is saying is that you actually need to stay further to the left, which is where you have a smaller exaggeration that is believable. And so when you put these two together, you end up with the funniest exaggerations being the biggest exaggeration that you can get the audience to believe is true. If the exaggeration is too small, then it's going to feel too much like daily life, like normal reality. And there's not gonna be anything to laugh at. However, if you're too far on the right, if the exaggeration is too big, now it is unbelievable and you're going to be breaking the trust with your audience. I like to think of this sort of like you're watching a movie and there's this huge plot hole, or maybe there's really, really bad acting. And so you understand what the movie is saying, you can still follow along with the movie, but the plot hole or the bad acting makes it really difficult for you to buy into what the movie is selling. And the same is true for your comedy. If you over-exaggerate, audience is going to say, no, I can't go with you that far. So you break their trust and it ends up being much less funny than it could have been. So the rule here is your exaggeration should be as big as you can get away with. You want it to be big, but you also want to give the audience a reason to believe that it is true. Here is a great example of how that works. So if you've ever watched arrested development, then you know that there's this character named Buster. Now buster is the slow character of the TV show. So as an audience, we already know that he's not smart. He can make really stupid mistakes and we believe a reality, we know it's true. So when he starts exaggerating that as an audience member, we can understand why. So he can use this huge exaggeration, but he could get away with it because we know that he is the slow character. In one of these clips, busters learning the give-and-take of insulting other guys and using guy talk. And then in the other clip, he says One small bad thing about his mother. He is rewarded for it from his brothers and sisters. And then from there he tries to build off and do an even bigger one, but he ends up going way, way too far. Now what's awesome about both of these clips is that they are huge exaggerations. But at the same time, we can completely believe that they're true. If you were to try to change which character is cursing, then the joke would lose almost all of its value. Because the smart characters would never do this in, as an audience. We already know that, you know, I'm pretty good shape. You could be my desktop. They slowpoke. Bus jam was starting to give as good as he got up and you might be well, let's hope it doesn't come to that. So the last question, everyone needs something from pushing likes to be needed as long as it isn't cost or anything. It's like she gets off I'm being withholding Foster who's got some indices. And I want to shoot down everything you say so I feel good about myself. Well, no one's going to top that. 11. Exaggeration Jokes - Writing Steps: So now let's talk about the five steps for writing an exaggeration joke. Step one, we begin with a mundane, boring story or some kind of playful observation. All we care about here is having somewhere to start. Step 2 is where we identify the different characteristics inside of our story. So each character of a story, and this includes you, if you're talking about yourself, you have different personalities that you can work with. Maybe somebody who's very shy, you can exaggerate the shyness. You have different emotions that you could feel. You can take any of those possible emotions and exaggerate them to create a really interesting story. The same is true with any kind of characteristic. Your physical traits, personality traits, emotional traits. So in step two, we look at our options, and then in step three, we make a decision about what we want to exaggerate. In step four, we figured out what the surprise is going to be. So we think, okay, if I exaggerate this kind of characteristic, then what surprise Can I give the audience? And finally, in step 5, we're going to rewrite our story using the exaggerated characteristic. So let's go through this with our Buster example. So step one, start with a mundane, boring story or some kind of playful observation. All we care about here is having some kind of starting place. So for the riders here, what this means is having some kind of serious situation that we can then add comedy too. So we have the siblings complaining about their mom. In step 2, we identify the different characteristics inside the story. So this is all about trying to figure out what our options are. So for buster, we have his inability to use guy talk, we have his stupidity. We have this desire for siblings, love. We have a lot of different characteristics that we can play around with. So in step three, we 0 in and say, We want to exaggerate busters and the ability to use guy talk. In step four, we decide what the surprise should be. So when Buster completely fails to have a lighthearted insult, then what should the audience feel? What should their reaction be? And so here the writers are saying, I want to give them and oh my god moment. So I want to make sure the audiences shocked at what he's saying. But at the same time they understand that it's completely accidental because he doesn't know that he is going too far. And finally, in step 5, as the rider, this is our chance to rewrite everything to make sure that the joke flows naturally. 12. Exaggeration Jokes - Examples: So let's go through these six steps. Again using the eHarmony dating video. I really like cats. This is my first attempt at a eHarmony video. My first time at online dating. So nervous, but I'm excited at the same time. So I'm just going to start talking about what I like and hope I get some replies. I am a recent MBA grad from Villanova. I love cats. Just sorry, I'm getting emotional. I love cat. I love every clinic cat. I just really love. And I just want to hug them, but it gets crazy it every day. But I do want to, I went to again, anytime I hear cat, I love cat. Heartless way for credit. So anyway, I am a cat lover and I love to run. I'm sorry, I'm thinking about cats again. Think about how many don't have a low end. Well, I should add. And how cute they are. No piano rainbow in my and I just want to follow. So step one, we start with an mundane, boring story or a playful observation. So for this, we're just going to begin with a normal dating video. Your typical Hello introductory video. There's nothing humorous about this yet. Step two, identify the different characteristics inside the story. So again, you're asking yourself, what can I exaggerate here? So for this dating video, there are tons and tons of thing that you could talk about. If you go through anybody's introductory dating profile, then you're going to find tons of information about that person. But any likes and dislikes could work here. You can magnify how much you like something, or you could magnify how much you hate it. Both of them could lead to it. Oh my god, moment for the audience. Step 3, we choose which characteristic we want to exaggerate. So in this case we're gonna say, we're gonna exaggerate how much we like cats. Step 4, we figure out what surprise we want to give the audience. So when this girl starts talking about how much he likes cats, What Surprise should the audience get? How should they feel? So in the audience's mind, they should be thinking, oh my God, this girl is acting crazy in her own dating video. Finally, in step 5, we rewrite the story using the exaggerated characteristic. So here we're going to go back to the original script and think about, okay, let's make a fake dating video. But I want to figure out a way of slowly implying that I'm way too in love with caps and not on secretly crazy. So here all you're doing, you're going back and you're rewriting the story, you're taking the serious story, you're inserting the exaggeration into it. And then you're going to let loose and see where the story takes you. 13. Contradiction Jokes - How They Work: Contradictions work in a very similar way to exaggeration jokes. If you look at the four factors that are important to the humor inside of a contradiction, then you can see number 1 and 2, the size of the contradiction, and then the believability of it. Those are the same that we saw for the exaggerations. So what this is saying is that a bigger exaggeration is going to be funnier, but at the same time, an exaggeration that the audience can believe actually happened or can justify laughing at, is going to be funnier. So we find that the funniest contradiction is going to be the biggest one that you can get away with. Factor number 3 is the speed of the contradiction. And what this is saying is that you need to have whatever you're contradicting happened immediately before you contradict. And that makes it really easy for the audience to put it together. So you say, I never eat meat, and then you instantly eat a hot dog. The audience can put that together a lot easier than if you say you never eat meat. And then 34 minutes later you're talking about eating a hot dog. Most of the audience members are not going to put that together. So the speed is important. And then number four is the irony. Almost every contradiction joke is getting the humor from irony. There's two different ways that a comedian can use contradictions to create humor. The first is when they are the ones contradicting their own rules. And when this is true, you always see what's called misplaced sincerity inside of the joke. Misplaced and severity is when a comedian pretends to not know something or not recognize something. So when you create a joke where you are the one contradicting yourself, in 99% of the cases, you're going to pretend that you don't even notice. Whenever you're making a joke about other people contradicting themselves, then you're still using irony, but you are going to be making fun of other people. So those people aren't going to notice that they are contradicting themselves. Even though from your point of view, you can see that there are clearly being contradictory. Either way, contradictions use a lot of irony. So let's talk about the three types of contradictions. Type number 1 is when your words contradict other words. So here you say something and then you immediately follow it up by saying the exact opposite thing. You contradict yourself immediately. Here's a great example of not only contradicting yourself immediately, but giving the audience a great reason to believe your contradiction. I really like you. There's no chance we can ever be together. If you could promise me you'll never die. He know I can't promise that. If he did that kind of make Lefty right now. I promise I will never die. The reason this joke is so funny is because it hits those first two factors about what makes a good contradiction joke. Number one, it is a huge contradiction. Gary does a complete 180. And then number two, it is believable when he does the 180 as an audience member, we know exactly why he's doing it. The second type is when your words contradict your actions. So this is when you say something, but then the actions you take or what happens next immediately contradicts what you've said. Here's a great example from the flight of the concordance. In one example, his words will contradict his words. And then in another example, his words are going to be contradicted by his actions. As the hip hop. Hip hop. Problem is my lyrics a bottomless? Yes, sometimes sexes but China, correct this. The last type of contradiction is when your words are contradicted by what the audience already knows about you. Steve Martin loved making these types of jokes. He always played the fool on the stage. So when he gets on stage, he says that he is an intellectual kind of guy. The audience can laugh at that moment because they already understand that he plays the fool. So these are the three types of contradictions. I recommend that you use the first and the second type. Because the third type will require that the audience already knows something about you. So there are two great writing tips for whenever you are writing a contradiction joke. Number one is to try to focus on DOM characters because this makes it really easy for the audience to justify why a contradiction happened. If somebody who's really smart and well spoken instantly contradicts themselves, then the audience and they say, Wait, why? But if you use a really dumb voice, then the audience can go, Oh, okay, he's a stupid person. That's why he contradicted himself. So it just makes it more believable, really easy character to use. Number 2 is concentrate on rule-breaking. Look for anytime that you break one of your own rules or you observe somebody else breaking one of their own rules. Usually in comedy, it is much easier to poke fun of other people from making mistakes rather than poking fun of yourself. But you can do either one and be very effective at it. And regardless of who actually contradicts themselves, whether you notice you are contradicting yourself or somebody else. As a writer, you have the creative license to change details of your story. Let's say that I noticed that I did something that I am not really proud of and I contradicted one of my own rules. As a comedy writer, it would be way easier for me to say, Okay, I'm going to write the story and I'm going to use this contradiction. But instead of me trying to make fun of myself, I'm going to put it on somebody else that I know it's going to be my friend and then I'll just give him a random name. And then that way I can make fun of this person, but I can do it in a way that allows me to trade some insults that will hit a little harder and be a little funnier. 14. Contradiction Jokes - Writing Steps: So let's talk about the five steps for writing a contradiction joke. Step one is all about starting with some kind of a serious story that we can then add contradictions to. If you already have material that you're working with here, then go through your old material and look for any factual statements or opinions that you can then contradict. If you're trying to write a contradiction joke from scratch, such as from a writing prompt. Then what you're gonna do is write factual statements or anything with a strong opinion to it. Anything that strongly predicts what your actions should or should not be can work as a contradiction. So you want to look at phrases like, I always, I never, I have been, I tried to, or I promise each of these phrases strongly predicts what you will or will not do in the future. So if you say, I promised to do this, then it's very easy to turn around in contradict that later. So step one is simply about having some kind of serious story that we can add a contradiction to. So for the team American example, we can start with a simple, emotional and serious conversation. And from there, we can figure out how to add a contradiction. Step two is figuring out what the contradiction should be. This is where you create a contradiction by doing exactly the opposite thing that you suggested you would do earlier on. Whenever you're thinking about what your contradiction should be, you should keep in mind the surprise that you want to give the audience in this team America joke. The surprise here. When you solve the joke, you're left with this idea that men would promise anything for sex. It's that surprised, that is really driving the humor and making this joke so funny. So when you're thinking about the contradiction, also keep in mind what surprised you want to give the audience. So for our team america example, this could be the moment where the writers think, okay, we can have Gary promise that he'll never die. In step three, we write the punchline. The punchline is going to be whatever inserts that contradiction. So in our case with the team America, this is where Gary promises, he'll never die. Step 4 is where we go back and we write the setup. There's two main parts of this. Number 1 is like every setup we have two goals. We want to tell the audience the situation, and then we want to get to the point of the story that we're telling. That is true for every setup. For contradiction. We also want to make sure that it is very easy for the audience to see the contradiction. So we already know what the punchline is going to be. Gary will promise that he'll never die. So when we go back and we look at the setup, we want to make sure that it is very clear that that is a contradiction. We want to make sure the speed of the contradiction is as quick as possible. Remember earlier we talked about the speed of a contradiction being very important. The setup says, I can't promise, I'll never die. And the punch line that happens immediately after it is, I promise, I'll never die. And then finally, step 5 is where we rewrite everything to make sure it flows naturally. This is our chance to punch up the joke in any way that we find necessary. So in step 4, we talked a lot about the setup and making sure that the speed of the contradiction is as good as it can get. But if we haven't yet done that, step five is where we want to make sure that everything that we can do to punch up the quality of the joke gets done. So these are the five steps for writing a contradiction. 15. Puns & Wordplay - How They Work: In this video, we'll talk about how puns work upon as a type of wordplay. And they're typically thought of as the most shallow kind of humor out there because they rarely have a deeper meaning to the joke. Usually once you understand what the pun is, the joke is finished. There's nothing else for you to get. The humor from. A pun comes primarily from how playful it feels. So if you look at these two puns here, you can tell that there really isn't a whole lot under the surface. Once you understand what the joke is, then the joke is done. There's nowhere else to go. So we'll talk about three different factors that are important. But by far, the number one factor is the playfulness, the most common and the most important reason why upon can get a laugh is because it feels playful. Thing of wordplay being like how children play. There doesn't have to be any kind of outside reason for you to play. You're just doing it for its own sake because it's fun. And the same is true for wordplay. Wordplay doesn't require that you have anything deeper under the surface for it to work. All that really matters is how playful it feels. Each pond is going to start with some kind of word that can be interpreted in two different ways. So here we have the word flexible, which originally is interpreted to mean being stretchy or bendable. But then it shifts in the punchline to meaning, how open is your schedule. Now this is about as shallow as a joke can get, because there's no implications here. There's nowhere for you to explore. Once you get the joke, then it's done. There's nothing else to do. And that's why these kind of jokes typically aren't nearly as funny as other jokes. With our EDI is your job from earlier, we have the original meaning of driven, being ambitious in the punchline, it quickly shifts to just simply being driven in a car. And once again, the playfulness of the PAN is what's driving the humor. Here's a typical joke that a lot of people will be familiar with. Here we have two different puns inside the same joke. And just like the other ones, you'll notice that it feels really playful. But at the same time, if you stop and think about it, there's really not a whole lot here. Number two, does the PAN imply anything interesting? So jokes are always funnier when they imply something. One way you can add humor to any kind of pun is to make sure it points beyond itself. So here's a great Jimmy Carr example that has the fun word play in it. But at the same time, once you get the joke, you're rewarded with a very simple sex joke. So this is not a huge implication, but you'll notice that it does add a little bit of comedy to the joke. The number 3 factor is whether or not there are any interesting consequences to the PAN. So the puns that we have seen so far haven't had any consequences to them. They begin and they end. And once you understand them, then it's finished. In a moment, we'll watch two clips from the movie Airplane and the TV show police squad. What's so great about these examples is that they use simple puns, but they use them in a way that makes sure that the scene will spiral out of control. So as an audience member, we still get to enjoy the puns, but at the same time, we get to watch some kind of situation, become very crazy. And that adds a lot to the humor. Like 200 nine or York wherever, roger, LA departure bring what they wanted to 3.9 or project requests vector over like 209 are clear for vector 3 to 4, we have clearance. Clearance, Roger, roger. What's our vector? Here? It's over. That's Clara's over or dragging on your own. But when I first heard the shot and as I turn, Jim fell. He's a teller, Frank. But Jim fills a teller. Jim Johnson, museum films. He's the auditor flag and he had the flu. So Jim filled in, fill him a filled and he's the Night Watch. And why they matter. Let me get this straight. Twice, came in and shot the teller and Jim fell. Just a teller. Jim Johnson fellows it. Okay. Then after he shot the teller, you shot twice? No. I only shot once or twice is the holdup man that I guess I did shoot Twice. Was an IO changing your story? No. I shot Twice after Jim fell. You shot twice and Gemfile know Jim fell first and then I shot twice, once. Twice, once. He's the owner of the tire company, Frank. Okay. Once as the owner of the tire company and he fired twice Twice, shot the teller ones place, and Jim fell and then you find twice once. We think we know how I did it. Oh, he couldn't have done it. He hasn't been in for weeks. Well, we saw weeks. He's the controller, Frank 16. Puns & Wordplay - Writing Steps: In this video, we're gonna talk about the two different ways that you can go about writing a good pun. The first method I'm going to show you is how you can start with some kind of a setup and figure out what the punch should be from there. And then the second method I will show you is what you can do if you have a funny phrase that you think would be a good punchline, but you need to work backwards and figure out what the setup should be to turn it into a great PAN. Steps 2 and 3 of the setup to punchline strategy can be flipped around and done in any order. And the same is true for steps 34 of the punchline to setup strategy, which is the blue and the red text on the screen. So let's start with the setup, the punchline strategy. Here you're going to begin with some kind of a writing prompt or a short story. So we need something to work as a setup before we can get started. Step 2 is where you identify the words that you're able to shift. This step is all about looking for your opportunities. Three, you decide what the surprise is going to be that you want to give the audience. Step 4, you write your actual punchline. And then finally in step 5, you rewrite everything to punch up the quality and make sure it flows. So let's go step by step. So step one is all about getting ourselves started. So we can use this joke here. I lost my job at the bank on my very first day. A woman asked me to check her balance. So i, so the setup so far is boring, but you'll notice that it makes predictions about what should happen next. In step 2, we identify the words that we can shift. So we want to take this phrase, check her balance, and find a different way of interpreting it. So we look at the different meanings of the phrase. And we can go from checking to see how much money is in a bank account to checking her equilibrium or her ability to stay balanced. So this is all about figuring out which words or phrases are available for you to play around with. Step 3 is where you decide what the surprise should be. So as the writer of this joke, this is where we would say, Okay, I want the bank teller to misunderstand the lady and then do something slightly awful. That is going to be what the audience laughs at once they get the joke. So knowing what the surprise is going to be, that's when we move to step four and we write our punchline. And then finally in step 5, we're going to rewrite everything to make sure it all flows together nicely. And we end up with this Polish joke here. Now let's use the punchline to setup strategy. So here we're beginning with some kind of word or phrase that we think has a lot of potential to be funny. Basically, we have a punchline without a setup. In step 2, we're going to figure out the different ways that we can use that punchline that we have. In step three, we're going to write the actual punchline. In step four, we're going to figure out what the surprise is going to be for that punchline. And again, I said you can flip 34. So if you want, you can figure out what surprised you want to give. And then figure out in step three how to give it. Or you can do it this way that it's on your screen. Now. Either way, by the end of step four, you should have a punchline and you should have a very good idea about what the surprise is going to be. Whether you figured out the surprise or the punchline first doesn't really matter. And in fact, you should learn how to do both of those because some jokes, it will be easier to figure out the punchline and then say, okay, if I use this punchline, will the surprise be funny? But other times we want to say, Okay, what does this surprise? That's funny. And what punchline can I use to get that across to the audience? Both of those are great strategies. So step five, you're going to write the setup. And then finally in step 6, you're going to rewrite everything to make sure it flows nicely. So let's go through this with a common PAN. So first we begin with some kind of phrase that we think has a lot of potential. So we have the phrase, he's a man after my own heart. Now, at this point, we won't actually know what we're doing with the joke yet. The only thing we have is a feeling that this could lead somewhere. It's an interesting phrase that we could use as a punchline as long as we find the right setup. Step 2 is where we figured out the different ways to interpret our phrase. So we have a man after my own heart, which usually means he likes me. But in some cases it could make he is actually physically after your heart. In step three, we come up with our punchline. When you're using this method, the punchline is going to be usually identical to what we already had in step one. Remember we started because we think a man after my own heart is a funny punchline to use. So here in step 3, this should be exactly the same thing you started with. In step four, we figure out what the surprise it should be. So this joke is going to surprise the audience that he's not actually being friendly. He is trying to steal his son's heart. So here we write the setup of the joke. My dad suggested I register for a donor card. Now this is a very important setup because that is what is going to create the pun in the end, when you hear he's a man after my own heart. As an audience member, you're going to go back to the setup and you say, wait, that donor card thing doesn't make sense using the normal way of saying, man, after my own heart. And once you put that together, that's how you can solve the joke. In step 6, you're going to rewrite the joke to make it flow better. Let's go through this one more time using the cockpit seen from airplane. So we begin with a word or phrase that can be interpreted in at least two different ways. So here the writers can brainstorm all the words that are associated with a airplane cockpit. So we have the word Roger, clearance over and vector. In step two, you figure out different ways you can play around with the words. So you have Roger and you can make that a name. Victor becomes a vector, clearance, clearance over, becomes over. In step 3, you write the punchline. So there are obviously many different punchlines inside of this one short scene. So each one of these punchlines is going to use this exact same strategy. The punchlines you use are going to be very similar to what you already started with. In step four, we figured out what the surprise is going to be. So here we're saying, if I use this punchline, What will the surprise be that the audience is going to laugh at? And remember, steps 43 can be switched around. So we can begin with the surprise first and say, Okay, if I want to create a very chaotic, confusing cockpit situation, how can I do that using names? And then from there you could go back to step three and say, okay, what should the punchlines be? Either one of those is going to work for you. So by the end of step four, we already know what the punchlines will be and we understand what's the surprise for the audience will be as well. Step 5, we write the set-up because this happened in a movie. The writers had these setups of the joke earlier on because it's in their actual names. And then finally you rewrite everything to flow naturally. And this is where you punch up the jokes. You, maybe you add a few words or you take out a few whatever, mix the joke funnier. So these are the two different strategies you can use. And remember for these setup to punchline strategy, you can flip steps 234, the punchline to set up strategy, you can flip 34. 17. Meta-Jokes & Anti-Comedy - How They Work: In this video, I'm gonna talk about meta jokes and anti comedy. Both of these types of humor work in a really similar way. So just like with a callback joke, the humor here is going to be coming from referencing something. When you're doing a callback, you reference something that you've already said when you're doing a Meta joke or when you're doing anti comedy, you are referencing either how jokes are usually done, which would be a Meta joke. Or you're referencing how comedy is usually done, which would be anti-communist. So think about this joke here. How many people of a certain demographic group does it take to perform a specified task, a finite number, one to perform the task, and the remainder to act in a manner stereotypical of the group in question. This is a great example of a meta joke because it's clearly making fun of this style of joke. So in Mexico is going to be a joke about jokes. The setup starts out normal and the punchline will somehow make fun of the way jokes are told. With anti comedy. The joke is going to be about stand-up comedy in general, or something that comedians tend to do. Setup here has got to be normal. And then the punchline is going to find a way to make fun of a typical way that comedians work. Now this is not to say you're being mean to specific comedians. You're just doing a parody of how comedy is usually done. I hadn't seen him in about four years and the last time we were together, we were doing a roofing job on the top of a 40 story building. And while we were up there, Billy started getting depressed and he started talking crazy. And he went up and to the ledge and he said it was going to jump too late and I couldn't stop him. He jumped off the building right after we jumped, I look down and notice that trampoline and pouring and was having a sidewalk sale. He landed on one of the trampolines and bounce back up. And just as he got to the level of where I was standing, he said, You know, I think a lot of your job premises are very contrived and hard to believe. I had heard a little bit. 18. Meta-Jokes & Anti-Comedy - Writing Steps: So these are the five steps for writing a meta joke or anti-communist. Step one, you decide what it is that you want to make fun of. Step 2, you figure out exactly what you're going to make fun of it for. So this is a quality or a characteristic that you're going to poke fun of. Step 3, you write the punchline. Step four, you are going to write your setup. And then finally in step 5, you are going to rewrite the joke to make sure it flows well. So let's go through this with a typical joke. Step one, decide what you want to make fun of. Here our only goal is to find a target for our joke. So we're going to choose some amount of people walk into a bar type joke. Step 2, what characteristics are we going to make fun of it for? This is all about figuring out exactly what we're poking fun of. This step is very important because when the audience solves the joke, when they understand that joke, they are going to be left with the surprise from this step. So what are we going to make fun of this style of joke for? So we're going to choose their obvious jokes with very fake, weird sounding setups. Step three is to write the punchline. So here we come up with the punchline. The bartender says, what is this, some kind of joke? Step four, we'd go back and we write the setup. So here we say an Englishman, a Scotsman, and an Irishman walk into a bar. Since we already know that we're making fun of a joke for being very weird in the setup and very contrived, then any three types of people could work here, as long as it is a group that feels like it would be the setup of a joke. Step 5, we rewrite everything to flow together better. So once again, here are the five steps we just went through. Let's go through it one more time using Dimitri Martin's meta joke. So first we decide what we want to make fun of, which is going to be making fun of jokes in general. Step two, what exactly about jokes? Are we going to make fun of? So here we can come up with the length of the joke or maybe the believability of the joke. Step three, write the punchline. So the punchline is, you know, I think a lot of your joke premises are very contrived and hard to believe. So once you say this punchline, the audience is going to think back to the setup. And it should instantly makes sense. It should be making fun of itself. So we know just from reading the punchline, that the setup needs to be something that is very contrived and hard to believe. So in step four, you go back and you write the setup of the joke. And then finally in step 5, you rewrite the job to make sure it flows. So once again, here are the five steps for writing a meta joke or anti-communist. 19. Compare & Contrast Jokes - How They Work: So in this video, we're gonna talk about two great strategies for writing comedy. Both of these strategies get their humor by comparing two ideas together. When you're using the contrast strategy, what you're doing is you're finding a really funny difference between two ideas that are very similar. And the comparison strategy is where you find a funny similarity between two things that are very different. So let's look at the comparison strategy first. The comparison strategy is all about taking two ideas that on the surface should be very, very different, then finding some kind of interesting similarity between them. This strategy is really similar to how you can go about creating analogies as well. When you use a contrast, you're finding a funny difference between two very similar ideas. So here we have an excellent Dimitri Martin joke. This joke compares the words, yes, yeah, home. And yet. Now these four words are incredibly similar. There's a huge overlap in how people use them. So what Demetri Martin does here is he shows how three of these words can be used during sex, but one clearly cannot be. So he takes this word yep, and then shows how it's actually very different than the other three. Here's a similar example from Jim Graf. Again. Pi can't compete with cake. Foot candles in a cake. It's a birthday cake. Put candles in a pie, and somebody's drunk in the kitchen. So just like with the comparison strategy, we have two different ideas. This time, instead of having two ideas that are very far apart and showing why they are the same. We're starting with two ideas that are very close to being the same already. There are lot of similarities between pi and cake. So we're starting with ideas that have a big overlap. And then now what we wanna do is find a significant way that they're actually different. So these are the main differences between the comparisons and the contrast jokes. Both strategies take two separate ideas and they find some kind of interesting relationship between the two. In a comparison joke, your setup is going to be introducing two of these ideas. And then you'll use your punchline to find a surprising similarity. And then with a contrast joke, your setups are going to introduce the two ideas and then your punchline is going to introduce a surprising difference. What I love about using compare and contrast jokes is that they're really new comedian friendly. It's really easy to follow the right steps and then end up with something that you're actually excited to get on stage. 20. Comparison Jokes - Writing Steps: So now let's talk about comparison jokes. And remember a comparison joke. We're taking two very different ideas and we're comparing them together to create the humor, were saying, actually, they're not so different. They share something interesting in common. So step one, we will start with some kind of random noun. In our earlier example, this would be starting with the word cats, but we still don't know what we're going to compare Cats two. In step two, we look for something surprising that we would like our punchline to reveal about the noun that we're working with, which is cats. So here we say they sit on your lap, but they don't like it if you touch them. So we still don't know what we're comparing it to. We only know the relationship that they share. So we know cats and we know the relationship. And in the next step we will figure out something that shares that relationship. So step three, we find a second noun that shares this relationship. And this is where we come up with the punchline, this idea that cats and strippers actually share something in common. In step four, we write a punchline that will reveal this surprising similarity. So here we have the punchline. I'm going to sit on your lap, but you can't touch me. Step 5, right? A setup to quickly get to the point of the joke. Cats are like strippers. They're like, I'm going to sit on your lap, but you can't touch me. Let's go through this joke writing process together. We start with some kind of a random noun. So in the beginning, we don't know what we are comparing and we don't know what we're comparing it to. We start out with an empty slate. To find my starting word. I went to random word generator.com and I gave myself 10 different words to choose from, and I just simply chose my favorite of these. So I'm starting with the word advice. In step two, I look for something surprising that I would like my punchline to reveal about the word advice. In step two, I settled on this. We constantly worry about having enough of it. But the only thing that should matter is whether we use it. This is the relationship that I want these two ideas to share. So you can see in the bottom right corner, I tried five different relationships before I settled on this one. And what that does is it gives you many different opportunities to find an interesting relationship. And then once you have that interesting relationship, you're again going to look at different opportunities or different ideas that could be in that blue circle there. This gives you the most opportunities to work with as a comedy writer. Step 3, I find a second noun that is going to share the surprise with the first. So the relationship constantly worrying about having enough of it. But what's really important is that you use it. When I thought about this, I instantly thought about having enough toilet paper. So now that I have the two nouns as well as the relationship that they share, I'm going to move on to step 4 and write the punchline. The punchlines job is simply to reveal this surprising relationship. You can go ahead and pause if you want to read through what I've written here. Step five, we are going to write the setup to quickly get to the point of the joke. And again, you can go ahead and pause if you want to read through. 21. Contrast Jokes - Writing Steps: So here are the writing steps for writing each one of these jokes, the comparison jokes and the contrast jokes. So step one, find two ideas that are very similar. So this is like yes, yet in Aha compared to the word. Yet, we're starting with two ideas that are very, very similar. And we're going to create humor by finding an interesting difference. Step to look for ways that the ideas are surprisingly different. So this is where the Nietzschean Martin noticed that you can't use the word yet during sex, but you can use words that are very, very similar. He's creating humor by finding a surprising and interesting difference between these ideas. Step three, write a punchline that will reveal this surprising difference that we found in step 2. So we already know that you can't use the word yep during sex. That is a surprising difference between these words. Now, we want to take that idea and translate it into an actual punchline so we need some words to back that up. So this is where we write the actual punchline. Step 4, write a setup to quickly get to the point of the joke. All right, let's go through these steps using a random word prompt. So the first thing I start out with an empty slate, I don't know what I'm comparing and I don't know what I'm comparing it to. So I need to start off by finding two ideas that are very similar. So the way I did this is I went to dictionary.com and they had an article on the front of their website called Better words to use instead of psycho. So I ended up with three synonyms for the word psycho. There's quirky, cooky, and fickle. Now according to dictionary.com, these words are very, very similar. And so I'm starting from a position where I have these two overlapping circles. The ideas share a lot in common already. So my job is going to be to find interesting differences between the two step to look for ways that these ideas are surprisingly different. Now according to dictionary.com, these three words, quirky, cooky, and fickle, are good substitutes for the word psycho. What I wanna do to create humor is to show where these synonyms fall short. Why aren't they nearly as good as psycho? So I'm going to look for small differences that are very, very important. So here's what I settled on. The word psycho. Sounds really scary, like you would be afraid of a psycho. But the other three words, which technically could mean a psycho, don't feel scary at all. If you were to hear somebody has quirky, that person is a little kooky. That person is fickle. Those words to me. Would never trigger like, I wouldn't ever feel scared about that person while I would feel scared about someone who's called a psycho. So this is a small difference in word choice. But it is incredibly important if you are, if somebody uses quirky instead of psycho, when they really mean psycho. Step three, write a punchline that reveals this surprising difference. So I settled on this punchline here. I'm alone with this Psycho. He's playing with a knife. And unlike, I guess that's one of those quirks. Here is what I ended up with after going through all four of these steps. And remember I'm a storyteller, that's what I naturally like doing. So you can tell here that I took this random word prompt and instead of trying to turn it into a single joke or maybe one or two, I did what I do best and I took it and explored it and made it into an entire story. As I've said before, I find this strategy to write the storytelling strategy so much easier than trying to use joke telling. So you can go ahead and pause the video and read through. 22. Analogy Jokes - How They Work: In this video, we're gonna talk about how analogies work. And then we'll talk about how you can write funny analogies for yourself. So an analogy works by comparing two ideas together. And those two ideas are called premises GFP one, which is premise one, and P2, which is premise two. And when you compare them together, you are allowing the listener to reach some kind of a conclusion, which is a sudden realization about the similarities between the two ideas. So you can see in the gray box here I'm going to be using this method, this bottom method as a way of writing analogies. You've just because it's super short to-do, premise one is similar to premise 2 because conclusion. So to give you an example, this would be like saying the brain is similar to a computer because they both process information in the same way. Analogies work the same, regardless of whether they're supposed to be useful or whether they're supposed to be funny. In both cases, you are letting the listener compare premise 1 and premise 2 reached some kind of a conclusion in a useful analogy. That is, when we're not trying to be funny, we're trying to help somebody learns something. Then the conclusion is some type of learning. When you say the brain is like a computer, because they both process information in a similar way. You're hoping that the listener will have this aha moment where they suddenly realize something new about how the brain works. When you use a funny analogy, you're doing the exact same thing. You're comparing two ideas together and you are allowing the listener to reach some kind of a conclusion. But instead of the conclusion being new knowledge or something that they learned, the conclusion is something that is funny and surprisingly accurate. So let's go through some examples. I'm going to use a lot of richard jenny jokes here because his analogies work amazingly good. So you'll see a lot of Richard Jenny here. Number 1. Porno is just like any other drug. After a while you start building up a tolerance to it. So you can see it written down here, porno is similar to a drug because you can build up a tolerance. Number two, I live in LA. I moved from New York for less stress. That was like moving to Alabama for the theater would have huge error. So we can write that joke like this. Moving to LA for less stress is similar to moving to Alabama for the theater, because they're both stupid reasons to move to a state. Number 3, choosing to have a child that you can't take care of is like farting in an elevator. Sure. You've got it out, but now it's everybody else's problem. So we can write that like this. Having a child that you can't take care of is similar to farting in an elevator because you get it out. But now it is everybody else's problem. Number four. I've never really thought of myself as depressed, so much as paralyzed by hope. We can write it like this. A depressed person is similar to a person who is paralyzed by hope, because they both feel surprisingly true. So in the Maria Bamford joke, when you solve the joke, the conclusion is something that feels surprisingly accurate. And so that is what's creating the humor here. It might look a little different on the surface, but it is functioning in the exact same way as all the jokes before it. If the presidency is the head of the American body, politic, Congress is its gastrointestinal track. So this actually has two different analogies inside of it. The first analogy, the president, similar to the head of a political body because he is making the decisions. For the punchline we have, Congress is similar to the gastrointestinal tract of the political body because they're full of crap. 23. Analogy Jokes - Writing Steps: So now let's go through the writing steps for an analogy. Step one is topic selection. So this is where we find out what premise one is going to be for the analogy, it can be a noun or a verb. And then we will add is like to the end of it. So the end result is that we have p1 is like something because some reason. So this would be like saying moving to Los Angeles for less stress is like something because some reason. In step 2 we decide on what the conclusion or the surprise is going to be. So when the audience solves the analogy, what do we want them to end up with? What is the surprise, what is the point of the joke? So here we can list several ideas and we can pick our favorite conclusion. So in step two, our joke is moving to Los Angeles for less stress is like something because both are stupid reasons to move to a state. Step three is we need to find what premise 2 is going to be. So here we list five or 10 possible ideas that share the conclusion with Premise 1. So we end up with moving to Los Angeles for less stress is like moving to Alabama for the theater, because both are stupid reasons to move to a state. You can see in the bottom right corner, I have five different premise 2s that we could've used to reach the same conclusion. So in this step, you already have premise one and the conclusion, your job is to find the best premise 2. And so that will take a couple of ideas you want to list several before one of them really just feel like it jumps out to you. And lastly, in step four, we are going to rewrite the joke to make sure it flows well. So let's go through a walk-through in how you can write analogies. Step one is topic selection. And for this, I chose premise one to be children. So children are like something for some reason. Step 2, decide on the conclusion or what the surprise is going to be. Now, I listed a lot of different ideas here, not just the six that you can see in the bottom. The 6 and the bottom tended to be some of my favorite ones, but I went through a lot of them before I found something I really liked. So in step two, I end up with this. I have children are like something because if you have too many of them, you'll be stuck in the house. Step three is where we figure out what premise 2 is going to be. Here, I settled on snowflakes, so I end up with children are similar to snowflakes because if you have too many, you'll be stuck in the house. Step 4, I rewrite the joke and I end up with this. Children are like snowflakes. If you have too many, you'll be stuck in the house. This is a super, super short joke, but it hits really hard. Here are seven different premises that you can start with. So you can use this writing strategy yourself. For example, number 1, breakfast in bed. We're going to start with the same formula that we had earlier. Where as a breakfast in bed is similar to some thing because some reason. And what you can do is you can go through all seven of these and use that as a starting point. 24. Callback Jokes - Intro & Writing Steps: A callback is whenever you reference something that you said earlier in the show, it's a really easy way of getting some good laughs just by taking an old punchline that you told and then bringing it into a new piece of material. So think about these three callbacks here. Let's take the example from Arrested Development First, I've made a terrible mistake. This super easy punchline to use that you can insert almost anywhere. The first time it was spoken, it could be used as a punchline, but every time after that it becomes funnier and funnier. If you've ever seen the movie Airplane than you've seen a lot of great callbacks. Both Leslie Nielsen and Lloyd Bridges had amazing callbacks throughout that entire movie. The longer your performance, the easier it will become to use callbacks. If you're only doing a short two-minute performance, than it would be really difficult to insert some kind of a call back there. But if you're doing a two hour long performance such as something that Eddie is or does. That is a lot of stuff you could potentially call back to. A great thing about a callback is that it tends to create a sense of community because a callback is essentially an inside joke. You have to be a part of this audience to really understand what they're talking about, what the comedians talking about. So a callback creates this sense of community where the audience feels special. So let's talk about some tips for writing callbacks. Number one, don't force a callback into your material. Don't use it just simply because you feel like you have to use it. When there is a good opportunity to use a callback. Usually you will find it even if you're not actually looking for it. Second, the more jokes you have, the easier callbacks are going to be. And this is talking about your writing. So if you've only written ten jokes in your career, the probability that two of those jokes will work together for a callback is probably pretty small. But if you have a 100 jokes, then all of a sudden you have a lot more opportunities to find those connections. And the same thing is true for how much time you have onstage. And I've already mentioned this before. So for like a five-minute performance, if you do one or two callbacks, net is plenty. And the last thing I'll say about callbacks is that they work really, really well as a closer, a callback tends to give the feeling of closure to a show. It feels like things have come full circle and it creates this natural ending for your performance. This is why you'll see that a lot of comedians like to go out on a call back. So there are only two steps to worry about with a callback. Number one, you find some kind of memorable word or phrase that your material can reuse later. So this is usually going to be like a punchline that you told earlier in step 2. For each of those possible callbacks that you could make, you want to go through your material and figure out if you can use it. Think about the callback example earlier, I've made a terrible mistake. In step one, you realized that you can use that sentence in many other situations. And then in step two, you're taking this, this quote, I've made a terrible mistake and you're going through all of the material to figure out if there's a good place that you can use it for a callback. So step 1 is what am I going to reference? And step 2 is where can I reference it? 25. Parody Jokes - Intro & Writing Steps: A parody takes an idea that the audience already knows about. And then it puts a new spin on it, and then it presents it as if it was completely normal. So there are two main options for a parody. The first one, which is what people generally think of whenever there think about a parody, is where their parenting a specific person or a specific idea. So this would be like doing an impression of a famous person. And if you're great at impressions, then doing parodies is going to work wonders for you. The more common way of using a parody is to make fun of a type of person or a type of idea. So this is going to be like taking rich people or valley girls from California. If you watch any Brian Regan material, you'll see he constantly goes back to this dumb guy voice. You can also check out Bob Nelson's football routine and you'll see that his dumb guy voice comes out many, many times throughout the sketch. So what we wanna do in a parody is we want the audience to recognize how crazy the idea is. But as a comedian, we're going to pretend like we don't notice. This is what I mean when I say that a parody is only funny from the audience's perspective. So the parodies that most people are familiar with are making fun of very specific things. Think about the movie hot shots. Hotshots is clearly making fun of Top Gun. And when you watch it, you can compare the two. You can see how they take the serious movie. They exaggerate and put a new spin on what happened. But then when they turn around and performance, they pretend like everything is completely normal. These parodies don't have to be really long. Maria Bamford is really, really good at quickly setting up these really quick parodies where she sets up the story. She makes fun of a type of person, and then she drops it and she moves on to something else. Once again, parody, they're only funny from the audience's perspective. What's great about a parody is that instead of attacking an idea head on, we are going to use parody to destroy it from the inside. If you're using comedy to attack somebody, you can either attack them head on, which is very aggressive. So it's hard to bring humor into it. Or you can use parody, which is a much more playful way of attacking something. In a parody, you're allowed to act as that person. You pretend like everything is normal, but at the same time you're doing something that you're making fun of them for. So the last thing I'll say about this is that when you're doing a parody, make sure you keep it playful because you don't want the audience to see you as being overly cruel. If you're making fun of somebody for being stupid. If you go way too far, then all of a sudden you lose the playfulness and it feels really, really aggressive. And it's gonna be really hard to make the audience laugh at that. So keep it playful, but don't go too far. So now let's talk about these six steps for writing a parody. Step one, we are going to decide what or who we're going to make fun of. So we're going to look for ideas that we disagree with, things that we hate, anything that we want to use comedy to tear down. So in Maria Bamford example, she wants to make fun of this idea that women's magazines, the articles inside of them, all seem the same. Step two, we're going to figure out what quality we are going to exaggerate. So when we act out the parody, we want, we want to choose one or two qualities that we are going to specifically make fun of them for. We're not going to make fun of the general idea. We're going to make fun of them for something specific. So this Maria Bamford job, she doesn't just make fun of magazines in general. She is going to make fun of the idea that all of the articles sound the same, meaning that they all say eat less, exercise more. And the second way she is going to be using this as a parody is that she's going to be using a slightly insulting voice. So think of it as like a bubbly, dumb blonde type voice. And this is the female equivalent to the dumb guy voice that Brian Regan is so good at. And then Bob Nelson as well. Step 3, ask yourself where you would typically find these people. So in order to do this parody, we need to figure out who the person is were making fun of. Then we need to put them in a situation where we can make fun of them. So in step three, we're going to figure out what situation, what are they doing that we can show the audience and use it to make fun of them. So here, step 3, this is where Maria Bamford says it the easiest to make fun of this person writing the magazine article if she's actually writing the article at the time. Step four, we figure out what the punchline is going to be. So we write the punchline as if it were entirely serious. Again, only the audience thinks it's funny. The comedian that is going to be acting out, the story is going to pretend like it is completely serious. So here we have the punchline. I'm so hungry. Step 5, we're going to figure out what the setup will be. Like with every setup. Your only job here is to figure out a way to quickly set up the situation and it get to the point of the story, which is the punchline that you want. And lastly, in step 6, we're going to rewrite the joke to make sure that it flows well. 26. The Next Step: Getting The Most Out Of This Program: So that is it for the program. I hope you've got a lot out of it. I don't know whether you are an aspiring comedian, whether you've been doing stand-up comedy for a long time, or whether you are just trying to be funny or in everyday life. Whatever the case is though, the way that you take this information and you actually start applying it in your life is very, very important. So in this program, you learn a lot of different strategies that you can use to write jokes. Now in order to actually apply that information and to actually change your life with that information, you need to start applying it. The best way to do that is to not get overwhelmed. So we have tons and tons of different styles of jokes here. What I would say for you is choose the style of joke that really called to you. So I don't know which one of the, the lessons was your favorite, but one of the lessons is probably something like all well, I really think that, that looks like a lot of fun to try whatever joke type called to you. I would suggest ignore the rest of it for now, go back and review that joke type and start applying just that one. Don't worry about the ten other types of jokes that you could be doing. Don't get overwhelmed by how much information there is here. Instead, focus narrowly on one of those types. You can take small steps forward and you can start to get really comfortable with that, with that type of joke. And as you keep working on it, it doesn't take very long. But as you keep working on it, it becomes a little too easy, right? It's still fun, but it becomes like your site. And I really would like a little bit more of a challenge here. And that's when you say, okay, I'm done with this one. How about I try this other joke strategy over here? And it's through that process of focusing on one of those jokes and then working on it until it becomes until you get comfortable with it. And then eventually it becomes second nature. And if you keep working on these jokes structures at 1, it will become so easy for you that you can start inserting them into conversations without even thinking about it. So you're no longer doing the steps in your hands and step one, step two, step three. The more you go through it, the more your brain says, Okay, I understand 123. And your brain starts grouping that together as if it's just one step. And the secret to being really funny in everyday life is to really be so good at those jokes that it becomes second nature for you. And you can slip them into conversations so easily that you don't even realize what you did yourself. But all of that comes from these, the joke guides, those episodes are those lessons where I talked specifically about how the joke works. I think those are the most important lessons in this entire program. The steps are great, but if you understand exactly what the audience or your listeners responding to, it becomes so much easier for you to give them what they want. So that is how you can start applying the lessons from this program in your, in your life, in your writing. If you want to continue with your comedy journey, I would love to show you how to go deeper. There are a couple of options. I am the author of this book here, playfully inappropriate. You can find it on Amazon, any of those places. This book is, it teaches you an entirely different way of writing comedy. So we just learned a conventional, the conventional way of writing. This one is designed more around how improvisational comedians work. And so the strategies here that I teach, they're completely different. You will see some of the same types of jokes, but at the same time the way you're actually writing them. For me, I think there's so much easier because it gets closer to your natural voice. That said, This program is still very, very important because I've noticed that people that are brand new into comedy like this, this book, it will teach you how to break a lot of the rules that we have in our heads. But before you can break those rules is really important to know what they are and why they're there. And it's having that information that really sets a great foundation for you when you go into a book or a video course. This is also available as a video course. If you have that prior experience I've found in my students have found over the years that, that It is so much more helpful because like jump in and you have no idea about these jokes structures, but then you have this, this super flexible way of writing. Then it's too much flexibility. And I found that a lot of new comedians, they just get overwhelmed by how easy it is and they say, No, it can't, it can't be this easy. It has to be like, what are those steps here? And I'm like There are no steps, like you can see exactly how it works for yourself. So check out this book. It is an amazing book. It has been ranked a couple of times as one of the most influential books and stand-up comedy, which is still incredible to think about. So we can do that. You can go to online, Online stand up, sorry, online comedy training.com. I don't know my own website. Online communist training.com. You can continue your, your comedy journey there for only $1 for the trial. And that gets you access to over 20 hours of stand-up comedy related videos. So you can learn actually there's the playfully inappropriate is available on there as well, as well as stuff about performance, creativity. We have downloadable PDFs, writing guides. We have an audio programs. So there's tons and tons of information that you can get access to for just $1 for the trial. And so I hope to see you over there again that is online comedy training.com. And please reach out to me if you have any questions about this program or about maybe your joke writing or anything like that. I try to make myself as accessible as possible. And in fact, on the online common training.com website, I do a weekly Q&A where if you write me a question, I will spend maybe 10 to 20 minutes or so. I'm doing a video sort of like this one where I walk you through my own answer. Like last week we talked about comedic voice and how you'd be really unique onstage, unique and memorable. Alright, so there's tons of ways that you can continue your comedy journey. So I hope that I can be more assistance to you in the future. And then last thing before I leave, please remember to leave a review. The reviews are incredibly important to all the people who are not sure about whether they should take the course or not. So I hope in this course that I have shown you that I've done my homework. Hi, I really dive down deep into how humor works. And I tried to as clearly as possible explain what's going on and how you can get those same results. So hopefully you feel the same way that this, this course went above and beyond what normal out there. And if you did, then please please leave a review or some kind of testimonial because it's really, really helpful. So thank you so much. I'm Jared vole and best of luck with your career.