Comedy Writing Self-Taught Workbook. Gene Perret
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velvet cake, Lucille Ball’s hair. Keep going with your lists. Get creative. Don’t edit or limit yourself at this point. Get it down on paper. You can always remove or modify later as needed.
Pull one item from the black and white list—maybe a penguin. Now look over your list of red things. What is on that list that might work in this situation? Hmm . . . a sunburn? Now you have your line. What’s black and white and red all over? A sunburned penguin.
You may be able to play with the line even more and find a way to imply the red without coming out directly and saying it. Look at the example we gave earlier of the nun. We never mentioned blood. But you came to that conclusion with the word “wounded.”
Don’t be afraid to push the envelope a bit and get a little zany. Have fun with it. But be warned, it can be addictive. You’ll be thinking of things that are black and white and red all over for a long time, and that’s good. In doing this you’ll be learning and developing one of the fundamentals of comedy writing—finding references.
Comedy writers need to keep up on what’s happening in the news and what people are talking about. Using current events and references helps to keep our material fresh and on the spot. Newsworthy items can also be a source of topics, and that’s what we are going to work on now.
Pick up a newspaper or go to a news website and read through it. Find an article that intrigues you. It can be from the front page or sports or entertainment section – in fact, it can be from any area of the newspaper or website. It doesn’t have to be long—just something that catches your attention and would be of interest to others.
Now read the article thoroughly. It is a good idea to keep the article handy because as we progress with this exercise, you may want to refer back to it. If you are reading the article online, we recommend printing it out. Sometimes when you go back to look it up, the article has been removed. Most likely you can find it again, but it takes time and can be detrimental to the creative process. So plan ahead and keep the article at the ready.
OK, we strayed a bit so now back to work. When you have a good idea of what the article is about, start asking yourself some questions about it. Questions that prompt a funny response or at least help you to create gags may look like these:
•Who is affected by this?
•Who is happy about this?
•Who is upset about this?
•What would happen if this happened in a different point in history?
•Will it affect everyday life?
•Will it affect my wallet?
•What changes will take place because of this?
•How will it affect the future?
•Will there be long-term effects?
•What would famous people think about this?
•What would the Average Joe say about it?
These are just our questions. They are fairly generic. Your list may include some of these questions, may be completely different, or pertain only to your selected article.
It’s a good idea to write your questions down or keep them in your computer. That way you have a ready-made list for the next time. You can change, alter, add, or delete as needed for your new assignment. Asking and answering questions can often provide the impetus that jars joke ideas out of your imagination.
As an example, let’s say your local paper published an article about the public library closing due to budget cuts (these small-town presses are a gold mine for comedy ideas). You interview yourself with the questions you generated. One question is “What would happen if the library closed at a different point in history?” This may cause you to think of Ben Franklin, who formed the first library. Based on that idea, you may come up with the line:
Ben Franklin said, “If I knew today’s politicians were going to be so irresponsible, I never would have invented the darn thing in the first place.”
This gives you an idea. Now you do it, using the article you picked out earlier and the list of questions you created. Write twenty jokes that are based on your article and answer the questions in a funny way.
Every joke has a concept or, in other words, the thought the joke conveys. This aspect of a joke is important, but it’s not the only component. The wording of a gag is also essential.
In fact, it is the phrasing that transforms a comedy idea into a joke. Let’s take a look at this funny idea:
My wife talks a lot.
The idea has humor, but it isn’t a joke—yet. It’s the thought behind the joke. Now let’s look at the way Henny Youngman conveyed this idea:
I didn’t talk to my wife for three weeks. I didn’t want to interrupt.
Henny made it a joke. It went from a funny thought into a full-fledged, fleshed-out gag.
The phrasing of a joke can be tricky. You need to give enough information to your listeners so that they understand what you are saying, but not so much that the audience loses interest.
Using the classic Henny Youngman line above, notice how there is no mention that his wife talks a lot. The wording of the line implies that. What if Mr. Youngman had said, “My wife talks so much. For three weeks I never got to say anything.”
The concepts are the same, but one is a great joke and the other . . . well . . . isn’t.
The following is a list of twelve comedy concepts. There’s humor behind them, but at this stage they aren’t jokes. Your job is to take each sentence and transform it into a joke.
•Whatever line I get in always moves the slowest.
•My wife spends so much, I hope her credit card gets stolen.
•Gas is so expensive, I have to find different ways to afford it.
•Women hate it when men watch football.
•Men hate it when women watch figure skating.
•How much we depend on electricity.
•Every device manufactured now has a clock built into it.
•What used to be “courtship” is now considered “criminal activity.”
•Smoking has become unattractive.
•Ways to prove that dog is man’s best friend . . . or not.
•How much Las Vegas casinos love people with “a system.”
•Money can’t buy friendship.
You can repeat this exercise many times by coming up with some concepts on your own. Or for more of a challenge, have a friend generate them for you. Now take these ideas and turn them into funny lines.