The Mechanics of Comedy: How to Form a Fantastic Joke
Creating humor is part art, part science, and part guessing because you’ll never really know if it’s really funny until the audience responds with laughter or throws rotten fruit at you. This article will try to minimize the guessing part (and hopefully throw objects) and increase the chances of forming a fantastic joke by breaking down the mechanics of comedy into simple techniques. These methods are not the only ones nor are they absolute, but they provide a basis for telling a well-crafted joke.
The basic structure of a joke is the setting and the joke. You might be wondering, “Okay, I’ve heard this before, but what does that mean?” The setting is a simple truth that you and / or your audience accept. And the joke is just a twist on that truth. So how do you distort the truth? You can do it in several ways. These are just a few of the ways you can do it. Once you’ve gotten used to these kinds of funny phrases, you can do it more naturally without consciously thinking about it, like riding a bike. In fact, you can probably think of other kinds of funny phrases that might be even funnier, but can’t explain why they are funny. You will know. Are here:
Detour
Most jokes have some form of misdirection. Put your audience in a train of thought, then quickly give them a twist they don’t expect. It is this element of surprise that makes them laugh. A good example of this is the popular tool called the Rule of 3. The first two elements form a pattern and then you rotate the third. For example (taken from one of my old comedy snippets):
“I’ve heard all kinds of excuses from girls who don’t want to go out with me. Tonight I’m combing my hair, I’m watching my favorite show, I’m your cousin.”
Mix and match
This tool works by putting yourself or a character in an inappropriate situation. Answer the question “What if?” An example would be a doctor who cannot bear to see blood, a black member of the Klu Klux Klan, or a terrorist who is always late. Some call this fish out of water.
However, you have to be careful not to try to use this right away because it might look fake or fake, like you’re saying “Hey, what if Kermit and Miss Piggy were making love?”
First there has to be some basis of truth in the configuration. For example, if you have a traditional Filipino mother who wants you to marry a Filipino woman and she keeps saying, “The white woman will only divorce you!” Then you put her in a deli and she says, “What kind of bread do you want? White bread will only divorce you!”
There are many other tools for creating key phrases, but the key is really in the settings. The more unique or insightful your truth is, the better because most of the time the key phrases will be written on their own, assuming you have a sense of humor.
