[suzzer99]

I used to do standup comedy at the mostly amateur level. One woman who was always at the same shows was so unfunny, she could suck the life out of any room.

I always tried to study her, thinking that if I could understand the essence of why she was so deeply unfunny, I could understand the secret to being funny.

Sadly I could never figure it out. Her unfunniness was inscrutable.

[senthil_rajasek]

The OP is about writing. Stand Up Comedy != Writing, stand up comedy is mostly a performance (art) with a little bit of writing.

I realized this after doing stand up comedy for over 12 years.

I don't know what makes good writing but I know that if it gets a laugh then it's a good joke.

No one has figured out the rules of what is good stand up comedy which is probably why studying comedy using "via negativa" or any other logical approach may not work.

Steve Martin touched upon this a little bit in his book "Born Standing Up" and there is a mention of his Philosophy background on his wikipedia page

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Martin#Early_life_and_ed...

[Cthulhu_]

Some of the best stand-up comedy I enjoy isn's some guy cracking jokes, it's someone telling a story. The story is as common as can be, just something that happened in their childhood or on the way to the shops, something banale. But then it's the presentation and the absurdity of something relatable that makes it funny.

[rcarr]

I've read quite a few books on writing comedy and stand up comedy and far and away the best for understanding the mechanics of it was What Are You Laughing At? A Comprehensive Guide to the Comedic Event by Dan O'Shannon.

Some basic golden rules:

Comedy is about surprise. Don't let them see the punchline coming.

Related to the above, make sure you've done enough setup so the audience can reach the punchline. An obvious connection to you might be not be so obvious to the audience. The punchline will flop if the gap between the setup and the punchline is too large for the audience to connect the dots.

Lie when you're meant to tell the truth. Tell the truth when you're meant to lie.

The funniest word or part of the joke needs to be at the end of the sentence.

Don't change your delivery for the punchline. Tell it straight and commit to it. Changing your delivery for the punchline is equivalent to putting a laugh track on a old style sitcom. If you have to prompt people to laugh, it's not funny.

Utilise the rule of three.[1]

Be as concise as possible.*

If you're telling a story, heighten the details even if that means lying about what actually happened. My friend has a story about a barfight in Thailand. The first time he told it, 5 people ran out of the bar to join him in the fight. The second time he told it 20 people ran out of the bar to join in the fight. The last time I heard it, everyone in the bar ran out and joined in the fight. The last one is inherently funnier because the chaos is heightened. Google Bert Kresicher's advice on telling stories for more info and examples, he's one of the best storytelling comedians around at the minute.

A related rule is, when telling a story based on a real life anecdote, recall the story and not the event. Unless you've got photographic recall, if you try and recall the event as you lived it, you're going to get trapped trying to remember precise details and you'll slow down the joke and people will zone out e.g:

"So there was me, Dave and John at the bar. No not John, Stan. And we were hitting up this bunch of girls and one of them was wearing this leopard print dress, no not leopard print, tiger print."

Never do this. Try and plan out how you're going to tell the story. Cut it down to the essentials and keep iterating on it.

If you've written a monologue, always practice speaking it out loud before performing and revise it accordingly. It needs to sound like you're speaking naturally in the moment and your written voice is normally more formal and stuffy than your spoken voice.

*The exception to this rule is if you're doing a shaggy dog story[2]. These are ramblings deliberately meant to lead the audience down the garden path with a punchline that didn't require about 90% of the surreal setup. The key to pulling these off well is to have mini punchlines or funny occurrences happen whilst you're telling the story and building the tension appropriately, otherwise the audience just zones out. The absolute master of these was Norm MacDonald, who in my opinion told the greatest one of all time, Dirty Johnny[3]. The other great one I've heard is "The Orange Head Joke"

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_three_(writing)

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaggy_dog_story

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GskNV_XRZvU

[gexla]

I would argue that it's about bringing out the rediculous of normal social things and then amplify that on the punchline. You take a social thing, deconstruct it, and then reconstruct it in such a way that the result is hilarious. The building process itself should get laughs, and then the biggest laugh on completing the picture (punchline.) A skilled performer can keep you smiling just in anticipation (as you might be smiling as your friend is telling you a joke, knowing the punchline is coming.) Norm might be one of the greatest joke tellers I have ever observed.

As to the writing, I feel that you should be a great thinker to be a great joke creator. Maybe not all comics need to actually write jokes. But writing in general is a creative process, which is also thinking. And writing jokes gives you material for remixing. I agree it's mostly performance though. Some comics are all performance and little to no dialogue.

[nlh]

I just watched Norm perform that joke and I cannot for the life of me figure out why I'm laughing so hard. What an epic shaggy dog performance.

(Thank you for sharing - I'd never heard it before).

[O_nlogn]

I've never done standup but am a big fan and want to try at some point. I'm glad you mentioned your experience, this thread made me think of the show "Kill Tony" (a podcast where randomly selected comedians do 60 seconds). The quality of comedians ranges from terrible to excellent, but I feel watching those terrible performances has taught me more about the art form than I could have learned only watching headliners who've perfected the craft. The line between weirding everyone out and making them laugh is a fine one, and it helps to see many examples of people failing to fall on the right side.

[westcoast49]

Scott Adams has tried to describe it. He says that a good recipe for a joke is something that almost makes sense, but not quite. In other words, it has to be slightly absurd, but also slightly sensible, at the same time. A lot of Seinfeld jokes are along those lines.

[sumtechguy]

There is a decent series by Rowan Atkinson on how to build something humorous. For many standup's they basically slowly show after show 'write' their stories. By testing what is good or bad in them and discarding what does not work and keeping what does. I have been watching Josh Wolf on youtube. Not sure he meant to do it. But he tells one joke a few times in successive videos. But each time the story is more funny the newer the video it is. You can tell he is revising the joke and finding where to spice it up.

Do not remember which stand up I heard it from. Many usually try their new material at 2am. If you can not get the people who are decently drunk to laugh it probably is not a good joke.

[suzzer99]

Yeah Seinfeld talks about this too. Jokes have to be worked and worked. Sometimes he said the best wording only comes to him on stage.

[suzzer99]

A perfect example of this absurdity is expressing mock excitement: "ZOMG!1!!one1!"

Spelling out the one kills me every time.

[Borrible]

The joke on briliant comedians is often clinical depression.

[matheusmoreira]

Can you post some examples of her unfunny jokes?

[chaps]

Sure, it's a knock-knock joke though. You start.

[klondike_klive]

My grandad's favourite joke :)

[matheusmoreira]

Knock knock...

[chaps]

Who's there?

[matheusmoreira]

  Error: unknown user `there`

[suzzer99]

It wasn't as much the jokes as it was her delivery, her aura, etc.

For a while she dated one of the more established comedians, who would either feed her jokes, or help her work up her own material.

So the jokes were pretty good. But it didn't matter. She might get half a laugh on the first joke, and then it was dead silence for the rest of the show.

[aidenn0]

Reversed bad {writing, comedy, &c} is not good {writing, comedy, &c}.