When writing a joke, or any other humorous material, try to arrange your punchline in such a way that the funny word goes last.
This is an old axiom among TV comedy writers, and it applies equally well to stand-up comedy. Since the key element in humor is surprise, leaving your funniest and most surprising word [...]
Comics often refer to their various bits and jokes, terms that seem to be used almost interchangeably. “His joke about the beautiful butterflies always kills,” someone might say, or “I can’t decide if her bit about being a squirter is hilarious or just disturbing.” So what’s the difference between a bit and a joke?
The distinction [...]
Stand-up comedy is like any other skill: it takes practice, practice, and more practice to develop your talent. If you take time off, you’ll be a step behind when you take it back up.
When I take a few weeks off from jogging, I know that my first day back is going to be lousy, [...]
Remember when I said that two-percenter jokes work on TV, but not in stand-up comedy? Oops! Turns out I was wrong — there is a way to work them into a stand-up act.
To refresh, a two-percenter is a joke that only a tiny portion of the audience will get. While that tiny portion will think [...]
(NOTE: In yesterday’s post, I talked about an entry level job I once had at UPS, and how the outrageously high employee turnover kept employees from being accepted, among their co-workers, until they had been around for a while. The situation with stand-up comedians is much the same. This is part two; here’s part one.)
The [...]
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