A sense of humor is a difficult thing to discuss, let alone analyze. Gene Roddenberry didnt have one. Thats why the first season of TOS had a super-serious, almost grim, feeling to it. Gene L. Coons sense of humor was overactive and Trek got a little too silly sometimes. (Thats why he was fired.) In high school, I wanted to learn how to do standup comedy, funny monologues, etc. Its a skill. Its about delivery, its about timing, its about material -- and its even about phrasing. A joke not only has a punch line, it has a punch word. Knowing how to make all that work is a skill that takes years of honing. One also has to know where to aim the joke. Its okay to punch up. Its not okay to punch down. But beyond that, you also have to learn where its appropriate to tell the joke. And when. And how. And whether or not it will be appreciated. Sometimes -- for example -- Ill post a question and specifically say, Serious answers only, please. I do this because the interwebz is full of people who think they are comedians. No. And their posts reveal just how mistaken they are. Over here, on this wall -- its usually people who arent FB friends, theyre just drive-by-shouters who havent yet learned that not every FB post requires them to respond. Heres the best way to tell a joke -- make it a positive experience. Ginjer Buchanan posted a picture of herself holding her well-deserved Hugo award. I replied, Beautiful. The award looks nice too. Its the same essential structure as I was talking to the duck but in this paraphrase, its an acknowledgment of affection. I have had jokes misfire. Thats a learning experience. You walk away and say, okay, what was clumsy -- the phrasing, the delivery, the subject matter, the placement? And you learn. If you do enough jokes, if you study what other comics are doing right -- as well as what theyre doing wrong -- eventually you begin to develop a sense of the tightrope youre on. And eventually, you begin to develop a sense of comic balance. Jack Benny had it flawlessly, so did Robin Williams. Emo Philips and Totie Fields, Whoopie Goldberg, Lili Tomlin, and Steve Martin as well. Rodney Dangerfield and Don Rickles too. But guys like George Carlin and Dick Gregory and Lenny Bruce and Andy Kaufman lost their way toward the end of their years. Joan Rivers too. They lost their sense of balance. The construction of a joke relies mostly on surprise. Part of it is the surprise of recognition, part of it is the surprise of juxtaposition. The past, the present, the future walk into a bar. It was tense. The humor is not in the joke, it is in the perception of the listener. Let me say that again. The humor is not in the joke. Its in the perception of the listener. The skill of the comedian is knowing the audience well enough to know how they will perceive the surreality he is constructing in the moment. This is whats lacking in most peoples ability to tell a joke. Continuing ... the ability to write funny is even trickier. It requires all of the same balancing acts as above, plus one more -- because your audience is removed in space and time. Having the joke play well means that you have to imagine the hypothetical reader in his chair, cruising through the prose, until he finally comes to that sentence. Roger Zelazny once ruined a brilliant story with a single line -- And thats when the fit hit the Shan. The joke stopped the story. It made the story a setup for the joke, so the story was no longer about the story. (And yes, Im well aware that you can throw that last paragraph in my face after you read The Thing In The Back Yard. But ... I can argue both sides of that one.) Masters of funny prose include Robert Sheckley, Harlan Ellison, Terry Pratchett, Spider Robinson, and very few more. (Piers Anthonys efforts struck me as overwrought.) Feel free to add to the list. I think Spider nailed it when he said its about surprises. Every chapter should have a surprise -- every page, every paragraph, every sentence should have a surprise. And that may be the essence of comedy as well as good writing. In any case, the old saying is true. Dying is easy. Comedy is hard.
Posted on: Fri, 29 Aug 2014 03:50:45 +0000
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