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Scott Dikkers is the former editor in chief of The Onion, which is the site that brought news satire to the internet.
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So before the episode, I went up to Scott and I said, "Hey, I got one goal for this.
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I want to start writing funny. You know how to do it.
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Can you teach me everything you've learned?"
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And now he's been doing this for decades, so he was able to basically walk me by the hand and show me, "Hey, this is what I've learned very concretely.
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Here are the things that you can do."
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Now, obviously, you're not going to framework a ties your way to becoming the next George Carlin or something, but there are some universal principles of comedy that work in any kind of writing, whether it's the group chat or even when you're talking on Saturday night at the bar with your friends.
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Here's how you can make them laugh.
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And Scott is about to teach us what they are.
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>> How much of comedy do you think is knowing what things are funny to make jokes about versus just looking at the same world that everybody else sees and seeing the humor in those things?
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>> it's all the second thing. Yeah.
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There's a thing we used to do at The Onion where if you find a funny photo, you don't use that.
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You don't run that because the photo is like kind of taking all your heat.
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You want a totally straight photo and then you find something funny about it or you make a funny angle on it. Yeah.
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It's all about your perspective.
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Point of view is everything.
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And how do you cultivate that?
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Well, um certain people go through life as normies and they see everything as normal and it's wonderful and life is good or whatever.
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Other people go through life and think, "There's something not quite right about this.
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How can I How can I needle this?
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How can I point this out to people?"
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And typically when you do, other people laugh cuz they never thought about that.
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>> And do you feel like cultivating it?
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Like how much do you think of the rules of comedy in terms of I'm sitting down to write, I'm going to think about those or thinking of those as I've now written a bunch and those are my reflections on what I've done?
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>> Yeah, it's definitely I've written a bunch and those are reflections because when you're doing it, you're not thinking about the deconstruction of it and the science of it.
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Like what's the process here, you know, it's all gut instinct and of course you're flailing, you know, you're making terrible mistakes, you're doing stupid unfunny things for most of your life, most of your professional career and then you get to a point where it's a tipping point and you sort of get good at it.
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You get good enough to find some success and then and you keep doing it on a weekly basis.
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There's like this deadline, this treadmill, you're driving and every week you're pouring out more and more like funny articles.
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At some point you realize, okay, I got this.
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Like I know how to do I know how to do this.
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And at The Onion the this was writing short humor. >> Mhm.
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>> Like producing short humor in any media cuz we did the print publication, we did a radio show, we we worked on a pilot, you know, really early and it was all the fundamentals were all there. It was short comedy.
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So anything that's like, you know, 5 to 8 minutes in those days.
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Nowadays I'd say 1 to 3 minutes cuz attention spans have just shrunk.
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So when I left The Onion I was like, I have all this knowledge about how to do this and I see a lot of people kind of struggling at it.
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I got to I got to share this.
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So I wrote my first nonfiction book which was how to write funny where I just spell out the science of okay cuz nobody does that.
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You know, they say a magician never shares their tricks.
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Magicians share their tricks all the time.
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Like you can get a 100 magic books and magic kits and they'll tell you exactly how to do the thing.
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>> [snorts] >> Comedians don't share their tricks.
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They're always like, I don't know, it's just funny, you know, and so you're left with this, well, where do I start? How do I even do this?
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>> So when you're talking to people who are getting going, what are the things where you're just like, dude, you need to know this thing.
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Like you keep making these mistakes. >> There's so many.
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The main one I would say, is quantity over quality.
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>> They're just not writing enough.
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>> They're not writing enough.
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You know, if if you think about anything and there's a lot of other fields that are similar like screenwriting, for example.
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There's so many writers who have a screenplay and they're working on a screenplay and they're taking months and years working on the screenplay.
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That screenplay is never going to amount to anything.
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The The person who writes one screenplay and sells it and makes a million-dollar movie is one in a zillion.
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You know, you have to write a lot of screenplays to get good at writing screenplays.
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Most people who really take screenwriting seriously will write 12 or 13 screenplays, then they'll get a nibble on one, you know, cuz it's a skill.
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And so comedy is the same thing and short comedy is easier and faster to write than a screenplay.
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So you can write a short comedy piece, a page and a half or whatever in an afternoon.
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So write as many as possible, you know, so at The Onion we wrote, I don't know, a dozen a week for, you know, 40 years.
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That's what The Onion writers have been doing.
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>> So if you publish a dozen Onion articles in a week, how many concepts or frames do you come up with in order to get to those dozen articles? >> Hundreds. >> Hundreds. >> Yeah.
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The first meeting is the is the idea meeting where people pitch headlines.
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Well, they're not pitched really, they're just read.
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People write them down and then someone with the most boring voice in the room, it's my preference, reads them all to the point where everybody's falling asleep.
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And 99% of them are pass.
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You know, it's a uh It's just making you tired hearing all these bad ideas.
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Then occasionally somebody will say something it's like, "Okay, that one was okay. That one was okay." That's the most you get.
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It's rare there's a big laugh or like a you know, it's a terrible >> [laughter] >> terrible meeting.
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So after the after that meeting you have a short list of ideas that passed muster in that meeting.
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So it's like you're really putting ideas through the gauntlet.
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It's got to be a really good idea to get past that. >> Right.
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>> And so more than 50% of the people said, "Yeah, I'd vote for that one."
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And then you look at the short list of like a dozen pieces out of hundreds and you can see, "Okay, I see why that one's funny."
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And then maybe you finesse it a little bit and figure out how to present it like, "Okay, what's the subhead? What what's the photo?
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What's the take of the story?"
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That was always a big thing. >> Hm.
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Why is [clears throat] that so important?
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>> Oh, it's so important because sometimes you get a really funny idea, but it'll be written in the with the wrong take.
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Meaning you got the wrong angle on this. You got the wrong joke.
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You're barking up the wrong tree.
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And in short comedy the take is everything.
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It's like you have one track and you'd better be on that track and it's a very narrow track.
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And when you're writing you definitely get this feeling of if I just make one joke this little off, I've fallen over on this side.
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One joke this way, I fall over the other side.
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And it's like this very narrow lane that you have to stay in.
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And the audience wants you to be completely strict about that track.
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They love seeing you obsessed with this one thing.
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And that's how short comedy works.
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You escalate that one thing to absurdity. And you're out.
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>> You escalate that one thing to absurdity. Explain that.
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>> Whatever subtextual idea you had, a little observation you had.
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For example, uh this building we're in is really old.
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You know, some people might come in maybe not think of it.
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You know, they'll they'll think, "Oh, this is a nice building."
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or whatever, but then uh "Oh, it's from 1850 or whatever." Like that's amazing. So zero in on that. Focus in on that.
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And it subtext doesn't have to be inherently funny.
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Like it just has to has to be a little observation like that.
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Sometimes it is kind of funny.
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There are certain things about human behavior or human foibles that everybody can relate to.
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Find whatever that is and you you in on it and you get as absurd as you can with it.
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And then you use these other tools, other funny filters I call them, to gin up something that kind of makes you internally go, "Okay, that's pretty funny."
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>> Do you know what the uncanny valley is?
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>> Yes, it's the the gap between like digital and real. >> Yeah, exactly.
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So, humans, we can do completely real, like on a video camera, whatever, or we can do comedy.
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Like we can see Cartman like, you know, Cartman and like think of the way they sort of walk in South Park.
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They're like sort of like hobble like little penguins and stuff.
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But then if it's too much in the middle, we're just like, "No, this doesn't work."
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And I have a friend who's absolutely hilarious. His name's Jack Raines. He's so funny.
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And I was talking about how is it that when you write and you're writing satire, stuff that's absurd, how do you think about it?
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And he's like, "The thing that you have to do is you need to go so ridiculous and even more ridiculous than you think.
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And if it goes all the way over there with absurdity, it works.
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But if you don't fully commit to the bit and you don't go far enough, it either won't work or you'll just look like a [ __ ] And so you got to go way farther than you think." >> He's right.
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I mean, that is what I'm talking about when you when you're on that track and you found your thing that you're going to be obsessed with.
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The more you go down the track, the more absurd your idea gets.
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So ideally, you start with a funny absurd idea that gets people laughing.
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And it's in that I love that idea of the uncanny valley. It's a representation. You know, it's a parody.
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They did this study where they showed somebody did a characterization of Prince Charles.
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And then they drew an actual depiction of him from like a photo.
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And people recognized the caricature more as him. >> Wow.
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>> Because it's when we exaggerate and we have a representation of something, and that's what I think of comedy characters as.
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They're a cardboard cutout that's you're laughing at, you know?
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Anybody who tries to make that person real or, you know, relatable like on a human sense is barking down the wrong tree. It's a representation.
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>> And you're talking about subtext. Talk to me about that.
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>> Yeah, so subtext is what are you saying with your joke, your idea, your premise, your concept?
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What's the underlying message?
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And again, almost never funny.
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Subtext is just like an opinion or a value judgment.
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Um it's it's it doesn't even have to be clever.
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Like anybody and this is how I start when I'm helping people like try to write something funny is just write down a list of your opinions. Give me 10 opinions. Doesn't matter. Anything. About anything.
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And so everybody has opinions.
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Like that's the easiest thing in the world to do.
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Suddenly the the task of coming up with comedy ideas is much easier. Oh, 10 opinions. I got opinions all day.
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What do you want to know?
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So, they'll write and invariably, cuz I think human beings are funny.
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I think we're very funny inherently.
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I think everybody's funny.
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Everybody has the potential to be incredibly like professionally comedically funny.
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Invariably, you look at that list of 10.
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There's one or two on there that's like, "Now, that's a funny article right there."
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And and so you take that opinion, you filter it through one of my 11 funny filters to find the humorous angle on it.
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How do you communicate it comedically?
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And you're off to the races.
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Cuz a lot That's another mistake a lot of people make is they think, "Oh, it's comedy. It's humor.
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It should just be crazy silly." >> Right.
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>> And it should just be out of this world madness.
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And you'll start reading it and it's like, "What's my anchor here? Like, what's happening?"
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>> [laughter] >> You know, but if you have something like even a stupid simple opinion, like the president is a liar.
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The president um likes gold, you know?
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Just come up with any uh you know, those aren't even opinions.
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Those are like barely value judgments. But they're enough.
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Like you can you can now you can start to drill in on that and make that funny.
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Um the and because it's a reference that people understand, reference is one of the most powerful of my 11 funny filters.
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>> When you think of school, what comes to mind?
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For me, it was lectures, homework, sitting at a desk.
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And the worst part is it doesn't even work.
11:50
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13:02
>> One thing that I've seen a lot of funny comedy on recently is like, your Uber drivers, who are they talking to when they're on the phone?
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Like, they're just always on the phone.
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>> That is exactly what subtext is. Well, good subtext.
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Any kind really will work, but the best is what you just described, a little observation that you make in everyday life that other people have probably thought about, but never consciously.
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And so, you nail it because you're an observer.
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You're not looking at the world like a normal person.
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You're looking at the world like that's off. That's funny.
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Something not right there.
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So you and a good comedian or comedy writer will just constantly be writing that stuff down, making a voice note or whatever.
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And that's a really good one.
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So then you start thinking, okay, so how can I turn that into a You You've gotten the laugh, which is a reference laugh. That's gold.
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It's a beautiful premise.
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So now how do you make that really funny?
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You do a sketch where it's like or or even an article.
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Let's say it's an article in The Onion, an editorial, where you're the guy they're talking to.
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And you just write an article.
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So here's what we're talking about. You could do that.
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So you're making the big small, which is, you know, irony is another funny filter.
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Making the small big or the big small, just going the opposite.
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You know, there's a ton of different and so you go through all these different ideas and then you'd nail that this is the take we're talking about.
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So what's the take of this?
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What's the funny um obsessive single idea that we're going to focus on and escalate throughout the bit or the article or the sketch or whatever short comedy we're making.
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And that's that's how you build it.
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>> Can you tell me more about irony?
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Like spell that out, making the small big, the big small. How does that work?
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>> Yeah, irony is such an easy funny filter to use because it's really just taking the opposite of what you have.
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So if you have something really small and you make it big, you're using irony.
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You know, you you told me about this movie you're working on where it's like, why don't they make beautiful buildings anymore?
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And I mentioned like, oh, this is a beautiful old building.
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So irony there is like a brand new building, you know, that's like shaped like a box and made out of cardboard.
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You know, and and to to use that as a way to communicate that they don't make buildings like they used to, which were beautiful, ornate, you know, uh buildings.
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And sometimes when when write your opinions, which is my favorite way of coming up with a premise for a comedy bit, you can just take any opinion you have and make it the opposite.
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And sometimes that alone will make it enough to be funny.
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>> Are there good prompts as you're thinking about your opinions that will get good comedy gold out of you?
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For example, I was thinking, "It is ridiculous that It is ridiculous that when you land and you get to the gate and then the little button sign goes ding, everyone stands up even though it's going to be 10 minutes before you get off the airplane.
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It is ridiculous that It is ridiculous that" It seems like that would generate a lot of good comedy bits.
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Are there other ones that come to mind?
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>> Yes, there are many and I I list a bunch in my book.
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There's like um I That's a great one.
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There's I remember when or why is it that or do the Jerry Seinfeld thing.
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Did you ever notice how like just do that, you know, and that'll trigger your brain to like dig up some of these little things.
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But it's so funny you mentioned the the airplane thing because yes, that's a good observation.
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There are certain arenas of comedy that are clichéd arenas.
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So if you're making like let's say you're a stand-up comic, you don't want to do airline material because too many people have done airport airline airplane material that it's considered one of these areas that's like, "Ah, we've done airplane food, you know, we've heard enough jokes about that."
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So you kind of have to be in tune to what other comedy has been out there and avoid an area that Now that that seems original to me and it's a challenge.
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A comedian always loves a challenge and so a really good comedian will come up with a great airplane bit and they'll go up and they'll do it.
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And audiences don't care.
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Like 90 per percent of the audience like, "Oh, that's funny."
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But the other 10% are like the tastemakers and the snobs and like, "Oh, we've seen airline material before, you know, that's a cliche.
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When so when you're doing something like The Onion, it's considered almost kind of literary humor or like, you know, it wins awards for its humor.
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So, do we have big guy falling down jokes? Absolutely.
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The Onion has always enjoyed doing that kind of humor as kind of the headline.
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But then as you drill down that the humor gets more intelligent.
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So, when we did our first book, the rule that I sort of threw out there was the the bigger the headline, the more accessible the joke has to be.
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So, you want 100% of your audience to get the headline and laugh.
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But once you're down at paragraph eight, you can do an obscure Silas Marner reference that two people are going to get.
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They will love you for it.
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That 10% will love you for it and they'll think you're super smart.
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So, the best Mad Cap, which is another filter, which is the the big guy falling down, the best Mad Cap has like a a subtext or an additional layer.
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Well, a great example is The Simpsons, you know, Homer Simpson is accessible. Everybody gets that.
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He's a dumb fat guy who who works at a nuclear power plant and he's lazy, you know.
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So, do they have obscure Silas Marner references in The Simpsons? All the time. It's those layers.
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So, you have your big main character who's a big dumb guy, everybody laughs at that, but then you have all these really intelligent things uh running underneath and that gives you >> [snorts] >> the 90% of the audience who doesn't care about the smart stuff, plus the 10% who are like, "This is a brilliant show."
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You know, very important, very important.
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You want both of those things.
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>> Um, why do you think Family Guy is so funny?
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>> Family Guy hits that 90%.
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They also I think they do the like Seth MacFarlane is a comedy genius and he thinks funny.
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Everything he he does is comes out of his head is just comes out funny.
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They don't get credit for doing that extra 10% of smart stuff, but it's in there. It's totally in there.
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However, the 90% the dumb stuff we'll call it is so dumb and so crass and so, you know, it doesn't assume any intelligence in the audience.
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Like it's potty humor, you know, it's gross out humor, whatever.
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That is so broad that people, I think, have decided even though they do do the 10% of the smart stuff, which you can find if you if you dig and you watch the show, uh they they they're like, "Doesn't count. The show is too gross. It's too crass.
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We don't approve it, you know?"
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So, it doesn't get the credibility, for example, that The Simpsons gets.
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>> I'm trying to figure out what is so good about Peter Griffin.
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I think Peter Griffin is like this perfectly made character in order to be funny.
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And one of the things that I was thinking about is how many of my favorite Family Guy bits are opposites.
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So, what I mean is when you think of Peter Griffin, you think of kind of dumb, stupid, overweight.
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But some of my favorite bits with him are when he becomes this like intelligent person. >> I like that, too.
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And I love how they play with that on the Family Guy.
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There's another Peter Griffin opposite where it's like the the I forget what they call him, the other Peter Griffin.
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There's like a pale Peter Griffin that lives in the shed who never sees the sunlight.
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And so, he's like the opposite in a different way.
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They So, the great thing about the Peter Griffin character is how much of a driver he is for story.
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Like he's so unstoppably ambitious.
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And he he's a doer, you know?
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Oh my god, that that's the engine of most of the episodes.
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The guy in the in the shed doesn't do anything.
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He can't see this he's never sees the sun.
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>> [laughter] >> And um that's the beautiful thing about the funny filters and irony and and all of them is there's not just one way you can do it.
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You can take one character trait of him and find the opposite of that and do a funny joke where he's super smart.
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You do another funny irony joke where you take his ambition and his drive and make the opposite of that.
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And it's like this do nothing worm of a character who lives in the shed, and that's its own other layer of humor.
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And you can do that with all the funny filters.
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There there's no right or wrong way to to find humor in them.
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>> Will you define the funny filters for me? >> Sure.
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The funny filters are what make things funny.
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We all have heard that humor is subjective and there's no way to codify it.
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No, there there are 11 different ways to make something funny in a professional to a professional standard.
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And so you can try other things that aren't the 11 funny filters and you might get lucky, but with these you have a a real chance of hitting like a professional caliber joke.
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>> And this is irony, character, shock, hyperbole, word play, reference, mad cap, parody, analogy, misplaced focused, and meta humor. >> Correct. >> Yeah.
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Which ones of those are your favorites?
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>> Madcap is my favorite.
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Well, first of all, I like when you mix them and when you get a a joke that has For example, you mentioned Peter Griffin being super smart, you're seeing character and irony there.
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And so character irony is a thing where you establish a character and then you show that character doing the opposite.
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It's it's a mix of two funny filters.
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The more funny filters you can stack on top of each other, generally the funnier it's going to be if you can do it cleanly.
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Like it can be messy, too, where it's like people don't understand.
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You're trying to do something too complicated.
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It has to be accessible, it has to be simple, it has to be gettable, you know, one concept, one thing at a time.
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And so there's a thing that happens when you get a lot of stimuli.
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Um well, there's two things that can happen.
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If you get too much intellectual stimuli uh that's amusing, you're going to laugh.
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If you get too much stimuli that's emotional, you're going to cry.
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And actually, it's funny if you laugh really hard, you'll cry.
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If you cry really hard, you'll start laughing.
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They These are two things that kind of meet.
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But when it comes to the funny filters, you're piling on the intellectual stimuli, like the incongruent stimuli.
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Oh, this doesn't make sense.
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This also doesn't make And this doesn't make sense. And he's falling down.
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Like now you've got the critical mass that's going to make most people laugh.
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So, and that's Peter Griffin, character. Irony, he's smart.
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And then, you know, he does so many like madcap things.
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Like he's a gross physical specimen.
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You know, he'll he'll get his arm cut off or whatever.
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He just does that all the time. >> So, madcap is what?
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>> Madcap is wild physical humor, non sequitur, like goofy, silly, uh big pants, slipping on a banana peel type of humor.
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And again, watch out for the clichés.
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Like we we all know the slipping on a banana peel is a cliché. Don't do that.
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But if you're Peter Griffin and you fall down in a funny way, like fall down the stairs and break your arm, that's funny.
23:54
>> So, break this down for me.
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I heard on one side it's like mixing paints and you can create all these colors if you mix a lot of paints.
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But then the other mistake that people make is they go too complicated and a lot of humor is simple.
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Those seem contradictory to me. >> Well, it's a balance.
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You want to be somewhere in the middle.
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You want a beautiful painting.
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You don't want a big splash of brownish gray.
24:16
And then the way we're talking about This is a great example with the Peter Griffin.
24:20
The way we're talking about it is you can parse out each little funny filter and you can see it at work.
24:27
And it's almost like this careful you know, one after the other.
24:30
They're they're leading you down the the road to laughs by the hand, very carefully. Here's Peter Griffin. He's a dumb guy.
24:40
Now here he is being really smart.
24:40
Now here he is falling down the stairs.
24:43
If you had him doing all those three things at the same time, it wouldn't be funny.
24:48
>> [laughter] >> Well, one thing that distinguishes The Onion in particular is that obviously it's a online publication.
24:52
And when I think of my how I interact with an article.
24:58
There's really two things that happen.
25:00
The first is I always think of it appearing in an iMessage thread, right?
25:04
So, my friend Alex, he always sends me funny articles, and so it'll pop up, and then I'll laugh at the thumbnail.
25:11
There's something about the thumbnail title combination that makes me laugh.
25:14
And if I laugh hard enough, then I click on it.
25:18
Then generally, it'll have that kind of first paragraph to lead me in. That's the second laugh.
25:22
And then if I can get those two, then I'll read the full article.
25:26
So, it feels like there's a process of one, two, three, or something like that in order for there to be a successful article.
25:34
>> You You cannot imagine how many times and how deeply I've thought about that whole process because comedy is so much about the context.
25:41
How are people seeing it?
25:45
In what order are they seeing it? Critical.
25:48
You know, especially with something like The Onion where So, in the early days, it was a newspaper, and we would distribute it free on the street.
25:53
So, that was the context.
25:55
There's the, you know, the gay and lesbian newspapers, what they called it at the time.
25:58
There's the union newspaper, student newspapers, and there's The Onion.
26:03
And so, we wanted to be distinct and funny and different in that context.
26:07
So, by having absurd headlines that didn't make sense, like a big banner headline that says, "Run for your lives."
26:14
with a big picture of people panicking from like a B movie from the '60s.
26:20
People are going to give a second take, you know?
26:22
They're going to be like, "What is What is that?"
26:25
And then so, that's your hook, and you've got them.
26:28
And as any writer knows, the first hook just is just the first hook.
26:30
Like you have Like you said, you have to give them the second hook, which is maybe the picture, and then the paragraph.
26:34
So, we we would think in terms of headline, photo, photo caption, pull quote, first paragraph.
26:42
And once you've got them in five steps deep, like that's pretty good.
26:47
But I know from reading The Onion heat maps that 85% of readers never read the full article.
26:52
You know, they're getting couple of paragraphs in and that's a failure on the part of The Onion cuz our we put in so much work over the years writing stories that got funnier and funnier and funnier.
27:06
The old way of doing humor was to build a story until it got funny at the end with a punchline and I didn't like that.
27:12
I wanted it to be funny from the start and only get funnier.
27:15
>> Cuz this is a fundamental difference.
27:15
If you're at a stand-up show, they're captive.
27:19
They're written >> That's a totally different context.
27:20
They have showed up and sat there and are waiting for comedy.
27:25
So, that's one type of audience that is expecting comedy, you know, and and hopes they get it and they're they're totally different than somebody who's just walking down the street not expecting comedy, seeing The Onion at on a newspaper stand and getting surprised by comedy and that's actually makes it better.
27:44
Like I saw a guy get on the subway once and he had the whole car cracking up.
27:47
And it was um he kind of dressed like a homeless guy.
27:54
He was like, "Hey everybody, you know, good morning."
27:55
And I knew, you know, what's going to happen.
27:56
Okay, he's going to do the spiel and he's going to ask for money.
27:59
No, he just said, "I just want to all I'll let you know that I'm doing pretty well, you know, I just got married and we live in the suburbs and I just got a job at a law firm, doing great, making a lot of money and uh I just want to say good morning. God bless you all."
28:12
And it was just so funny how he was doing irony.
28:13
He was doing the opposite. This guy was doing fine.
28:15
He was you know, um nobody expected humor.
28:19
We weren't in a comedy club.
28:21
So, it was a a special treat that we got this comedy that we didn't expect.
28:26
And comedy is all about surprise.
28:29
You have to have something surprising in it.
28:31
So, maybe your buddy always sends you funny stuff.
28:33
So, that's a totally different context than just seeing it on the street.
28:36
And so, then it comes about the the headline and the thumbnail.
28:41
What's in the How much of the picture can you see?
28:43
If you reduce the picture that small, can you still see what's supposed to be funny about it that gives you the kind of one-two punch of the headline picture?
28:50
Oh my god, like just you could go crazy thinking about all of the details of that, but it's so important because if that stuff doesn't work, then you're just not connecting and the humor's not working.
29:02
>> One of the things that I was thinking about as you were saying that is I'll throw two words out and you'll feel completely different things. Like the war in Gaza.
29:13
Tightness, oh my goodness.
29:13
Or like kids running through sprinklers. Completely different.
29:18
It's now wow, sunny, summer, all that sort of stuff.
29:23
And so you can start there, you have a sense of the emotional hue of whatever it is that you're saying and so much context has already been established with just a few words and my sense is that as a creator, you have to have a clear picture of what that is. >> Absolutely.
29:39
That's one of your most powerful tools.
29:43
And with comedy, I always like to make sure there's a straight person cuz comedy needs a straight person and a joke person.
29:49
And so if you're going to introduce a straight person, like if you say the war in Gaza, you've that's your straight person.
29:56
Like nobody's laughing at that.
29:57
And so if you can use that as a launching off point to say something absurd, you've created the environment of, for example, a funeral where it's very serious, everybody's like this.
30:11
That's the best place to laugh. >> Yeah.
30:13
>> Or a school, a classroom where the teacher's strict and you're not supposed to laugh.
30:16
Like isn't that where you heard the best jokes?
30:18
You know, the cut up in class made the best joke cuz that environment is rich cuz you got just a beautiful straight person.
30:24
And so with The Onion, making it a newspaper was the straight person.
30:29
Okay, we're a very serious and important newspaper.
30:30
Here's your important serious news and we count on that.
30:35
But then when you share the funny headline on Facebook, you lose that whole framing.
30:38
You You see The Onion banner, you don't see it looks like the Boston Globe or whatever. Uh that's terrible.
30:44
And this is another mistake that first-time humor writers will make.
30:49
They don't think of any of this stuff.
30:50
And so I'll see an article somebody will write there won't be any headline.
30:54
It'll just be a block of gray copy.
30:58
And I'm like, why is anyone reading this?
31:01
Who is going to brave this brick wall?
31:03
Nobody climbs a brick wall. It's impossible. >> Right.
31:06
>> Unless you're Alex Honnold.
31:06
Even then, like the straight-up brick wall, forget it.
31:10
So, the all that context is stuff that most people don't think about, but it's really the first thing you should think about.
31:16
How are you bringing people in?
31:18
What's the red carpet that you're rolling out for the reader?
31:20
People don't want to read.
31:23
It's hard, you know, it's like homework, reading.
31:25
So, that's why written comedy, I think, is the hardest genre to write.
31:31
Doing stand-up comedy is relatively easy because, like you said, they're coming into the comedy club, they're expecting comedy.
31:37
When you're in print, it's just a bunch of little symbols.
31:41
There's no human there, there's no anything you can relate to.
31:44
Gray >> [laughter] >> gray wall, you know? That's tough. That's tough.
31:50
So, you better have a funny picture.
31:52
You better have a funny headline.
31:54
>> Well, you're talking about the straight person and how that enables like lets humor go.
31:59
And I think that's why bureaucrat humor is so funny.
32:02
Like, when you think of a bureaucrat, you think of this super self-serious person, probably works for the UN, they have very formal diction, and all of a sudden that, because it's all the way over here, creates the conditions for something funny cuz you can go all the way over there and use that contrast.
32:23
>> Yes, the bureaucrat is one of the 40 character archetypes that I lay out in my book How to Write Funny Characters, and you see this character There was this great uh Zootopia character of the sloth where they took a bureaucrat, somebody who
32:37
works at the DMV, and they uh used the hyperbole funny filter to take the traits that you know that the bureaucrat has, which are their a stickler for rules, they have no humor, um and exaggerated that to the extreme and just made them painfully slow. So, the sloth is a sloth, so it's
32:54
So, the sloth is a sloth, so it's literally moving >> [laughter] >> like this, and it's just painful.
32:58
But, it's a funny exaggeration, and so you've got character and hyperbole there.
33:05
>> Robert De Niro in the movie Brazil >> Mhm.
33:07
>> uh was kind of the anti-bureaucrat.
33:07
So, that was irony, where he he swooped in and was able to cut through all the red tape and solve this guy's problem by just futzing around with the pipe, breaking a thousand rules, and then he zip-lined out of there.
33:23
>> It's like Superman bureaucrat.
33:24
>> a bureaucrat Superman, which is such a funny I mean, such a great uh idea.
33:30
So, yeah, and and there are so many other great character archetypes that as um just their inherent archetype, they're hilarious.
33:38
Like you said, like a bureaucrat, it's funny.
33:40
Like you don't almost don't even have to write any additional jokes or do any additional funny filters to make them really funny.
33:48
Just present them as they are, and and it's going to be funny.
33:50
Once you start piling on these other things, little irony, little hyperbole, it's going to really make it iconic.
33:59
>> Yeah, I keep thinking like if I were to sit down based on our conversation so far, I'd be like, okay, I'm going to try to do something funny.
34:03
I would take a thing with certain characteristics, and I would either do the opposite of those characteristics, like Superman bureaucrat, or I would exaggerate the characteristics and say, how do we make this a caricature, like slow bureaucrat. >> Yeah, uh exactly.
34:21
So, you've got it right, and that's a good simple way to approach it as a beginner.
34:25
But again, most people make the mistake of, oh, it's funnier if you do all the funny filters, so let's pile them all on.
34:34
What they really should be doing is writing a thousand simple ones.
34:38
Cuz if you write a thousand simple articles, you're going to be great at writing short comedy articles.
34:44
>> Can you tell me about analogy?
34:46
>> Yeah, analogy is one of my favorite.
34:48
And it works great in comedy.
34:48
There's a thing called mapping in comedy where you So, analogy is two things.
34:53
You're comparing two things that have similarities, but they're completely otherwise completely different.
34:59
And so, if you notice something, you say, "You know, this something is like this other thing."
35:05
And that's your observation.
35:08
You can make a whole bit about that.
35:08
You can do a comedy article about it.
35:10
You can do a stand-up bit, whatever you or scene in in a movie or or TV show.
35:17
And what you do is you take the one thing and you hide it from the audience.
35:20
You don't really mention it.
35:21
But you take tropes, associations, memes about that thing, and you map them onto the other thing to make people think about the thing they are not talking about.
35:31
And they'll um they'll get it without you mentioning it, and they'll laugh because they'll say, "Oh, yeah, that is like that thing."
35:40
So, I'll give you a good example.
35:41
There's a great scene or or a storyline in Seinfeld when Seinfeld decides he wants to get a new barber.
35:50
Cuz he You know that episode where he um His barber's old.
35:53
It's like one of these old-school barber shops with the pole, and he just wants a younger guy.
35:57
And so, he does this, and he feels guilty.
35:59
And then, pretty soon, you start to see the mapping.
36:04
He um he has exchanged uh someone he's known for a long time who's gotten older for someone younger.
36:12
He comes He comes home, and his older barber visits him and finds one of his hairs >> [laughter] >> on his shoulder and says, "You're You've got another a new barber."
36:23
>> [snorts] >> What's the analogy?
36:23
What's the secret part of that analogy that we're not mentioning. It's an affair.
36:29
So, we're just taking that and mapping it onto new barber.
36:33
And you keep taking that work.
36:33
So, then there's this whole uh I forget how the episode ends.
36:38
I think the young and old barber they're at the same time and like somebody has to sneak out the window or whatever.
36:42
So, they they take that um all the situations that you associate with having an affair, you map them onto getting a new barber.
36:50
And you see this all the time in comedy.
36:52
You see it in so much stand-up where you'll you'll see a stand-up go up there and say, "Did you notice how such and such is like such and such?"
37:01
And then they'll do the mapping.
37:03
And they'll everything every time they make a connection that makes you think of the part of the analogy they're not overtly mentioning, it's a laugh. It's It's a joke beat. >> Yeah.
37:13
And well, also a lot of times what good comedy ends up being is somebody will say something ridiculous.
37:19
They'll throw something out there and I'll be like, "What are you talking about?
37:23
You're not supposed to say that."
37:24
They'll be like, "Hold on. Hold on."
37:25
And then they'll just walk you through their absolutely ridiculous thinking and boom, the thing'll the thing'll come to life.
37:35
>> Yeah, so that's part of madcap is non sequitur. >> Madcap.
37:39
>> Yeah, where you're just saying nonsensical crazy things.
37:40
One of the better mad madcapper non sequitur characters was the Steve Carell character in The Legend of Ron Burgundy.
37:51
Where he was just a kook, just a total nut.
37:53
And that's one of the comedy archetypes, character archetypes, is the kook.
37:57
Somebody who who just makes no sense whatsoever.
38:01
And that's one of the greater characters.
38:02
Like everything he says is totally insane.
38:04
And he does insane things, too.
38:06
He's just like nothing he does make sense, and that's what makes him so funny.
38:12
>> What makes Will Ferrell so funny?
38:13
>> Well, Will Ferrell is always doing um the grown-up child archetype.
38:17
That is a grown-up acting like a child, Very simple.
38:22
And he does that in almost every movie.
38:25
Like look at Step Brothers.
38:25
He's literally playing like a Do we just become best friends?
38:29
>> [laughter] >> He's literally an 11-year-old kid, you know?
38:32
>> But that's another one, right?
38:32
It's like grown-ups having sleepovers. >> Yeah. >> Hilarious. >> Yep.
38:36
I would say Will Ferrell's success 80% grown-up child, 20% madcap, bumbling authority.
38:44
Um And a lot of that madcap is shock value madcap.
38:47
So shock is another one of the funny filters.
38:49
I think he he made his uh his breakout role was in Road Trip where he streaked naked.
38:56
You know, and any grown man naked is funny.
38:59
And that's just that's a little element of shock and a little element of madcap.
39:04
And so he gets that, you know?
39:07
And he uses his body, you know, for humor all the time.
39:12
So that's that's that's how I explain Will Ferrell.
39:15
>> How is this the same or different as a mall cop?
39:19
>> Well, Mall Cop is bumbling authority.
39:22
Cuz he you know, a bumbling authority usually has some kind of insignia that shows that they are an authority figure.
39:28
And you'll see in a lot of these movies Mall Paul Bart Mall Cop Ace Ventura Pet Detective The Naked Gun movies.
39:34
On the poster the the character will be showing you their badge.
39:41
And also the principal in Ferris Bueller.
39:42
His insignia was like his wallet, you know, the important identification that proved that he was who he was, you know?
39:51
They cling to that because without that official insignia they're nothing.
39:57
Like that they cling to that.
40:00
And so yeah, they're buffoons.
40:02
>> so much value on it, too.
40:02
It's everything to It's their whole identity. >> Yeah.
40:06
But they're buffoons, you know?
40:06
So I love the bumbling authority archetype. It's my favorite.
40:11
It's why The Onion is a bumbling authority.
40:13
Cuz it's just my favorite and I I can't get enough of it.
40:17
I tell me about word play.
40:19
Yeah, word play is one of those funny filters that it it can rub people the wrong way because we all know like a bad pun is going to make you groan, you know?
40:29
But a good word play uh as a garnish on other really deep humor like on character humor or irony or anything else almost always um can kind of push you over the finish line in terms of getting a laugh.
40:43
So, one of the best word play users right now is Jimmy Kimmel in his monologues at night.
40:50
He's always throwing out these little word plays, just like slipping them in.
40:54
And and I'm of course hard-pressed to remember any of them, but just Google it and watch any of his his um monologues and you'll see like he'll um he'll name Trump in a certain way where he he'll use a word with a double meaning or he'll make up a new word and he'll just play with the words around a thing or a title.
41:15
And it's not the main joke, but it's a little garnish on the other jokes that he's telling and it just makes it funnier.
41:23
It almost creates this bed of laughs that that you can ride through the monologue, you know?
41:29
The more surprise the better.
41:31
Josh Johnson is a comedian who does that really well where he can keep the tension going for a really long time and he's so comfortable with the silence and just like telling a calming story.
41:38
And so when the joke comes, it's beautiful and it really hits.
41:42
And but the thing is in writing it is there, that tension is there.
41:47
And it's what I was talking about with the straight person and the joke person. >> Yes.
41:52
>> So, it's that interplay between the two.
41:53
Your straight person is the tension.
41:53
And so in an Onion article when people try to write an Onion article, the mistake they always make is too many jokes.
42:02
And I remember when we were retooling what The Onion is and we were honing in on the what it is now, which is the strict AP style parody. This is the mid-90s.
42:14
And before that, The Onion was kind of goofy and it had a lot of college humor and and a lot of like sophomore humor and stuff.
42:19
I decided, "No, it should be a strict newspaper.
42:21
The whole thing should be a strict AP style and never break character, never break that voice."
42:27
And my uh the editor at the time, Rob Siegel, and I we talked about the perfect Onion article had no jokes.
42:32
And we'd look at it and we'd say, "Did you take out all the jokes?"
42:35
Yep, not a single joke, no jokes.
42:37
And so you'd read the story and it was like, "I can't tell where we're breaking character here.
42:42
It's all totally straight."
42:42
And to us that was the pinnacle.
42:45
That's when we knew we'd nailed it and it was to so funny.
42:48
Cuz what you do is you take the absurd premise, whatever it is, and you write the story in strict AP style so that there's no humor that you can perceive at all.
42:58
The The writer of this has no idea it's supposed to be funny.
43:01
Here is a very important story.
43:03
At noon yesterday, you know, but the the concept is absurd.
43:07
And people who try to do it, they'll just pour jokes.
43:10
They'll put all these kind of goofy jokes in it.
43:11
They'll put funny acronyms for for government um departments that spell out silly words and stuff.
43:19
>> Uh-huh, the SEX Institute today. Yeah. >> Exactly. Everybody does that.
43:22
Everybody And that's like a killer.
43:24
As soon as you do that, it's like, "Nope, reject."
43:25
So, um you would be shocked at how much copy, like how many lines of copy, you can go without a joke and have it still work as an Onion article.
43:38
A whole paragraph will be serious details about, you know, this incident occurred and this leader was here doing this important thing.
43:45
And then the very last word of the paragraph is is the joke and it taps into whatever the premise is.
43:52
And that does the trick and that makes it funny. And I I love that.
43:56
And again, it's the bumbling authority.
43:57
It's the you're you're pretending to be serious, but you're really full of hot air and you're silly. >> Yeah.
44:02
Feel like every family group chat has had one older member send an onion article thinking it was serious or something.
44:11
>> That is a thing that happens.
44:13
>> [laughter] >> When it started happening, we at The Onion loved it.
44:17
We thought it was great and it just added a whole other dimension of humor to the article.
44:23
Oh my god, people believed us, they thought it was a real?
44:25
That's hilarious, amazing.
44:27
Cuz we thought we were just being outrageously funny.
44:28
We thought we were just doing the goofiest, silliest stuff.
44:33
But, you know, there are people out there who just believe everything they read.
44:35
And if it's in black and white, they're like, well, it was in black and white. I saw it. It's true.
44:40
>> You got me thinking about clichés, where there when you have a character, there's a real subtlety of how do you play with the things that people think about and use them to your advantage, but without doing the obvious thing.
44:54
So, like, with a cop, we've all heard the cops eat a lot of donuts jokes.
44:59
That's not going to be funny.
45:02
But, there's something there that then you can play with that once again, everyone has the receptors with that then you can use for your humor.
45:11
But, the line seems very subtle.
45:13
>> It is, and it's one of those things that writing a thousand articles will teach you.
45:19
Because you you get a sense of the the um the realm.
45:25
You get a sense of well, what jokes have been told?
45:27
What jokes are people telling?
45:29
You know, what what jokes have people heard too many times?
45:34
You can almost never go wrong erring on the side of this is a cliché, I've heard this before.
45:38
But, all you really need to do is an internal check, a gut check.
45:43
Have I heard this joke before?
45:43
Have I heard this idea joked about before?
45:44
And if you have, you can twist it.
45:47
So, you there's one way you can use clichés in humor and that is to make fun of them, like break them down.
45:52
And to make a joke about uh a joke about cops liking donuts is great.
45:59
Like, you can do that all day long.
46:01
>> Satire, when does that work well and when does it flop?
46:06
>> I think satire flops when I'll answer that part first.
46:09
When it tries to be too important and serious and preachy because it can happen.
46:16
You know, I think Jonathan Swift was amazing.
46:18
I think his modest proposal essay is is a one of the textbook examples of great satire cuz he uses an absurd premise to make a point.
46:30
However, in Gulliver's Travels, he got really serious and preachy and the whole last part of the book is just him preaching at you about how the world should be different. Terrible, terrible.
46:43
So satire is best when it's funny.
46:45
When we talk about satire, we're talking about a little bit of a mix between art and entertainment.
46:50
So the art is you have something important to say and you want to say it through humor.
46:54
So you're going to use a satirical uh format.
47:01
And once you do that, once you have kind of admitted to yourself, I am going to try to communicate something important, you run the very dangerous risk of falling into the art category and you're just doing something preachy and important. And you can do that.
47:15
You can make an important film or a preachy film and there's nothing wrong with that.
47:19
There are many great serious and there are many great editorial articles where somebody expresses their opinion.
47:23
Says, I think the world should be like this.
47:28
And I have something to say about it and you should listen to me.
47:29
You know, I we've done so many editorial parodies in The Onion that broke down that whole idea that I just love.
47:35
Articles like, you know, I you should listen to what I have to say.
47:39
It would be like the headline and then it would just be someone saying, here's what I have to say and here's why I'm important or whatever. >> Right, right, right.
47:45
>> And so you're breaking that down.
47:48
When you forget that satire has to be funny is when you make that mistake.
47:50
Is when you fall into art and and just editorializing, you're just preaching.
47:57
But when you remember that it's supposed to be funny, and you just have a little sliver of a message, of a subtextual message such as I think human beings are terrible at governing themselves.
48:07
You know, that's a very reasonable opinion.
48:10
It's a nice little subtext.
48:13
And if you can write a comedy piece about that and communicate that successfully, that's good satire.
48:19
Because anytime you point out like a human foible or something in society that's just bad or wrong or shouldn't be this way, you're doing satire.
48:30
It only works, in my opinion, if it's funny.
48:32
If the main thing is the joke and you're laughing and you almost don't even realize that you just ate a spoonful of honey with a little bit of crumpled up medicine in it.
48:40
You know, you don't want to taste the medicine.
48:42
As soon as you're tasting the medicine, you've lost.
48:45
You you've you've done a poor job of being a a caretaking mother for the reader.
48:51
It's the finding that balance in the middle that's the tricky part.
48:53
You know, and it does take a little bit of a seasoned hand to know uh-oh, I'm too far here. Uh-oh, I'm too far here.
49:00
That's how it is with a lot of these things, you know, even using the funny filters.
49:05
Like, how much irony, you know, how how opposite are you, you know, how exaggerated are you, using hyperbole, for example.
49:13
>> Tell me about clown brain and editor brain.
49:16
>> In comedy, the way I think of it is you need clown brain, which is kind of like the unrestrained, childlike desire to say anything and think it's funny. >> Totally uninhibited. >> Totally uninhibited.
49:29
No care or realization about what other people might think of what you're doing. You're just having fun.
49:38
You're just spewing craziness. Critical. Critical.
49:43
Editor brain is also very important, very critical, and that's the opposite.
49:47
That's where you judge everything you say.
49:48
Say, "Mm, that's That's funny."
49:48
I actually I think if you tweak it a bit, you know, it's just like any editor, any judgement.
49:53
Um the clown brain is no judgement. Just spews everything.
49:55
And again, we're talking about that balance where you have to find the balance in between.
50:02
And for writing humor, it it's really easy to find that balance because you do one and then you do the other. Pretty simple.
50:09
When you start, you want to be in clown brain.
50:11
Write 10 ideas, you know, don't even think about it.
50:15
Don't think about whether they're good or not, you know.
50:16
Write a first draft of your piece once you have your idea.
50:20
Don't even think about it.
50:20
Don't worry about whether it's funny, just write it.
50:23
Just fill the, you know, move your fingers till they don't till till you fill out a page and a half. You're you're good.
50:31
Then you switch to editor brain and you, you know, leave your thing leave your ideas for a few days, leave your article for a couple of days, look at it look at it again with fresh eyes and say, "Ah, that part could be better.
50:41
Okay, this part needs to get cut out and put something else in."
50:45
And being able to move back and forth fluidly between the two, it's like a >> fast oscillation. >> Yeah, yeah.
50:51
I mean, I'm constantly moving between the two when I'm working.
50:53
If I would need to do something fast.
50:55
And but if I were starting out, I would be in clown brain.
50:58
I'd I'd write my ideas, I'd write my piece, and I'd let them sit for like 2 weeks.
51:04
Then I'd switch to clown brain I'm sorry, editor brain, look at them and judge them cuz then I'm judging them almost as if I didn't write them.
51:09
It's like I barely remember doing any of this stuff.
51:13
And then I have a much more objective viewpoint.
51:15
Let's talk about dramatic structure.
51:17
We all know Joseph Campbell's 12 >> steps of the hero's >> Sure.
51:21
That's the typical um unity of action type of story where it's cause and effect.
51:26
You meet a character in their ordinary world, they um are introduced to a potential adventure.
51:34
They usually take it maybe after some resistance and then they meet some enemies and allies.
51:37
You know the whole story.
51:39
That's dramatic structure. >> Yeah.
51:41
>> So, you have to use that anytime you tell a longer story, comedically or seriously.
51:48
And there's really no more tragedies anymore.
51:49
Every drama There are serious dramaturgs who will say every movie and novel now is a is a comedy because they used to say comedy and tragedy, but nobody does tragedies anymore.
51:59
Like if you did a tragedy, you'd lose money at the box office every day.
52:02
It's just like everybody dies.
52:04
That's the end, you know?
52:07
Nobody wants to watch that.
52:07
So, dramatic work is just dramatic structure with a few jokes in there with a few comedically structured scenes put in there or a comedic character archetype throughout.
52:21
And a lot of silly stuff throughout, but you've noticed even like a Rob Schneider movie or a Adam Sandler movie, you have to have heart.
52:28
You have to have a serious relationship.
52:30
You have to have a climax.
52:32
You have to have a change. You have to have that.
52:34
>> So, it seems like what you're saying is like if you think of a house, it's like the foundation is the dramatic structure. >> Yes.
52:41
That supports then the comedy, which is then on top. Totally.
52:43
The the same goes for a house.
52:45
Like a a very serious lawyer's house, let's say, in uh um in a new development.
52:51
It's brick, you know, and it's got uh the white door and the you know, the thing you turn in the U-shaped driveway in the front and all that.
53:01
Same exact guts as the silly house that's like painted purple that has like goofy stuff hanging off it or you know, graffiti you know, like art murals on the side or whatever.
53:12
Same guts, you know, you have to have the house.
53:14
You have to have the the beams and the 2x4s and the drywall and all that stuff.
53:18
And that's what you need for longer comedy.
53:20
If you're doing a short piece of comedy, you don't need that. You can have it.
53:23
You can do a short structured story that's funny.
53:28
Like David Sedaris does that all the time. >> Yeah.
53:30
>> Uh and it's just finding a funny character that you're focusing on, finding a funny scenario that's like very, you know, relatable, ironic, you know, whatever the case may be.
53:40
And suddenly you've got the difference between comedy and drama.
53:43
If you just string together a bunch of sketches, you've got like a review.
53:49
And you're doing pure comedic structure.
53:52
But then you're off the reservation, and I think anybody starting out should not be trying to do anything that advanced.
53:57
You know, they should think really simply.
53:59
I'm going to write a dramatically structured piece.
54:00
I'm going to use the unity of action structure, the hero's myth.
54:04
That like that's the the simplest, easiest and it's far from simple.
54:09
Like it's hard to do that well.
54:11
So, start with that cuz it's the easiest thing and worry about doing something super complicated after you've done a few.
54:19
>> When is it important to tell someone that something is going to be funny versus not telling them?
54:22
Because I just watched this um Tarantino riff on uh the movie Lost in Translation, the Sofia Coppola movie.
54:35
And he's like, "There's a very weird scene early in the movie where this prostitute shows up to Bill Murray's hotel room in Tokyo."
54:45
And the scene is completely incongruous from the rest of the movie.
54:48
And Tarantino is the movie critic.
54:50
He goes, "I watched I He goes, 'I love this movie, but I watched that scene and I I I I don't like it at all.'"
54:56
So, he goes, "Yeah, I watched it three times, four times, and then finally I got it.
55:02
That scene has a very distinct purpose, which is it's so ridiculous that you have to laugh.
55:07
And then it's basically Sofia Coppola, the director, telling the audience, 'You can laugh in this movie. It's kind of somber. It's kind of melancholy.
55:16
But I'm now giving you permission to laugh.
55:21
And I'm just doing that through subtext.
55:24
And I'm wondering if there's times when you actually want to tell the audience, 'Hey, this is supposed to be funny.
55:30
I'm like giving you permission to do that.'
55:35
And unleashing those potential emotions in you or something.
55:38
>> Yeah, I think it's really important to communicate to the audience that that it's okay for them to laugh.
55:42
Like to me, a book cover or a movie poster, your first interaction with the whatever entertainment product you're talking about has to communicate that.
55:53
And the best book designers and movie poster designers know this because there's a certain look to a comedy movie poster. >> Brighter colors. >> Yep.
56:03
White background, goofy color, you know, funny face, you know.
56:08
There's a certain look to a sci-fi poster. It's dark. There's a green glow.
56:12
There's a certain look to a horror poster, etc. , etc. I think it's critical.
56:15
And so if you're Sofia Coppola and you're making Lost in Translation, when you cast Bill Murray at that point in his career, to me, that's telling the audience it's okay to laugh at this movie. >> Of course, yeah.
56:27
>> He's the He's the poster for the genre, you know?
56:30
But then you see the movie and it is a kind of serious, slow-moving movie.
56:35
And I think she wisely thought, "Maybe we do need an extra step beyond just his casting to communicate to people that it's okay to laugh at this, you know?
56:45
Yes, I know I'm doing something really different, you know, against type with Bill Murray.
56:50
So let's give them a clue."
56:52
>> So I want to do something where you have 40 character archetypes and I want to just share a few of the ones that are particularly interesting to me and just get your rapid-fire take on how it works, how it functions.
57:03
So, number one, the traveling angel.
57:08
>> Great for the lead in a TV series because the traveling angel, unlike most protagonists, doesn't change.
57:12
They cause other people to change.
57:15
So, Ferris Bueller is a traveling angel.
57:17
Bill Murray, Eddie Murphy, they often played traveling angels.
57:22
Eddie Murphy is a traveling angel in Beverly Hills Cop because he comes to Beverly Hills and causes the other cops to kind of loosen up, but he doesn't change.
57:32
So, um that's how you know he's a traveling angel.
57:35
He goes through the story, affects other people, but comes out exactly the same at the end.
57:40
>> Tell me about the know-it-all.
57:41
>> I love the know-it-all character because anybody smart who knows everything or it is a know-it-all.
57:46
And in comedy you can use that like um The Big Bang Theory, there's a lot of know-it-alls.
57:51
There's like these geniuses.
57:53
And anybody who's super knowledgeable usually has a huge defect in some other In comedy typically it's social.
58:01
Like they're super smart, but they're very awkward socially.
58:06
>> Have you seen The Polar Express?
58:08
>> I've not seen The Polar Express.
58:09
>> Okay, so there's a know-it-all in The Polar Express that might be the number one thing in our family that we always come back to in terms of this know-it-all joke.
58:17
So, it's the um I'm going to show you this clip.
58:21
And there's something about the voice that I find to be so funny, but this is what I think about with the character archetype. >> Hey you. Yeah, you.
58:28
Do you know what kind of train this is? >> What? >> It's a magic train.
58:35
We're going to the North Pole.
58:36
>> I know it's a magic train.
58:36
Actually, it's a Baldwin 2-8-4 S3 class Berkshire type steam locomotive built in 1931 at the Baldwin Locomotive Works. It weighs 456,100 lb.
58:46
>> I think that example is just killer because what's going on?
58:48
He's completely killing the vibe. >> Yep.
58:52
>> Uh everything about that scene is just set up to be annoying. >> Yep.
58:57
>> You're kind of rolling your eyes.
58:59
And it's just funny because of that.
59:02
>> Yeah, and he uses specificity always funny to use specificity in a joke.
59:06
Robert Zemeckis who directed that movie also made one of our culture's favorite know-it-alls who is Doc Brown in Back to the Future.
59:15
You know, again, awkward, you know, doesn't really have much uh acuity with the the love relationships that Marty is trying to navigate.
59:25
You know, "Oh, a ritualistic dance of some sort, you know.
59:29
Uh, he's he's just an out-of-touch nobody knows everything about science and time travel, etc.
59:35
>> Tell me about the sad sack.
59:37
>> Oh, I yeah, the sad sack is great because we all love to laugh at somebody who's depressed all the time.
59:40
Like Eeyore, like um, the robot in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
59:46
Now, that's a funny irony robots, you know, they have no emotions.
59:49
What about a depressed robot? That's funny.
59:52
And so, we all have a little And this is the way the character archetypes work is that they're cardboard cutouts.
59:56
They're two-dimensional uh, characters that we see a bit of ourselves in and it allows us to laugh at that part of ourselves. Have we ever been sad? Of course.
1:00:07
So, this character is performativly sad and we can say, "Ha ha ha, at least I'm not sad, you know."
1:00:14
Makes us feel good that we're not uh, goofy like them.
1:00:18
>> Tell me about the Lothario.
1:00:20
>> That is a wonderful character that has been coming back a little bit.
1:00:23
We have We saw him with Pepe le Pew in the Warner Brothers cartoons.
1:00:25
The skunk who was just constantly falling in love with, you know, a black cat who got white paint spilled on his back or whatever.
1:00:33
And so, then Austin Powers brought him back.
1:00:36
Melissa McCarthy was a Lothario in Bridesmaids.
1:00:39
And it's so, anyone who's like just obsessed with like being on the make, you know, and trying to seduce people or someone in particular.
1:00:50
This is funny in a kind of a different way than like the grown-up child.
1:00:52
A lot of comedy taps into uh, childlike or childhood feelings and emotions and scenarios.
1:01:01
Lothario is funny cuz when you're a kid, somebody who's interested in sex is funny and weird and different.
1:01:05
And it's just like, "Why are they doing Why are they like that?" you know?
1:01:09
And I think that taps that in us to see someone who's like that.
1:01:13
It's It's very odd and off when you think about it.
1:01:16
Like, what a weird thing.
1:01:19
You know, when you're not an adult, you see that and it's just weird. >> Yeah.
1:01:23
Let's end by talking about endings.
1:01:23
So, we talked a lot about the thumbnail, the headline, the caption, and all the things that go into bringing somebody into a piece, but then as you think about the ending of the piece, like the final right hook, the final jab, whatever it is, what are you thinking about structurally there? >> Great way to end it. The button.
1:01:40
The the the the the finish. The uh the punch.
1:01:46
So, every comedically structured short piece has to have a a punch. Has to have a button.
1:01:54
So, when you're escalating on one track for this whole piece, how do you make that last joke feel different?
1:02:02
Like the cuz you've already worked really hard to come up with your premise.
1:02:06
Like that was hard enough to come up with a funny premise, a headline that's going to make people read it. Good work. Like congratulations. That's hard.
1:02:12
The Onion comes up with hundreds to to narrow it down to a dozen.
1:02:17
Then you had to come up with a second joke beat, and then a third, and they each had to get funnier.
1:02:21
That's all incredibly hard.
1:02:22
So, what do you do at the end?
1:02:24
Like how do you make that one special and funny and different?
1:02:27
You know, we're that that's like the Yodas of comedy writing struggle with this.
1:02:33
And really the best way to do it is to think of the the closer joke as a joke that's of a slightly different character.
1:02:43
For example, you can go off track on the last joke if you want.
1:02:45
You can take a side step and you won't be penalized for it because it's the last joke.
1:02:50
You can expand the world.
1:02:54
And you can say, you know, "Hey, I just showed you this one really narrow track thing, but did you know this is everywhere?"
1:03:00
You know, uh you can underplay it and and do it like a totally different usually introducing a different funny filter that you hadn't used and expanding the world and trying to go in a slightly different direction is going to make it feel like or or a reference is a really good way to do it.
1:03:16
Reference something topical.
1:03:18
So you just read this funny article that seemed pretty universal.
1:03:22
Now I'm going to make it really relevant to you, you know?
1:03:24
So there's a few ideas of how you can think of it, but it's critical.
1:03:29
>> Well, what's different about endings versus beginnings is in the beginning you have one world to play in, which is our world, the world that we all live in.
1:03:37
At the end you have two worlds to play in, which is the world that we all live in and then the world that you've created in the article. >> Good way to put it.
1:03:43
Yeah, cuz anytime you write a comedy article, you're creating a world that doesn't exist.
1:03:46
A comedy world where whatever goofy off-kilter thing you're introducing exists and is real and you've taken it seriously during this whole article.
1:03:55
But yeah, you can kind of step outside of it again and say, "Hey, remember in the real world?"
1:04:00
That's what the reference joke does.
1:04:02
I love that type of a closer joke.
1:04:04
>> Dude, you have thought so much about this.
1:04:07
>> I I have thought way too much about it.
1:04:09
>> I I just learned so much. Thank you. >> My pleasure. Yeah, my pleasure.
1:04:12
It's a It's a lot of fun.