When you say “I have a funny story” what qualities make it funny?

• What qualifies a funny story usually is an extended set up that mimics a regular story followed by an actual punchline that hits harder because of the “story form” that proceeds it. It’s just an excuse to do a joke set up that’s longer
 -Charlie
• Out of the ordinary

Funny story told out loud vs written

• Delivery, intonation is important for out loud
• When telling a story out loud, you get to use your physical body 
• The same things out loud aren’t necessarily funny written and vice versa
  • Ex: “It’s decorative gourd season motherfucker” works mostly just over text
  • Ex: Some John Mulaney jokes wouldn’t be funny written out
• Emojis
• Sometimes it’s funny for authors to write down what the narrator is doing. Use physical space

Narrative (not words) vs. discourse used to transmit narrative

• Cinderella story has been told a bunch of different ways. One narrative, many discourse.
• There’s something about how the story is being told that makes it funny

Theory: Comedy is about (1) an ordinary guy or gal (2) struggling against insurmountable odds (3) without many of the required skills and tools with which to win (4) yet never giving up hope

• Have to be ordinary but not so relatable you feel bad for them. Can’t be too emotionally invested because then it becomes painful 🙁  
• Navigating unfamiliar situations and trying to work your way through 
• Multiple character shows like the Office: 

Examples:

-John Mulaney stories

-Napoleon Dynamite

Counterexamples:

• Twitter — laughing at the jokes, not the character
• IASIP
• The thing we are actually laughing at is not necessarily the struggling character, there are other jokes
• Eric Andre show
• Rom coms? Who knows 

How much of what we laugh at is covered by this theory? A lot, but not everything

Can use theory to structure current pieces by thinking about how to frame them in terms of making an ordinary guy/gal struggle against insurmountable odds

1. Yale student admitted by mistake

-character essay about someone trying to play hard to get with admissions (meet cute element, i just ran into you)


2. The Little Mermaid 20 years later


3. NY Times article: “How McKinsey Has Helped Raise the Stature of Authoritarian Governments”


4. New product: Do-it-yourself circumcision kit


-one idea: infomercial, someone trying to sell product “dont let someone touch your baby’s penis”

-other idea: narrator tries to cut tip off penis for having sex with jewish woman — keeps messing up (cuts off too much or gets infected or doesn’t have the balls to do it) 

-form: 1950s mail ad of gadget

Three biggest weaknesses in student’s narrative essays

1. Surprise
   1. Hard time arranging events such that it’s surprising
2. Internal monologue 
   1. Disjunction between character thinking and doing, students focus too much on doing, not thinking
3. Themes
   1. Narratives typically have themes, students don’t
   2. What’s the central conflict, how do steaks in here in that conflict? 

Big Boy by Sedaris does all 3 of these 

Voices

-find what’s distinctive between authors voice and editors voice

Hamilton Piece

Original: focuses on secretaries/history

Edited: focuses on miranda

Original: Low-low humor (thick Jamaican accent) ,

Edited: High/low humor (raises register on language to get incongruity)  (authentic patois)

Edited: More emphasis on parody (character writing it is a theater person writing reviews— addition of dates, “five performances”, etc)

Original: Explains joke more (“show took place 40 years before the space race…”)

Edited: Holds back explaining joke (“most found this a peculiar choice to dramatize the farm loan act of 1916”)

Original piece gives away the “game” at the beginning with the title, you have to figure out in the second

Which is better?

Original:

-People enjoy absurdity of descriptions more than parodying

Edited:

-High/low register — can laugh at the high register but low content

-Funny to figure out the game

Alexander Piece

Authors voice concise but dark

Original: favors absurd

Edited: favors structural issues/white privilege

“My agent..” makes it weird. Why would the kid have an agent?

Edited one: spells out the joke more: bank loan, run for office.

Original one: you have to figure out its about privilege

Revisions: Wasn’t clear what was intentional/what wasn’t clear. Shouldn’t get arrested at the end

Original: more clear

Revisions: stays to the same level

Original: more buildup, it goes higher at the end

Is the jump too big in the original to disemboweled?

TSA: an obvious place to go to discuss white privilege, original is more subtle

Edited: makes people laugh if they know that book

Would You Rather:

-Starts small, get longer and longer, but then ends on a short funny last line

-hard to laugh throughout the piece

-end the piece feeling crappy

-compelling takedown of society, not necessarily humorous?

-escalating of ending of paragraphs: “you filthy skank” to “you frumpy, melodramatic, PMS-ing, bossy, ball-busting bitch”

-nihilistic/cutting form of humor

-can convey lots of information and keep people engaged enough — thats why it is probably sent around a lot/ is popular

-escalating ends of paragraphs?

-smartly crafted

-funny form but content isn’t jokes/funny -> incongruity can be funny

-humor that you laugh at because it affirms our liberal values -> “snap humor”

-incongruity of official statistics and “you hormonal bimbo”

-contrasting “would you rather” informal tone/childhood game to serious content

-maybe would be funnier with multiple characters to contrast serious character with someone asking normal would you rather questions

–

Ah this woman has her mother’s trauma

-funny lines are “family goals!” And “twinning” cheery tone with serious content

Wow this bug is femme – short and absurd

Shon->meta

“Tapas monster” joke -> taking something very stupid very seriously

Grains:

Answering rhetorical questions as literally as possible can be funny a

“Which grain is waiting to take quinoas spot next”

“Rhett can’t wait to get its grubby paws on quinoas neck”

What qualities make something publishable?

-clearly describable game

-listy pieces where each sentence makes you laugh

-timeliness to something that just happened