5 ms·

If the perceived problem is stacking too many gags on each other, how would that help? The joke density would be unchanged.

kristopolous 5y ago
Because weaker jokes follow better ones. Comedy is not cumulative, it's a function of minimums The weakest joke is the weight that brings things down. Remove it Narrow the theme, focus on the flow How many times have you read something and there was a bad joke sandwiched between good ones and you remember that? It's better without it. The comedy performs better in all metrics. Think Rodney Dangerfield's rapid tight style. He was a master of this. The theme bounds the humor but the jokes are tight executions He didn't always do that. Took him years to "discover it". Here's a 15 year difference 1968 - https://youtu.be/PiNDirvqSUY https://youtu.be/PiNDirvqSUY 1983 - https://youtu.be/cQLv7CG10B4 https://youtu.be/cQLv7CG10B4 His style changes follows the rules I linked to in the other reply. Listen to the laugh density and duration of the two. It's really dramatically different. Another comparison, same process, Emo Phillips 1983 - https://youtu.be/lRp_r-EHmfs https://youtu.be/lRp_r-EHmfs 2010 - https://youtu.be/xywEDvBTzM0 https://youtu.be/xywEDvBTzM0 Joan Rivers had a large library of her performances that she studied all the time trying to improve the technique in the same way.
- nemetroid 5y ago
  I don't really get what your main criticism is. In your other comment, you said the biggest sin committed was that of stacking punchlines on punchlines (which is a problem of flow, not joke quality), but now you're saying that some of the jokes are too bad and should have been cut? More importantly, though, the standards of live comedy can't be directly applied to something that's intended for reading. Live comedy concerns itself a lot with timing your delivery to the (vocal) audience response. I agree that the linked material would need rework before it could be used as a stand-up routine, but that's not the goal. For what it's worth, I think the blog post is funny. Most of the jokes are funny. Some jokes are less funny, but aren't dwelled on, and by the end of the page I've forgotten the bad ones.
  - kristopolous 5y ago
    This is clearly not the place to talk about this. I'm being fought by people who want to claim there is no study of comedy or that it's an invalid pursuit. Arguing the baseline tenants of whether the discipline even exists. I'm sorry but no thanks.
    - nemetroid 5y ago
      Of course the study is valid. I've done stage comedy too, and I agree with everything in the Andy Riley link you posted. But different rules apply for spoken versus read material.

kristopolous 5y ago

Because weaker jokes follow better ones. Comedy is not cumulative, it's a function of minimums The weakest joke is the weight that brings things down. Remove it Narrow the theme, focus on the flow How many times have you read something and there was a bad joke sandwiched between good ones and you remember that? It's better without it. The comedy performs better in all metrics. Think Rodney Dangerfield's rapid tight style. He was a master of this. The theme bounds the humor but the jokes are tight executions He didn't always do that. Took him years to "discover it". Here's a 15 year difference 1968 - https://youtu.be/PiNDirvqSUY https://youtu.be/PiNDirvqSUY 1983 - https://youtu.be/cQLv7CG10B4 https://youtu.be/cQLv7CG10B4 His style changes follows the rules I linked to in the other reply. Listen to the laugh density and duration of the two. It's really dramatically different. Another comparison, same process, Emo Phillips 1983 - https://youtu.be/lRp_r-EHmfs https://youtu.be/lRp_r-EHmfs 2010 - https://youtu.be/xywEDvBTzM0 https://youtu.be/xywEDvBTzM0 Joan Rivers had a large library of her performances that she studied all the time trying to improve the technique in the same way.

nemetroid 5y ago
I don't really get what your main criticism is. In your other comment, you said the biggest sin committed was that of stacking punchlines on punchlines (which is a problem of flow, not joke quality), but now you're saying that some of the jokes are too bad and should have been cut? More importantly, though, the standards of live comedy can't be directly applied to something that's intended for reading. Live comedy concerns itself a lot with timing your delivery to the (vocal) audience response. I agree that the linked material would need rework before it could be used as a stand-up routine, but that's not the goal. For what it's worth, I think the blog post is funny. Most of the jokes are funny. Some jokes are less funny, but aren't dwelled on, and by the end of the page I've forgotten the bad ones.
- kristopolous 5y ago
  This is clearly not the place to talk about this. I'm being fought by people who want to claim there is no study of comedy or that it's an invalid pursuit. Arguing the baseline tenants of whether the discipline even exists. I'm sorry but no thanks.
  - nemetroid 5y ago
    Of course the study is valid. I've done stage comedy too, and I agree with everything in the Andy Riley link you posted. But different rules apply for spoken versus read material.