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Things I learnt doing stand-up comedy

270 points by NesquikMike 4y ago

sc__ 4y ago
I thought your set was really funny. You established your character immediately, and then followed up perfectly with your first line which had everyone laughing from the start. I think people "got" it instantly which is why they even laughed at you rhyming off obscure facts about the bus system. Well done!
janandonly 4y ago
“Monday, Tuesday, Banana”. The first two components, which create an expectation, are the set-up; and, the third that confounds the expectation is the payoff, or the punchline. To take an example from Jimmy Carr. A lady with a clipboard stopped me in the street the other day. She said, "Can you spare a few minutes for Cancer Research?" I said, "All right, but we're not going to get much done.”
- SideburnsOfDoom 4y ago
  It's called the "rule of three". 2 examples to define a trend line, and the 3rd one to subvert expectations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_three_(writing)#Comedy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_three_(writing)#Comedy
- orionion 4y ago
  > A lady with a clipboard stopped me in the street the other day. She said, "Can you spare a few minutes for Cancer Research?" I said, "All right, breast is fine - but I draw th line at colorectal on the first date.”
- altdataseller 4y ago
  I'm dumb.. what's the punchline in that joke?
  - Joeboy 4y ago
    "Can you spare a few minutes for Cancer Research?" is a thing people say when they're trying to get you to donate to cancer research charities. Jimmy interprets it instead as meaning she wants him to spend a few minutes doing actual cancer research himself (which would be unlikely to be very productive).
  - SuperCuber 4y ago
    The lady meant to spare a few minutes to talk about cancer research, the punchline is misinterpreting that as a suggestion to do actual cancer research
- neonate 4y ago
  Your comment is nothing but a quote from the article. Why?
ncr100 4y ago
Somewhere I learned that comedy is about surprise.
- jrm4 4y ago
  I read somewhere that literally all humor stems from "incompatible frames of reference" and I thought that was interesting.
  - sonofhans 4y ago
    Frank Herbert said, “Laughter is a human reaction to non-lethal surprise.”
    - SeanLuke 4y ago
      And he should know! The Dune series was so, so funny.
      - butterknife 4y ago
        Muad'Dib we call instructor of boys.
- moviewise 4y ago
  Because being surprised is funny. This is the best way to get a laugh: "You show the fat lady approaching; then you show the banana peel; then you show the fat lady and the banana peel together; then she steps over the banana peel and disappears down a manhole." —Charlie Chaplin Laughter is the reaction to being surprised in a safe environment. From: https://moviewise.substack.com/p/the-funniest-movie-scene https://moviewise.substack.com/p/the-funniest-movie-scene
simonw 4y ago
I'm fascinated by stand-up comedy. I took a course a couple of years ago (online thanks to the pandemic) and it was so, so much harder than I expected it to be! By the end of the course I was nowhere near having a "tight five" that I was ready to perform in public. I've continued to pay attention to it since, and it really is amazing how much skill and preparation it takes to put together anything that even comes close to being a decent performance. Great stand-up comedians have inevitably spent hours of time refining every sentence that comes out of their mouths, despite their delivery sounding entirely natural and unrehearsed.
- solarmist 4y ago
  Interesting. This sounds exactly like what’s been happening with me trying to get down talking about my startup.
  - simonw 4y ago
    I tweeted a thing the other day about how there are surprising parallels between stand-up comedy and coming up with good questions for interviewing job candidates. In both cases there's a lot to be said for thinking VERY hard about the exact wording you are using, and the way in which the material is delivered. https://twitter.com/simonw/status/1556277081691959296 https://twitter.com/simonw/status/1556277081691959296
    - germinalphrase 4y ago
      I’ve taught at the high school level for about ten years. The mental process is familiar. I may teach the same lesson several times in a day, but there are constant alterations to pacing/phrasing depending on specific students in the room/time of day/personal assessment of how earlier phrasing landed/etc
      - JabavuAdams 4y ago
        Teaching is a kind of performance. I love that part. I need to get better at the marking/admin.
theluketaylor 4y ago
That's a specific type of expectation confounding that comes from a dangling modifier. English is particularly good at creating these types of sentences and it leads to some of my very favourite jokes. If the lady had said "Can you spare a few minutes to discuss supporting cancer research" there isn't any ambiguity in the sentence and then no joke. Community used these to great effect. For example: Britta: Yep, I’m getting serious. I got a backpack, got a new notebook. Oh, I got one of those see-through yellow pens so I can do that thing where you colour in the words. Shirley: Highlight? Britta: Probably the backpack.
- wodenokoto 4y ago
  Took me a very long time to get the highlight joke. Britta thinks Shirley asks for the highlight of the things she got. Shirley thinks she’s telling Britta what that thing that you use to highlight text is called
- InCityDreams 4y ago
  >"Can you spare a few minutes to discuss supporting cancer research" Sure, I've left my two young kids and a puppy in a locked and closed car and it's a very, very, very hot day and I have 3 important things to do...can you? /FB cap doff, of course.
- rahimnathwani 4y ago
  My favourite joke from Community: I thought you got your degree online from Colombia? Yes, but they want a real degree from America
  - tomjakubowski 4y ago
    Columbia, not Colombia. That's the joke
  - rospaya 4y ago
    This one might be the most appropriate since it's a joke about jokes - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMT7MAnJna8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMT7MAnJna8
kevinventullo 4y ago
In the section “Don't Underestimate the Ruthless Competitiveness of Your Peers”, I had a totally different takeaway. I think it’s entirely possible that a set which kills among comedians may fall flat to a general audience.
- bombcar 4y ago
  Also, a high-stress environment (right before going on stage, right before going into battle) can get entirely different reactions than people sitting in a club sipping drinks.
- isleyaardvark 4y ago
  There was a comedian once that was talking about the craft of stand up comedy, and he told a story about one of the favorite jokes he ever wrote. He was impressed with how well crafted and and smart the joke was. So he tries it out and every time it bombs with the audience. A more experienced comic watches him tell it, and after his set talks to him and feels the same way about how beautiful a joke it is. “It’s amazingly set up, wonderfully designed, incredibly smart. And it’ll never work. It’s too smart. Look, these people just got off work, and they just want to have a few drinks and have a few laughs. They’re not going to be interested in a joke that clever.”
- NesquikMike 4y ago
  Author here, you're right that this can happen.
pessimizer 4y ago
I take a view that is pretty close to my HN username. Comedy is about pointing out weakness, and laughing is a reflex that you have when you recognize prey. PC comedy is about self-deprecation, where you pretend to be prey yourself in order to stimulate the audiences hunting instinct, rather than telling stories about prey or picking members of the audience to make look like prey. The humor is in the hyperbole about how weak the prey is. The setup of a joke sets people up as a familiar level of prey, and the punchline is about someone (or everyone) in the joke being far weaker than you could have predicted. The punchline in this joke is about Jimmy Carr being stupid in a way that you wouldn't imagine someone could actually be.
- skrebbel 4y ago
  Who's the prey in a good pun?
  - rrauenza 4y ago
    Not sure who the prey is, but everyone is the victim. :)
    - pessimizer 4y ago
      Sorry, I laughed. I'm astounded by how much the British like puns as opposed to Americans. I've heard British audiences audibly gasp at the high quality of a pun, like it took their breaths away. Reductively I'd say the prey is the audience in that case, for not being smart enough to see it coming. The best puns are heavily telegraphed yet somehow totally unpredictable. They're clever mirrorings of things everyone is already familiar with, but still didn't see coming.
  - gattilorenz 4y ago
    So… Prey tell? Bad puns aside, there’s many theories in the scientific literature (from cognitive psychology, linguistics and AI) that describe the mechanisms of puns (and many other types of jokes, really), and they mostly talk about deviations from a script/subverting expectations and norms (Hanks’ theory of norms)/accessing a non-default interpretation that is different from the default one (Giora’s optimal innovation hypothesis). For the interested reader, i suggest starting with Raskin https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110198492/html https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110198492...
wonder_er 4y ago
This was a great read! I had a planned sabbaticle from work, scheduled to start in April, 2020, and I planned on studying/practicing standup at a local comedy place in Denver. Covid blew a hole in that, obviously, and I've not done it. This all reminds me of a paper I've read, and think about regularly. The author, or others, might be interested. I've posted notes and a link to the paper here: https://josh.works/driven-by-compression-progress-novelty-humor-interestingness-curiosity-creativity https://josh.works/driven-by-compression-progress-novelty-hu... The argument is something like "when our expectations are subverted, and new visible order snaps into view, we feel satisfied and interested". Curiosity and expectation seems to play a large role in humor and standup. Thanks for this article, Michael! I've subscribed via RSS! I am thankful to have found your website.
- NesquikMike 4y ago
  Thanks! :D Really like the quote and your website. I've had a good play around with your "find a random blogger from Hacker News" project.
  - wonder_er 4y ago
    hey thanks! Since reading this post, I remembered that hands-down the best talk I ever gave had _quite a lot_ of humor in it, lots of it technical. I'm quite proud of it, and as I've told other people about it, I specifically mention a "laughs per minute" rate of, for the first few minutes, an impressive rate! (It wasn't just my humor, definitely a group experience) I think it went great, in large part because it was a quite improvisational, reactive experience. It feels _so_ strange to plug oneself's talk, but here we are: https://josh.works/boulder_ruby_group https://josh.works/boulder_ruby_group "Move Slow and Improve Things: Performance Improvement in a Rails App" To the degree that it was successful, it was ENTIRELY due to a highly supportive group of people eagerly invested in my success. What a powerful phenomena to have at your back. update: It was sorta hastily prepared, and my gosh, rewatching some if now years later there's a lot I wish I'd done better in the organization and clarity of some how how I presented. It just totally had elements of a standup routine, as many entertaining talks do. This is independent of the value, correctness, necessary truthfulness of the content, of course.
strict9 4y ago
What is it about threes? - The rule of thirds for visual imagery [1] - Three-act structure for storytelling and plays [2] - Three-part setup for stand up comedy [this article] Rules for content often fall into a rule of threes, and I'd love to know why. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_thirds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_thirds 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-act_structure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-act_structure
- AlwaysRock 4y ago
  Well for comedy its patterns. You hear something once and its just a thing, the second time you hear it you remember the first time and you might chuckle, the third time your brain recognizes it as a pattern and building off the first two times you heard it and its, "funny". I'm over simplifying but that is really the basis of a lot of comedy. Stand up less so. Most improv runs on the rule of threes though. It's an easy way to make something not funny at least a little funny. Try it in a meeting or presentation sometime. Start with some goofy line or joke. Mention it again in the middle. Close with it. You'll probably get laughs. Even if its not that funny and got crickets the first time.
- InCityDreams 4y ago
  80/20 in sports, and a few other things.
- NesquikMike 4y ago
  Mathematically the minimum number of elements necessary for a pattern is three.
  - JadeNB 4y ago
    > Mathematically the minimum number of elements necessary for a pattern is three. An assertion about mathematics requires a definition, and I don't believe this one for the usual definition of 'pattern'. For example, if I wanted to exhibit a linear pattern, two data points would be sufficient. (But we're not talking about mathematical constructs anyway, so it's not clear what the relevance of mathematics is.)
simonw 4y ago
Much respect for sharing a video! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6miCy-nmXIY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6miCy-nmXIY I /really/ like that opener: "My favourite London bus is the 24".
- NesquikMike 4y ago
  Haha thanks for linking!
  - bostik 4y ago
    You have a good open, but when you drop the 1912 line at the end of the opening bit, it's practically crying for a topper. If there's anything in local history you find interesting that happened that year (or even better, in the previous two years), you could have played that against the stereotype of London buses always coming late and in groups. Btw, I really want to congratulate you for having the courage to do a set. It takes a lot to perform comedy in front of an audience of strangers - with tech talks you at least have the slides as a crutch, but with standup, you have nothing to fall back on. You have a good grip on pacing, too. Please keep at it.
  - lisper 4y ago
    Made me laugh! :-)
  - ozim 4y ago
    Decent set :)
  - curiousgal 4y ago
    It gave me a good chuckle. Bravo!
- stavros 4y ago
  The 24 is the best bus, by far. Pimlico to Hampstead Heath? Yes please.
  - arwhatever 4y ago
presidentender 4y ago
I've been doing standup for just shy of 5 years. I started with a similar class, attended a lot of open mics, hosted several of my own mics, and produced shows. With covid I left SF and came back to Montana, which might seem like it would be bad for a comedy career, but in many ways it's easier to make headway here. The Punchline and Cobb's have so many eager comics that they can pick and choose and it's difficult to stand out. Here I'm a biggish fish in a teeny pond; I can rent a theater and fill it and make hundreds of dollars instead of the $25 I could hope for from shows in the city. Of course sometimes you're still looking at empty rooms and empty tip jars or no ticket sales, but most of the time, I get to tell more jokes to a larger number of people and get more money at each show working in flyover country.
linsomniac 4y ago
Dick Van Dyke show: "Ask me what the most important thing is about comedy." "What's the most import..." "Timing."
- Joeboy 4y ago
  The specific is always funnier than the general, as somebody once said.
mike10921 4y ago
Back in the day, I used to frequent Comedy Cellar and I was there multiple times when Chris Rock was trying out his material in order to decide which jokes he would later use with his larger audiences.
- morley 4y ago
  IIRC when Rock tries out material, he deliberately speaks in a dull monotone. He's such a great performer that if he uses his normal standup instincts, he can get laughs off of weak material.
JackFr 4y ago
I went to college with a guy who ended up being a successful stand-up (multiple Netflix specials - level). He wasn't terribly funny in college - his brother was much, much funnier. Also watching his first bits on TV - first late night basic cable, then Letterman and Leno and then eventually his specials, he was not good at first and he was not a natural. My big takeaway from that was that comedy, like many, many things is a skill that can be improved on with hard work. Undoubtedly there is some element of innate talent, but it is far less than I would have imagined before.
- ralfd 4y ago
  > his brother was much, much funnier The ultimate victory in intra-sibling competition: Grinding comedy until you have a Netflix stand-up special and your naturally funny wise-cracking brother doesn't.
- JoeAltmaier 4y ago
  Not a Higgins brother, was it? I went to school with Mike.
  - JackFr 4y ago
    Jim Gaffigan.
    - awb 4y ago
      I believe that. Watching his specials is like watching someone who’s trying really hard to be funny and occasionally brute forces a laugh. He doesn’t come across as a naturally funny person like some other comics do.
      - flycaliguy 4y ago
        There is nothing occasion about the laughter when he’s on stage.
- bradlys 4y ago
  Comedy is also like other things - you may be good at it but it doesn’t mean you want to turn it into a career. I’ve been asked at times if I had ever considered standup or doing some kind of comedy or joining in on things - but I am funny because I want to entertain people I like, not strangers. When I tell stories or bits to strangers to get a laugh - I don’t really get the same sense of pleasure out of it as I do with a group of friends. I’ve considered being more intentional and getting very good at comedy but in some ways - I like the uncoordinated trial and error.
throwaway675309 4y ago
Good read though the linked performance fell rather flat - it seem to be almost preternaturally obsessed with London bus routes, you would have to have an excellent set of diamond pickaxes to mine any worthwhile material from that particular domain and most of it barely warranted a chuckle from myself. The self congratulatory estimating himself as one of the worst performers but coming out as one of the top three was a little hamfisted, and if that was honestly the case... I cannot even imagine what the other comedians used for material... a list of ones favorite mosaic bathroom tile patterns perhaps? Comedy feels like writing, if you need to take a course it's probably just not for you.
- labster 4y ago
  Agreed, bus lines aren’t nearly as funny as subway lines: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mornington_Crescent_(game) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mornington_Crescent_(game)
- simonw 4y ago
  If you don't think that was an impressive _first-time_ performance from a comic you are massively under-estimating how difficult this is.
stomczyk09 4y ago
I love point 7 of “let the audience laugh”. I can totally see this being a pain point of not having a pause before your next joke. Pausing and silence is so powerful and is also exhibited in sales calls, and can drive suspense to the next joke or even a joke you’re in the middle of
- bostik 4y ago
  It's called "not stepping on a laugh". When you land a punchline, you sweep the crowd for a few seconds. If you then start a new one before the laugh has finished, you are not just breaking the illusion of having told the joke to them - you are rudely interrupting them enjoying themselves. Also: while laughing, the audience will miss the next feedline / lead. The joke you started during a laugh will not land well, no matter how good it might be. I did a 6-week course early this year at the Angel Comedy. In the showcase, the joke of the show came in a young Danish-Chinese woman's set, and she played it perfectly. 25 seconds of laughter, in three rolling waves - and she had the guts to ride it through. All of us were congratulating her afterwards.
rcurry 4y ago
True story: A few days back my wife and I were doing Wordle. I could tell the answer was “RUSTY”, her pet name for me. So I told her the answer was sitting right next to her and she says “No, STUPID is six letters.”
- nikau 4y ago
  I hope you have your name on a beret like in the movie European vacation
nborwankar 4y ago
Did a similar 6 week class in standup many many years ago. Two major things I learned were a) you have to get the audience hooked in the first 20-30 secs or it gets much harder. Best example Emo Philips opening with “You know it’s really hard when you have to kill a family member because they are the devil. <Pause for laughter>. Other that it’s been a great day”. Now that’s a hook :-) b) the concept of “laughs per minute” - ie there is a certain rate at which the laughs become self sustaining. It’s 3-4 laughs per minute. If you can keep that up for 2 mins the audience is in a state of laughter that keeps getting more and more intense. If you do less than 2 laughs a minute the energy drops between each laugh and you have to work really hard to bring it back to level. Key is to maintain a rate that results in a high ambient level of hilarity bordering with at least a couple of people cackling loudly and losing it. Nevertheless when you do a successful set you feel like Superman when you walk off the stage.
- wantoncl 4y ago
  Another good example is Louie Anderson's debut on Carson: https://youtu.be/2bRe1CeGe7g https://youtu.be/2bRe1CeGe7g I remember watching this right after he died, and was blown away by how good he was. Not only does he get laughs right away, they're sustained. I went back and timed it, and his first 2 minutes on stage has 1 minute of audience laughter and applause. He nails all the things you mentioned, and has the whole audience roaring in under 3 minutes.
  - swivelmaster 4y ago
    “Broad jump: Killed her.” is one of the most clever succinct jokes I have ever heard. Works even better because it’s the only pun in the sequence! The first two minutes of the set are incredible.
  - jsqu99 4y ago
    that was fantastic, but i feel it's cheating a bit when you just make fun of yourself for being fat for 3 straight minutes. If you took away the obesity, i wonder if it'd have been as easy for him to get laughs. The same thing happens when people harp on their ethnic quirks constantly in sets. Take that away and what else do you have?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
nsxwolf 4y ago
I've been interested in trying out standup in Meta Horizon Worlds - there's a bunch of comedy clubs you can visit. So far it hasn't really panned out as nobody is really seriously trying when I happen to visit. People go on stage and don't really do standup, and nobody pays attention.
- ed 4y ago
  Zoom open mics are a thing, if you’re looking to practice https://jokezoom.com/online-comedy-open-mics https://jokezoom.com/online-comedy-open-mics
  - testing7787 4y ago
gotmedium 4y ago
If you like standup comedy you should watch the french standup comedy series from Netflix! Amazing cast and great throughout https://www.netflix.com/fr/Title/81233911 https://www.netflix.com/fr/Title/81233911
llaolleh 4y ago
This is a very well written post. I liked it a lot. Standup is something I want to try one day. I have a lot of respect for comedians. My gut instinct is that the personality and delivery plays a more important role than the content.
kyleblarson 4y ago
Is "learnt" an actual word?
- goochtek 4y ago
  Learnt is most commonly used in British English. https://www.lexico.com/grammar/learnt-vs-learned https://www.lexico.com/grammar/learnt-vs-learned
- stavros 4y ago
  Yes, it's spelt correctly.
milchek 4y ago
That sounds like a great course. What stood out to me is that the group is preparing for an actual show and gets real world experience in an environment with set audience expectations (ie. people coming to see a group of amateurs), which is a great way to go about it. I’ve seen improv courses here that basically are just a weekly workshop and then at the end you are on your own.
LAC-Tech 4y ago
I did a couple of 2 minute sets. One went pretty damn well. The other got polite laughter at best. Came away with a lot of respect for comedians. For me just coming up with 2 minutes of material was a challenge.
6510 4y ago
how many jokes does it take to change a light bulb? Just one but it wasn't funny.

270 points by NesquikMike 4y ago

sc__ 4y ago

I thought your set was really funny. You established your character immediately, and then followed up perfectly with your first line which had everyone laughing from the start. I think people "got" it instantly which is why they even laughed at you rhyming off obscure facts about the bus system. Well done!

janandonly 4y ago

“Monday, Tuesday, Banana”. The first two components, which create an expectation, are the set-up; and, the third that confounds the expectation is the payoff, or the punchline. To take an example from Jimmy Carr. A lady with a clipboard stopped me in the street the other day. She said, "Can you spare a few minutes for Cancer Research?" I said, "All right, but we're not going to get much done.”

SideburnsOfDoom 4y ago
It's called the "rule of three". 2 examples to define a trend line, and the 3rd one to subvert expectations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_three_(writing)#Comedy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_three_(writing)#Comedy
orionion 4y ago
> A lady with a clipboard stopped me in the street the other day. She said, "Can you spare a few minutes for Cancer Research?" I said, "All right, breast is fine - but I draw th line at colorectal on the first date.”
altdataseller 4y ago
I'm dumb.. what's the punchline in that joke?
- Joeboy 4y ago
  "Can you spare a few minutes for Cancer Research?" is a thing people say when they're trying to get you to donate to cancer research charities. Jimmy interprets it instead as meaning she wants him to spend a few minutes doing actual cancer research himself (which would be unlikely to be very productive).
- SuperCuber 4y ago
  The lady meant to spare a few minutes to talk about cancer research, the punchline is misinterpreting that as a suggestion to do actual cancer research
neonate 4y ago
Your comment is nothing but a quote from the article. Why?

ncr100 4y ago

Somewhere I learned that comedy is about surprise.

jrm4 4y ago
I read somewhere that literally all humor stems from "incompatible frames of reference" and I thought that was interesting.
- sonofhans 4y ago
  Frank Herbert said, “Laughter is a human reaction to non-lethal surprise.”
  - SeanLuke 4y ago
    And he should know! The Dune series was so, so funny.
    - butterknife 4y ago
      Muad'Dib we call instructor of boys.
moviewise 4y ago
Because being surprised is funny. This is the best way to get a laugh: "You show the fat lady approaching; then you show the banana peel; then you show the fat lady and the banana peel together; then she steps over the banana peel and disappears down a manhole." —Charlie Chaplin Laughter is the reaction to being surprised in a safe environment. From: https://moviewise.substack.com/p/the-funniest-movie-scene https://moviewise.substack.com/p/the-funniest-movie-scene

simonw 4y ago

I'm fascinated by stand-up comedy. I took a course a couple of years ago (online thanks to the pandemic) and it was so, so much harder than I expected it to be! By the end of the course I was nowhere near having a "tight five" that I was ready to perform in public. I've continued to pay attention to it since, and it really is amazing how much skill and preparation it takes to put together anything that even comes close to being a decent performance. Great stand-up comedians have inevitably spent hours of time refining every sentence that comes out of their mouths, despite their delivery sounding entirely natural and unrehearsed.

solarmist 4y ago
Interesting. This sounds exactly like what’s been happening with me trying to get down talking about my startup.
- simonw 4y ago
  I tweeted a thing the other day about how there are surprising parallels between stand-up comedy and coming up with good questions for interviewing job candidates. In both cases there's a lot to be said for thinking VERY hard about the exact wording you are using, and the way in which the material is delivered. https://twitter.com/simonw/status/1556277081691959296 https://twitter.com/simonw/status/1556277081691959296
  - germinalphrase 4y ago
    I’ve taught at the high school level for about ten years. The mental process is familiar. I may teach the same lesson several times in a day, but there are constant alterations to pacing/phrasing depending on specific students in the room/time of day/personal assessment of how earlier phrasing landed/etc
    - JabavuAdams 4y ago
      Teaching is a kind of performance. I love that part. I need to get better at the marking/admin.

theluketaylor 4y ago

That's a specific type of expectation confounding that comes from a dangling modifier. English is particularly good at creating these types of sentences and it leads to some of my very favourite jokes. If the lady had said "Can you spare a few minutes to discuss supporting cancer research" there isn't any ambiguity in the sentence and then no joke. Community used these to great effect. For example: Britta: Yep, I’m getting serious. I got a backpack, got a new notebook. Oh, I got one of those see-through yellow pens so I can do that thing where you colour in the words. Shirley: Highlight? Britta: Probably the backpack.

wodenokoto 4y ago
Took me a very long time to get the highlight joke. Britta thinks Shirley asks for the highlight of the things she got. Shirley thinks she’s telling Britta what that thing that you use to highlight text is called
InCityDreams 4y ago
>"Can you spare a few minutes to discuss supporting cancer research" Sure, I've left my two young kids and a puppy in a locked and closed car and it's a very, very, very hot day and I have 3 important things to do...can you? /FB cap doff, of course.
rahimnathwani 4y ago
My favourite joke from Community: I thought you got your degree online from Colombia? Yes, but they want a real degree from America
- tomjakubowski 4y ago
  Columbia, not Colombia. That's the joke
- rospaya 4y ago
  This one might be the most appropriate since it's a joke about jokes - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMT7MAnJna8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMT7MAnJna8

kevinventullo 4y ago

In the section “Don't Underestimate the Ruthless Competitiveness of Your Peers”, I had a totally different takeaway. I think it’s entirely possible that a set which kills among comedians may fall flat to a general audience.

bombcar 4y ago
Also, a high-stress environment (right before going on stage, right before going into battle) can get entirely different reactions than people sitting in a club sipping drinks.
isleyaardvark 4y ago
There was a comedian once that was talking about the craft of stand up comedy, and he told a story about one of the favorite jokes he ever wrote. He was impressed with how well crafted and and smart the joke was. So he tries it out and every time it bombs with the audience. A more experienced comic watches him tell it, and after his set talks to him and feels the same way about how beautiful a joke it is. “It’s amazingly set up, wonderfully designed, incredibly smart. And it’ll never work. It’s too smart. Look, these people just got off work, and they just want to have a few drinks and have a few laughs. They’re not going to be interested in a joke that clever.”
NesquikMike 4y ago
Author here, you're right that this can happen.

pessimizer 4y ago

I take a view that is pretty close to my HN username. Comedy is about pointing out weakness, and laughing is a reflex that you have when you recognize prey. PC comedy is about self-deprecation, where you pretend to be prey yourself in order to stimulate the audiences hunting instinct, rather than telling stories about prey or picking members of the audience to make look like prey. The humor is in the hyperbole about how weak the prey is. The setup of a joke sets people up as a familiar level of prey, and the punchline is about someone (or everyone) in the joke being far weaker than you could have predicted. The punchline in this joke is about Jimmy Carr being stupid in a way that you wouldn't imagine someone could actually be.

skrebbel 4y ago
Who's the prey in a good pun?
- rrauenza 4y ago
  Not sure who the prey is, but everyone is the victim. :)
  - pessimizer 4y ago
    Sorry, I laughed. I'm astounded by how much the British like puns as opposed to Americans. I've heard British audiences audibly gasp at the high quality of a pun, like it took their breaths away. Reductively I'd say the prey is the audience in that case, for not being smart enough to see it coming. The best puns are heavily telegraphed yet somehow totally unpredictable. They're clever mirrorings of things everyone is already familiar with, but still didn't see coming.
- gattilorenz 4y ago
  So… Prey tell? Bad puns aside, there’s many theories in the scientific literature (from cognitive psychology, linguistics and AI) that describe the mechanisms of puns (and many other types of jokes, really), and they mostly talk about deviations from a script/subverting expectations and norms (Hanks’ theory of norms)/accessing a non-default interpretation that is different from the default one (Giora’s optimal innovation hypothesis). For the interested reader, i suggest starting with Raskin https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110198492/html https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110198492...

wonder_er 4y ago

This was a great read! I had a planned sabbaticle from work, scheduled to start in April, 2020, and I planned on studying/practicing standup at a local comedy place in Denver. Covid blew a hole in that, obviously, and I've not done it. This all reminds me of a paper I've read, and think about regularly. The author, or others, might be interested. I've posted notes and a link to the paper here: https://josh.works/driven-by-compression-progress-novelty-humor-interestingness-curiosity-creativity https://josh.works/driven-by-compression-progress-novelty-hu... The argument is something like "when our expectations are subverted, and new visible order snaps into view, we feel satisfied and interested". Curiosity and expectation seems to play a large role in humor and standup. Thanks for this article, Michael! I've subscribed via RSS! I am thankful to have found your website.

NesquikMike 4y ago
Thanks! :D Really like the quote and your website. I've had a good play around with your "find a random blogger from Hacker News" project.
- wonder_er 4y ago
  hey thanks! Since reading this post, I remembered that hands-down the best talk I ever gave had _quite a lot_ of humor in it, lots of it technical. I'm quite proud of it, and as I've told other people about it, I specifically mention a "laughs per minute" rate of, for the first few minutes, an impressive rate! (It wasn't just my humor, definitely a group experience) I think it went great, in large part because it was a quite improvisational, reactive experience. It feels _so_ strange to plug oneself's talk, but here we are: https://josh.works/boulder_ruby_group https://josh.works/boulder_ruby_group "Move Slow and Improve Things: Performance Improvement in a Rails App" To the degree that it was successful, it was ENTIRELY due to a highly supportive group of people eagerly invested in my success. What a powerful phenomena to have at your back. update: It was sorta hastily prepared, and my gosh, rewatching some if now years later there's a lot I wish I'd done better in the organization and clarity of some how how I presented. It just totally had elements of a standup routine, as many entertaining talks do. This is independent of the value, correctness, necessary truthfulness of the content, of course.

strict9 4y ago

What is it about threes? - The rule of thirds for visual imagery [1] - Three-act structure for storytelling and plays [2] - Three-part setup for stand up comedy [this article] Rules for content often fall into a rule of threes, and I'd love to know why. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_thirds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_thirds 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-act_structure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-act_structure

AlwaysRock 4y ago
Well for comedy its patterns. You hear something once and its just a thing, the second time you hear it you remember the first time and you might chuckle, the third time your brain recognizes it as a pattern and building off the first two times you heard it and its, "funny". I'm over simplifying but that is really the basis of a lot of comedy. Stand up less so. Most improv runs on the rule of threes though. It's an easy way to make something not funny at least a little funny. Try it in a meeting or presentation sometime. Start with some goofy line or joke. Mention it again in the middle. Close with it. You'll probably get laughs. Even if its not that funny and got crickets the first time.
InCityDreams 4y ago
80/20 in sports, and a few other things.
NesquikMike 4y ago
Mathematically the minimum number of elements necessary for a pattern is three.
- JadeNB 4y ago
  > Mathematically the minimum number of elements necessary for a pattern is three. An assertion about mathematics requires a definition, and I don't believe this one for the usual definition of 'pattern'. For example, if I wanted to exhibit a linear pattern, two data points would be sufficient. (But we're not talking about mathematical constructs anyway, so it's not clear what the relevance of mathematics is.)

simonw 4y ago

Much respect for sharing a video! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6miCy-nmXIY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6miCy-nmXIY I /really/ like that opener: "My favourite London bus is the 24".

NesquikMike 4y ago
Haha thanks for linking!
- bostik 4y ago
  You have a good open, but when you drop the 1912 line at the end of the opening bit, it's practically crying for a topper. If there's anything in local history you find interesting that happened that year (or even better, in the previous two years), you could have played that against the stereotype of London buses always coming late and in groups. Btw, I really want to congratulate you for having the courage to do a set. It takes a lot to perform comedy in front of an audience of strangers - with tech talks you at least have the slides as a crutch, but with standup, you have nothing to fall back on. You have a good grip on pacing, too. Please keep at it.
- lisper 4y ago
  Made me laugh! :-)
- ozim 4y ago
  Decent set :)
- curiousgal 4y ago
  It gave me a good chuckle. Bravo!
stavros 4y ago
The 24 is the best bus, by far. Pimlico to Hampstead Heath? Yes please.
- arwhatever 4y ago

presidentender 4y ago

I've been doing standup for just shy of 5 years. I started with a similar class, attended a lot of open mics, hosted several of my own mics, and produced shows. With covid I left SF and came back to Montana, which might seem like it would be bad for a comedy career, but in many ways it's easier to make headway here. The Punchline and Cobb's have so many eager comics that they can pick and choose and it's difficult to stand out. Here I'm a biggish fish in a teeny pond; I can rent a theater and fill it and make hundreds of dollars instead of the $25 I could hope for from shows in the city. Of course sometimes you're still looking at empty rooms and empty tip jars or no ticket sales, but most of the time, I get to tell more jokes to a larger number of people and get more money at each show working in flyover country.

linsomniac 4y ago

Dick Van Dyke show: "Ask me what the most important thing is about comedy." "What's the most import..." "Timing."

Joeboy 4y ago
The specific is always funnier than the general, as somebody once said.

mike10921 4y ago

Back in the day, I used to frequent Comedy Cellar and I was there multiple times when Chris Rock was trying out his material in order to decide which jokes he would later use with his larger audiences.

morley 4y ago
IIRC when Rock tries out material, he deliberately speaks in a dull monotone. He's such a great performer that if he uses his normal standup instincts, he can get laughs off of weak material.

JackFr 4y ago

I went to college with a guy who ended up being a successful stand-up (multiple Netflix specials - level). He wasn't terribly funny in college - his brother was much, much funnier. Also watching his first bits on TV - first late night basic cable, then Letterman and Leno and then eventually his specials, he was not good at first and he was not a natural. My big takeaway from that was that comedy, like many, many things is a skill that can be improved on with hard work. Undoubtedly there is some element of innate talent, but it is far less than I would have imagined before.

ralfd 4y ago
> his brother was much, much funnier The ultimate victory in intra-sibling competition: Grinding comedy until you have a Netflix stand-up special and your naturally funny wise-cracking brother doesn't.
JoeAltmaier 4y ago
Not a Higgins brother, was it? I went to school with Mike.
- JackFr 4y ago
  Jim Gaffigan.
  - awb 4y ago
    I believe that. Watching his specials is like watching someone who’s trying really hard to be funny and occasionally brute forces a laugh. He doesn’t come across as a naturally funny person like some other comics do.
    - flycaliguy 4y ago
      There is nothing occasion about the laughter when he’s on stage.
bradlys 4y ago
Comedy is also like other things - you may be good at it but it doesn’t mean you want to turn it into a career. I’ve been asked at times if I had ever considered standup or doing some kind of comedy or joining in on things - but I am funny because I want to entertain people I like, not strangers. When I tell stories or bits to strangers to get a laugh - I don’t really get the same sense of pleasure out of it as I do with a group of friends. I’ve considered being more intentional and getting very good at comedy but in some ways - I like the uncoordinated trial and error.

throwaway675309 4y ago

Good read though the linked performance fell rather flat - it seem to be almost preternaturally obsessed with London bus routes, you would have to have an excellent set of diamond pickaxes to mine any worthwhile material from that particular domain and most of it barely warranted a chuckle from myself. The self congratulatory estimating himself as one of the worst performers but coming out as one of the top three was a little hamfisted, and if that was honestly the case... I cannot even imagine what the other comedians used for material... a list of ones favorite mosaic bathroom tile patterns perhaps? Comedy feels like writing, if you need to take a course it's probably just not for you.

labster 4y ago
Agreed, bus lines aren’t nearly as funny as subway lines: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mornington_Crescent_(game) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mornington_Crescent_(game)
simonw 4y ago
If you don't think that was an impressive _first-time_ performance from a comic you are massively under-estimating how difficult this is.

stomczyk09 4y ago

I love point 7 of “let the audience laugh”. I can totally see this being a pain point of not having a pause before your next joke. Pausing and silence is so powerful and is also exhibited in sales calls, and can drive suspense to the next joke or even a joke you’re in the middle of

bostik 4y ago
It's called "not stepping on a laugh". When you land a punchline, you sweep the crowd for a few seconds. If you then start a new one before the laugh has finished, you are not just breaking the illusion of having told the joke to them - you are rudely interrupting them enjoying themselves. Also: while laughing, the audience will miss the next feedline / lead. The joke you started during a laugh will not land well, no matter how good it might be. I did a 6-week course early this year at the Angel Comedy. In the showcase, the joke of the show came in a young Danish-Chinese woman's set, and she played it perfectly. 25 seconds of laughter, in three rolling waves - and she had the guts to ride it through. All of us were congratulating her afterwards.

rcurry 4y ago

True story: A few days back my wife and I were doing Wordle. I could tell the answer was “RUSTY”, her pet name for me. So I told her the answer was sitting right next to her and she says “No, STUPID is six letters.”

nikau 4y ago
I hope you have your name on a beret like in the movie European vacation

nborwankar 4y ago

Did a similar 6 week class in standup many many years ago. Two major things I learned were a) you have to get the audience hooked in the first 20-30 secs or it gets much harder. Best example Emo Philips opening with “You know it’s really hard when you have to kill a family member because they are the devil. <Pause for laughter>. Other that it’s been a great day”. Now that’s a hook :-) b) the concept of “laughs per minute” - ie there is a certain rate at which the laughs become self sustaining. It’s 3-4 laughs per minute. If you can keep that up for 2 mins the audience is in a state of laughter that keeps getting more and more intense. If you do less than 2 laughs a minute the energy drops between each laugh and you have to work really hard to bring it back to level. Key is to maintain a rate that results in a high ambient level of hilarity bordering with at least a couple of people cackling loudly and losing it. Nevertheless when you do a successful set you feel like Superman when you walk off the stage.

wantoncl 4y ago
Another good example is Louie Anderson's debut on Carson: https://youtu.be/2bRe1CeGe7g https://youtu.be/2bRe1CeGe7g I remember watching this right after he died, and was blown away by how good he was. Not only does he get laughs right away, they're sustained. I went back and timed it, and his first 2 minutes on stage has 1 minute of audience laughter and applause. He nails all the things you mentioned, and has the whole audience roaring in under 3 minutes.
- swivelmaster 4y ago
  “Broad jump: Killed her.” is one of the most clever succinct jokes I have ever heard. Works even better because it’s the only pun in the sequence! The first two minutes of the set are incredible.
- jsqu99 4y ago
  that was fantastic, but i feel it's cheating a bit when you just make fun of yourself for being fat for 3 straight minutes. If you took away the obesity, i wonder if it'd have been as easy for him to get laughs. The same thing happens when people harp on their ethnic quirks constantly in sets. Take that away and what else do you have?

deleted 4y ago

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nsxwolf 4y ago

I've been interested in trying out standup in Meta Horizon Worlds - there's a bunch of comedy clubs you can visit. So far it hasn't really panned out as nobody is really seriously trying when I happen to visit. People go on stage and don't really do standup, and nobody pays attention.

ed 4y ago
Zoom open mics are a thing, if you’re looking to practice https://jokezoom.com/online-comedy-open-mics https://jokezoom.com/online-comedy-open-mics
- testing7787 4y ago

gotmedium 4y ago

If you like standup comedy you should watch the french standup comedy series from Netflix! Amazing cast and great throughout https://www.netflix.com/fr/Title/81233911 https://www.netflix.com/fr/Title/81233911

llaolleh 4y ago

This is a very well written post. I liked it a lot. Standup is something I want to try one day. I have a lot of respect for comedians. My gut instinct is that the personality and delivery plays a more important role than the content.

kyleblarson 4y ago

Is "learnt" an actual word?

goochtek 4y ago
Learnt is most commonly used in British English. https://www.lexico.com/grammar/learnt-vs-learned https://www.lexico.com/grammar/learnt-vs-learned
stavros 4y ago
Yes, it's spelt correctly.

milchek 4y ago

That sounds like a great course. What stood out to me is that the group is preparing for an actual show and gets real world experience in an environment with set audience expectations (ie. people coming to see a group of amateurs), which is a great way to go about it. I’ve seen improv courses here that basically are just a weekly workshop and then at the end you are on your own.

LAC-Tech 4y ago

I did a couple of 2 minute sets. One went pretty damn well. The other got polite laughter at best. Came away with a lot of respect for comedians. For me just coming up with 2 minutes of material was a challenge.

6510 4y ago

how many jokes does it take to change a light bulb? Just one but it wasn't funny.