How Do You Do Funny?

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  • #16
    Re: How Do You Do Funny?

    Originally posted by Bono View Post
    And then I have to write a joke that's funny but not as funny as I can make it because they want it to be more Apatow than Caddyshack.
    Caddyshack was funny?
    M.A.G.A.

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    • #17
      Re: How Do You Do Funny?

      Originally posted by Bono View Post
      A little... but I'm also talking about the real world where you can still make these unPC jokes, but if you say them on twitter or at any point on TV the past 30 years, you are in trouble. I can't imagine being a stand up these days.

      Yes -- my pro writer friend said comedies are now "simply methods to deliver emotional stories."

      And I'm finding that true as I work with my new rep who keeps pushing that and saying things like 5-10 years ago, this would be funny, but now we need to lose that joke and add more heart.
      Can you give me an example of an UNpc joke you could tell 10 years ago but not in the current time era?
      Advice from writer, Kelly Sue DeConnick. "Try this: if you can replace your female character with a sexy lamp and the story still basically works, maybe you need another draft.-

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      • #18
        Re: How Do You Do Funny?

        Are you kidding?

        I was simply saying you have to write grounded comedy features vs the 80s comedies I grew up with.

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        • #19
          Re: How Do You Do Funny?

          Originally posted by Bono View Post
          Are you kidding?

          I was simply saying you have to write grounded comedy features vs the 80s comedies I grew up with.
          Your first paragraph mentioned Unpacking jokes on Twitter and tv. I was wondering what those may be.
          Advice from writer, Kelly Sue DeConnick. "Try this: if you can replace your female character with a sexy lamp and the story still basically works, maybe you need another draft.-

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          • #20
            Re: How Do You Do Funny?

            Imagine the shitstorm if Eddie Murphy released Delirious today. It's a great special and I'm surprised it's still on Netflix. Kevin Hart apologized repeatedly for a much tamer bit (reprimanding his son for "booty popping"). To be frank they get a little more leeway, though I remember the ultra progressive types still cried over Chapelle's recent Sticks and Stones. A ton of comics supposedly refuse to play colleges these days.

            Anyway, many of the older comedy movies would probably get shot down over perceived misogyny or transgender stuff (Ace Ventura, Naked Gun, the old college ones like Animal House). I heard a story about a Hangover type script (allegedly good) getting passed on for lack of female representation. I think Hollywood started over correcting after 2016.

            As far as the topic goes- I've never written a comedy but I might be pretty consistent at making coworkers and buddies and family laugh by saying stupid or outrageous ****. In my opinion if you try too hard you'll fail. I think timing is the key (odd word choices can also help), and if something I find funny pops into my head as I'm writing a script I might work it in. It's usually spontaneous though. I think the other big thing is delivery, and that's probably a big reason why writing comedy scripts is hard. Pryor or Burr or Trey Parker can yell something mundane and make it hilarious. If I ever write a comedy I'll try to make sure I have a good story first and then work in the jokes and gags as I go. Notes of possible funny moments. I started that process for a sports-comedy I had in mind but I put it off for later.

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            • #21
              Re: How Do You Do Funny?

              Yes, Doc said it well.

              I find comedy is at it's best when it's the truth. When the character isn't trying to make a joke but just be themselves. And of course in a comedy those version of themselves is heightened reality. Sitcoms are easier to see this.

              Take Cheers and you got tons of archatypes. None of those characters thinks they are tellling jokes -- they are just telling their truth.

              A lot of times you ready a comedy script and the reason the jokes aren't working isn't becuase the idea behind the joke isn't funny -- it's becuase you can tell it was written and not the character being real. It feels written. A great script you will literally forget you're even reading a script.

              But comedy should be... should be.. .whatever makes you laugh. And sometimes you want that grounded comedy, and sometimes you want that over the top Happy Gilmore movie. It's just that they don't many of those anymore...

              So again, how do I funny now? I write it the way I want and then have to tone a lot of it back...

              I find it much easier for me to make people laugh in real life than on the page. It's just a different animal. Being the funniest guy at work only goes so far -- also as I was trying to say I can go further in real life with friends and people that know me versus a script that the whole world might one day see. It's just a different animal trying to write a studio comedy vs making your buddy laugh at work.

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              • #22
                Re: How Do You Do Funny?

                Originally posted by Prezzy View Post
                ...Community, but there's an episode where a character is killed off, and the entire story is basically one long, hilarious scene of the other characters reading a will.
                yeah, I think I've seen every episode of that show, which character is killed off?

                I've also seen all the Rick and Morty EPs and funny how similar Winger is to Rick and the dynamic of the family, compared to the Spanish tutoring group.

                I'm sure it's very formulaic and something Harmon learned... who knows, maybe Harmon was trying to recreate Cheers or Taxi in a school or something?
                Ricky Slade: Listen to me, I intentionally make this gun look that way because I am smart.

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                • #23
                  Re: How Do You Do Funny?

                  2 ways.

                  1) Set up scenarios that have payoffs later on.

                  2) Wildly different character personalities -- usually opposite ones. Placing a virgin with a sex addict. A kung fu quiet Asian cop with a brash african american cop who doesn't stfu (rush hour). Etc.

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                  • #24
                    Re: How Do You Do Funny?

                    I've been watching Community because I love Rick and Morty. Season 1 started out very good/funny and now I'm on season 3 and there are so many horrible episodes. I rarely laugh now. I don't know why I'm watching this anymore, probably going to call it quits. Can't watch 6 seasons of this.

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                    • #25
                      Re: How Do You Do Funny?

                      Originally posted by Bono View Post

                      I find it much easier for me to make people laugh in real life than on the page. It's just a different animal. Being the funniest guy at work only goes so far -- also as I was trying to say I can go further in real life with friends and people that know me versus a script that the whole world might one day see. It's just a different animal trying to write a studio comedy vs making your buddy laugh at work.
                      No doubt. I'm sure it's hard. A hell of a lot more pressure too whereas bsing at work is nothing.

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                      • #26
                        Re: How Do You Do Funny?

                        One of my friends at work who shared my sick sense of humor best quote was "why are you so funny in real life and not in your scripts?" and I laughed because it's painfully true. And I tried to explain it all including all the jokes I'm making about our co-workers and job, well we both know the world and it's like watching a long running sitcom, it's just 100% funnier already.

                        Creating a world from nothing, characters you don't know without faces yet, writing a joke that can be funny 3 years after you wrote it when it finally gets made... I mean holy **** that's not what comedy is most of the time.

                        Most comedy in our lives happens at a specific moment. So that's why comedy is so hard on the page because you're trying to make that written moment seem like it just happened to the characters like it would happen to you in real life.

                        And I know it's my genre -- but I still think it's underrated how hard that really is.

                        I think we would be better off having more over the top fun comedies that we had in 80s and 90s -- that were designed to make us forget about real life and laugh. I hope to bring those back. But for now, I play the game.

                        I always love heart in my movies. John Hughes emotion. But if something is funny it's funny. To me we need to go back to some of that.

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                        • #27
                          Re: How Do You Do Funny?

                          we are completely different as a culture than we were in the 80s

                          it's a long conversation, of how dumb people destroyed theatrical release and DVD sales in America, so they could open up the market to the world and now trying to resurrect it, but drove out all the creative from the business
                          [I can start a thread, probably be the business section?]

                          can we learn to laugh at ourselves again? IDK, the media wants you to claw out the eyes of your neighbor because you don't join in the new protest against some insane esoteric idea about making the world a perfect place.

                          social media has a huge amount of entertainment that is free, edger, smarter, and speaks to Americans more than cinema does anymore.

                          Same bullshit Shakespeare dealt with in criticizing the monarchy

                          I'm with the WGA in thinking these bastards sold us out
                          Ricky Slade: Listen to me, I intentionally make this gun look that way because I am smart.

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                          • #28
                            Re: How Do You Do Funny?

                            Originally posted by Julysses View Post
                            social media has a huge amount of entertainment that is free, edger, smarter, and speaks to Americans more than cinema does anymore.

                            I know this was not your point, but it's hilariously ironic to me that there is an entire generation of young people who give all their best creative material away for free and then wonder why no one will pay them.

                            10,000 'Ok Boomer' memes later and the only ones making any money are the boomer social media shareholders.

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                            • #29
                              Re: How Do You Do Funny?

                              Oh, the hardship! Woe is us. Why the hell can't I sell my Holocaust jokes any more? I blame the black and latino lesbians.
                              Know this: I'm a lazy amateur, so trust not a word what I write.
                              "The ugly can be beautiful. The pretty, never." ~ Oscar Wilde

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                              • #30
                                Re: How Do You Do Funny?

                                It's a short conversation for me. Comedy to me isn't about hurting others, it's about giving us the truth, making fun of the way things are and showing us the way things should be, and of course a lot of fart jokes.

                                As a Jew who makes those jokes you said I can't sell -- to me nothing is more human than to look death in the face and as the British comedians would say "Always look on the bright side of life."

                                Censoring comedy is not the road to a better world. But sadly that is what is getting "fixed" first before the million of other real important things. I figured by now ALL IN THE FAMILY would look like amateur hour and now it's looking like we will never reach those comedy heights again... it's sad. But I'm not giving up.

                                FART. FART. FART. FART.

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