Secrets of Stand-Up Revealed
Like everything else, stand-up comedy has its secrets. Read and sample your way through a step-by-step insiders guide to the dark magic of the comic’s trade, complete with “in concert” audio to illustrate each explosive revelation!
So, you want to be a stand-up comic? Without questioning your judgement (I wouldn’t be the first, though, would I?), click here for a catalogue of the secret techniques being used on audiences by today’s top working comedians. Each technique is described and demonstrated with secretly recorded clips from real-life comedy club performances (okay, just my shows).
Okay, so this isn’t exactly a secret. Even so, comedians rarely tell ‘joke’ jokes anymore. Not since Al Gore invented the internet. Still, even the most sophisticated of comedy routines depends on a core structure identical to the simplest joke. It’s got to have a set-up, and a punch. Set-up, punch.
The set-up (or premise) is the key. The better the set-up, the better the punch. Generally, shorter is better (which I say even though mine aren’t).
My friend and youth advisor J. Elvis Weinstein is a brilliant joke writer whose set-ups have a crisp, clear simplicity that makes me vomit. Here’s a classic Weinstein, which he generously donated to my act (and I made wordier).
Once you’ve gotten a few good set-up/punches under your belt, you’re ready to move on to tags. A tag is a second joke on the same premise. Very efficient, since the premise is the hard part. Got a really good one? Milk it, baby.
Technique # 3 – The Rule of Threes
The first time you try a tag and it works, it’s a rush. They’re usually twice as powerful as the first punchline, even when they’re not as funny! It’s only natural to think: “If the set-up’s strong, and each tag doubles the laugh, 5 more and
they’re unconscious!” So you work out another tag – and guess what? It’ll kill, too.
But then, something mysterious happens: The Rule of 3′s kicks in. It goes something like this: “even a really good premise can deliver at most three strong punchlines”. Why? Who knows, but it’s almost always true. Occasionally you’ll get a punch and three tags, but beyond that our comedy neurons start to get jumpy.
This is not to say that there are only three funny ways to say the same thing. * A good tag writer might come up with dozens. A good stand-up assembles the three (or four) that add up to a uniquely hi-larious take.
*(one of my favorite Letterman segments was the day after the ’96 election, when Dave went to the Joke Closet to throw out all the boxes of “Dole Is Old” jokes, which were next to the boxes of “Clinton Is Fat” jokes, which he kept.)
Technique #4 – The Local Reference
It doesn’t matter how funny the jokes are if the audience isn’t comfortable with who’s telling them. Boondoggle or mutant suburb, the local reference is a sure-fire way to jumpstart that process.
Other times, it’s as simple as a word change (like inserting the name “Lakota“) in an existing bit. The
best part: even if it’s only mildly funny, you still win because you’ve related.
But be warned: There’s a fine line between relating and pandering. One too many local references buys you a one-way ticket to Hackeytown (see below).
Okay, so this isn’t exactly a secret either. Even though there are no known cave drawings to back me up on this, intuition suggests that the dick joke is at least the second oldest form of comedy.
The first big laugh probably came after some sort of accidental Cro-magnon pratfall. The next day, Grok took a rock to the nuts, and 50,000 years later it’s still funny (witness the global success of America’s Funniest Home Videos).
And that’s the problem. A good dick joke is almost always funny to almost everyone, which is exactly what
the aspiring comic is aspiring to be. Even drunks and hecklers get them (perfect for that late show Friday crowd). Before you know it, your entire act is dick joke dependent. Now you’re running for Mayor (of Hackeytown).
Seriously, only a handful of comics succeed at being both brilliantly funny and blue. Robert Schimmel and Bobby Slayton (both in my personal Top 10) come immediately to mind . Leno’s comment is that it’s easier to make a clean joke dirty than it is to make a dirty joke clean (Ironically, he’s also become a leading proponent of another comedy
maxim: that the word “viagra” makes almost any sentence funny, or at least funnier). My advice – have some ready, but save ‘em til you need ‘em. The same with “adult” language. Ultimately stand-up is a lot like arguing with your wife. The louder your voice and the worse your language, the more you know you’re losing.
The “callback” is when a comic repeats a word or phrase from an earlier routine at a later and unrelated point in his/her show. When done well, they function like the ultimate in-joke for an audience: a combination tag and local reference (to
a joke they just heard). A good callback, like a good catch phrase, just seems to get funnier with repetition. Only unlike a catch-phrase, you can set-up as many different callbacks per show as your style allows. Paula Poundstone and Louie Anderson both use multiple callbacks throughout their shows, to great effect. My friend Bill Bauer has to be the king, building callback upon callback until his last riffs are often utter nonsense almost completely composed of callbacks.
And it destroys the audience. One big drawback: callback laughs are built on the technique of repetition more than actual funny.
Being a content junkie, I rarely use callbacks. Here’s the only one currently in my act (which coincidentally happens to be a dick joke/callback combo – one of stand-up’s most devastating.)
COMING SOON: THE SECRETS OF:
dealing with hecklers
working the audience
going to the crowd
crossing the line
digging a hole
eating it
silence
physical comedy
sound-effects
shiny objects (also known as “funny hats”)
anti-comedy
working the back of the room
“k” words …..
and HACKEYTOWN
Don’t forget, there’s plenty more audio at
MY ACT WITH YOUR EYES CLOSED and FRESH CUTS.
