Comedy.LifeTips.com
Category: Comic Persona Tip: How Do I Find My Comic Persona? Place a personal ad or see a therapist. All you need to do is define your attitude on stage. Are you angry, politically correct, sharp, insulting, laid back, monotone? To do this you need to get in touch with two points in your personality: 1) What is your point of view on life? Dangerfield- Loser, Don Rickles- sarcasm, Woody Allen- Intellectual loser. 2) How do you express it? Dangerfield-he complains he gets no respect Don Rickles - feels everyone is a jerk and he tells them Woody Allen- he happens to always have bad fortune Tip: What is a Comic Persona? A comic persona is the kind of delivery that suits you best. Are you good at one-liners, sight gags, story telling, dead pan delivery or high energy delivery? The key is YOU. What type of jokes in the past, in your normal everyday life, do you get laughs with? (Don't say none...or you wouldn't even be here at this site.). Come o, think. What were you doing or saying when you got your last laugh? Hopefully it wasn't an intimate moment...but if it was it can become good fodor for a new bit. The bottom line is that Bill Cosby's comic persona is different than Joan Rivers' than Drew Carey's than Jerry Seinfeld's...they each have developed their own unique comic persona. Go out and find yours. Category: Tell a Joke Tip: Rule of Three When telling a joke, comics remember the "rule of three:" 1) Never do more than 3 jokes on a subject. 2) Stick to 3 actions, 3 lists or 3 times in a joke. 3) The punchline is the 3rd item on the list. So here's an example from an old joke: Trick or treating is very lucrative in Beverly Hills. (Setup) Last year my kid got 6 apples (item #1) 4 pieces of candy (item #2) and 2 points on the next Spielberg movie. (Punchline, item #3). Tip: The Quicker You Develop a Thick Skin, The Better The comedy world has a lot of violence in its vocabulary. If you're doing really well, they'll say "You killed!" If not, they'll say, "You died up there!" The first comic to go up is said to "Bite the bullet", or "fall on the grenade". You're not going to know if a joke works
until you tell it. So, you've got to muster up some courage to tell it to a roomful of strangers. And more likely than not, it won't be funny the first time out...more. Tip: Ti-Ti-Timing is Crucial The timing of a joke can either make or break the joke. You need to pause before you deliver the punchline. Too short a pause and you don't allow the necessary beat for the audience to be set up. Too long a pause and you can drive a bus through and kill the atmosphere. Okay, so now you're asking, well how much time? It's like this..with practice you will know. It's like when you're pregnant and you ask the doctor, "How will I know when the baby is ready to come out." He just smiles and says, "Believe me, you'll know." All you need is a few times bombing on stage and you will get that timing concept down pretty darn quick. As a quick exercise, listen to the rhythm in the jokes of your favorite comedians. They each have their own timing...but it works for their style of delivery and there is a pattern. Tell jokes and experiment with the timing to see how it changes the laughter. Trust your instincts. You will soon develop your own natural timing. Tip: Writing a Good Joke We all have stories. We all have made someone laugh at some point. Now, how do you do it professionally? Three words - trim the fat. When you're writing your joke, get rid of any and all unnecessary words. Anything you put in the set-up of the joke should be directly related to your punchline. The longer you make the audience wait (be they 500 people at the Comedy Connection, or the three waitresses at Johnny's Chuckleshack on a Monday night), the bigger the laugh has to be. And if it's not, that's bad...more. Category: Tricks of the Trade Tip: Choose Funny Words Certain sounds in the English language are funnier than others. Listen for these words and collet them: For example: "K" sounding words are funny. Cupcake is funny. Tomato is not. (Unless you are throwing a tomato at a person who's name ends in K.) Kitchen is funny. Living room is not. (Unless you are doing something with a K in the living room). Pickle is funny. Onion is not.(you get the point.) Another Quick example: Words ending in "er" are funny. "Kisser", "smacker", "looker" Tip: Don't Rush the Audience If the audience is laughing at your jokes that's a good thing. So savor the moment...give
them a minute to laugh. A common error made by most novice joke tellers is rushing the audience. As soon as the audience is laughing they start telling another joke. If you do that, and the audience is liking you they will shut up to hear your next joke. You then just killed your own laughter, by trying to rush and get more. Tip: How to Bomb Gracefully Unless the audience is truly hostile, they came there to laugh. If the joke falls flat, deal with it. Do not get angry, sore or apologetic. Don't throw things even if you want to. At the moment you may think it's the worst thing in the world...but you will live to joke again. Think Johnny Carson. He was the master of bombing and recovery and that was on national TV. With Carson, the bombing became even funnier by his expressions. He poked fun at himself. When something you prepared bombs, you feel awful. The bottom line is it's not what happens, but how you react to what happens that will make all the difference in the world...and even in your act. Tip: Is My Joke Funny? Try out the joke on everyone you can, but here's the key: do it without letting them know you're trying it out. Testing a joke is good practice. It helps you work on your delivery, and you begin to feel comfortable saying the joke, and it lets you see an honest reaction. I use the rule of three here too. I tell it to three different people at separate times. If they all laugh chances are you've got a winner. Tip: Localize Your Humor Find out something about the town you are speaking in, or the group you are speaking for, or the person running the event...anything that will make your jokes seem as if they are taylor made. Or that you are giving them "inside material." It can be as simple as making fun of a road sign you saw when driving into that town...it's not that you have to make jokes specifically for them. It's just you have to substitute their area and make it seem just for them. People feel flattered and really appreciate that you took the extra time to get to know them or their town. Tip: Personalize Your Jokes Whenever possible try to personalize your jokes and material. Even if you stole it out of a joke book (hopefully you can come up with your own stuff). But if you absolutely have to borrow the "old time jokes", change them so it looks as if they happened to you. When you personalize a joke the audience can empathize with you. When they laugh a bond is formed. They key to humor is making people relate to you and your experience. Category: Your Audience
Tip: What Does Your Audience Want? There are few feelings more uncomfortable than seeing someone absolutely tanking on stage. It's one thing for an audience to think your jokes aren't funny. But as soon as it appears that you're losing your composure - either by letting a heckler win (by saying something funnier than you) or by letting your nervousness show and losing your train of thought - you're all done. At that point, the audience will want nothing more than to see you leave. So, just buck up little camper, and remember your mom still loves you, and finish up your set...more.