If you ask yourself, `Is there anything I can do to get a laugh?’ you can find a lot of things.
And usually they’re things that other people have found. But if you take something that’s never going to work and you go, `Wow, I wonder if there’s any way I can get somebody to laugh at this?’ it’s a great challenge.
Related posts tagged 'Comedy theory'
More
Related posts tagged 'Comedy theory'
Stand-up is a form and to subvert something, you have to do it perfectly first. I remember somebody showed me a talk show with “subversion” in it — the guy chainsawed his desk. It was so stupid. Why did you build a desk in the first place if you were only going to chainsaw it? Don’t have a fucking desk! You just want little drops of subversion. Letterman in the ‘80s would be 90 percent a great talk show and then 10 percent subversion. If you get to 30 percent subversion, you’re in Andy Kaufman land. If you get to 70 percent, you’re a guy on the streets screaming at people. What are you trying to subvert anyway? Entertaining people? It’s absurd.
I think that comedy, at its most basic level, is making light of unpleasant things. That’s how we deal with life. I think that the myth that comedy and depression are linked, and that any artist has to be unhappy to create, is a very dangerous myth that I think has hurt a lot of people. When Robin Williams died, I did a few interviews about that, because people were reaching out to the comedy community and asking people how they felt and their personal stories. A lot of people wanted to draw a link between comedians and depression and suicide, and I think that’s a really terrible myth. Anybody can be depressed in any walk of life. It just seems strange when comedians are depressed, because t...
A lot of it is bragging. It used to drive me crazy when I knew that a stand-up’s agenda was about showing how smart they were. The last character you want to be is a guy who’s smarter than the audience. But there’s some hole inside that these stand-ups have to fill. It has nothing to do with making people laugh.
I think the big problem with the internet when it comes to comedy is it requires too much content, and supply and demand does not work with comedy. And success goes to the ones that give the most content, but the content would be, there'll be a precise algorithm between amounts and mediocrity of content. So that's how I think the internet demands too much input of a comedian. And the successful ones will be the worst ones. I'm doing JASH, a video podcast, which is like a tv show that is only on the computer. And it's about time there was a place to put tv shows other than the TV, I've always said!
I guess there came a time, and I missed it, when revealing everything started to be considered art. I’d always learned that concealing everything was art. And I still believe that, because comedy is a vulgar art; it’s an art that’s just beginning to take form because it’s so young. But I can look at other art forms and see how postmodernism has destroyed them, and now threatens to destroy stand-up. It’s the height of narcissism to write meta-comedy, because people aren’t interested in comedy. They’re interested in going home after shoveling shit all day and then seeing some fool perform. That’s not to say that comedy can’t make a greater point, because it can. But it can’t make a greater poi...
Related posts tagged 'Coming up with ideas'
More
Related posts tagged 'Coming up with ideas'
And you look at it, go, 'I don't see a dinosaur. I don't see a dinosaur. I don't see a dinosaur. Oh! Oh I see it.' That's what jokes are like. You look at life. You look at it the same way everybody else does. But for a comedian, every once in a while you see a dinosaur. You see a joke. You go: 'Hey, there's a joke there.'
I like the very moment when you think of a great idea. I also like the first time you show an audience the film, but only if it works. That also can be the worst moment of your life.
The first time we did it, Fred just starting doing that voice ("Whaaaaaat are you doing here?!") and Kristen and I were like "What?" It was so funny. I hadn't heard him do it before. Man o man it made me laugh. Then it became a game of who could stretch out the vowels in their sentences the most. It got crazy.
George Carlin said that comedy comes from looking around and saying, “There’s something wrong here.” It’s that and the twinkle feeling when an idea hits you. Something hits you then you write it out and tweak it on stage. Sometimes it works, but usually it doesn’t. And you repeat that over and over again.
It comes to me. Part of my leaving the media on all day is a way of…my mind has trained itself to have a very sensitive system of radar about certain words, expressions, topics, and areas of discussion that come up. There are things that interest me more than others, and then there are things that jump out. There’s one thing I learned about the mind as a young man, when I quit school. I read a book - half of it, anyway - called Psycho-Cybernetics. The author said that the brain is a goal-seeking and problem-solving machine, and if you put into it the parameters of what it is you need or want or expect, and you feed it, it will do a lot of work without you even noticing. Because the brain doe...
Related posts tagged 'Joke writing'
More
Related posts tagged 'Joke writing'
George Carlin said that comedy comes from looking around and saying, “There’s something wrong here.” It’s that and the twinkle feeling when an idea hits you. Something hits you then you write it out and tweak it on stage. Sometimes it works, but usually it doesn’t. And you repeat that over and over again.
Writing a script is different because you have to write from different perspectives other than your own. I had to write lines for my fictional wife, Leif, Artie [characters in his HBO show Crashing]... you have to imagine more than just your own opinions. A very good excercise just in general!
Definitely. I have a joke where I say ‘you ever forget your headphones at home and have to walk around without them? Boy, thoughts are no good. Turns out I love music, I hate my brain,’ and in other places, people don’t get it. That’s because they don’t walk, they drive everywhere. So I had to change it to ‘you ever had your stereo stolen?’ and it’s like ‘eh, it’s not the same. I’ve got to adjust according to where I am. It’s tough because if the joke works in NY, I want to keep it.
I think writing jokes has definitely gotten faster and easier for me as I've gotten older. You just understand yourself better and know your voice.
Related posts tagged 'Creativity'
More
Related posts tagged 'Creativity'
it all comes in seasons and waves. the best we can hope it when we are called on, we are in a creative season! and if we're not, sometimes that panic of a deadline is enough to snap me out of it. but it's all self love. if youre blocked, love youself anyway. it's a better strategy and will make it go away faster than being hard on yourself. take a nap! take a walk! take a drive! watch a movie! it's all writing. just in your subconscious
There was a world of junkies and winos, pool hustlers and prostitutes, women and family screaming inside my head, trying to be heard. The longer I kept them bottled up, the harder they tried to escape.
Each year I'm getting more and more joy out of the process than the outcome...that may be because I've been fortunate to have great outcomes and are taking them for granted but I like to think I'm remapping my neurology and interpreting certain experiences differently. I like talking to other people about how to tackle a story. If I were a character in a movie, my "arc" would definitely have something to do with a journey from isolation to collaboration. In other words, as I near my retirement, my real joy has become exploiting younger writers.
That would be me, Robert, when I was EPing Dana Carvey's prime time variety show in 1996. We wanted to to do cartoons on the show, and pretty much anything that make it feel different than SNL. The great writer and deviant Dino Stamatopoulos pitched me something entirely different - what if characters like Wallace and Gromit were clearly having a sexual relationship? I didn't know much about what would be acceptable to the ABC audience watching after Home Improvement but I correctly identified that as unacceptable. Anyway, for some reason, the AGD idea just came to me at the end of that conversation. What if we did two superheroes and everyone suspects they're gay? It was always more about t...
There is no line that I know in terms of what's "too far," whether that means too sentimental or too ...I don't know, controversial or confessional....a "boundary" is an artificial construct, we have to create boundaries when they involve other people, precisely because it makes empirical something that would otherwise be frustratingly subjective (like that neighbor that just kind of 'feels like' their yard extends into yours, in which case you have to go to city hall and pull out a map with lines on it). In matters of creativity - when you're sitting and writing dialogue by yourself, there's no lines needed because you're not having to function in cooperation, your job in creation, I think,...
Popular categories
Foam corner
Making a show
Inside baseball
Filmmaking
Favorite books
Favorite comedians
Coming up with ideas
Relationship with other comics
Advice for aspiring comedians
Childhood
General life advice
Writing
Favorite movies
Acting
Relationship with fans
Working with other comedians
Styles of comedy
Performing
Podcasting
Comedic influences
Saturday Night Live
Favorite memories as a comedian
Favorite music
Reflecting on own work
Fan stories
Favorite jokes
Creativity
Finding your voice
Yuks
Screenwriting
Louis CK