If you haven’t already, please read my article Authenticity and Comedy first.
This can be a philosophical question, like what is yellow or why are cats? It’s difficult to describe fully. The great improviser Philip Markle describes the comedy formula as:
Believability + Surprise = Laughter
And you should definitely read his awesome article on pretty much the same topic but in terms of improv comedy.
All comedy is some form of surprise, usually — I expected you to say this one thing, but you said a totally other thing — what a jape! Take one of the oldest in the book:
Take my wife… please!
– Henry Youngman
The brain expects a normal wifely anecdote to ensue — But, bam! Misdirect! He says please instead. It’s surprising and believable because all wives are cantankerous shrews responsible for 100% of marriage problems. Rim-shots all round!
Interfering thought
What about if a 17 year old girl wants to play a joke on her slightly conservative parents?
Mum, Dad… I’m pregnant
They’d probably lose their minds! No rim-shot just a slide-whistle if you’re lucky. So what’s wrong here? It’s certainly surprising, and it’s definitely believable, but why is mum crying and dad punching a wall? Because it’s created too much interfering thought. “Her life is ruined” they think, will she have an abortion? I’m gonna kill him! what will the neighbors say? In comedy we always need to know you are joking, you have to nail the delivery of a bombshell like this. Sorry girl, you fluffed it now moms back on the sleeping pills.
However, if Granny says the same thing, with a twinkle in her eye:
Jane, Dennis… I’m pregnant!
We’d laugh her all the way to the nursing home! Because there’s no way she could be pregnant — the old dried up codger! So she either landed a quality zinger, or she’s 2 months away from thinking you’re her husband’s ghost. To me the comedy equation is more accurately:
(Believability + Surprise) — Interference = Laughter
Something Logan Murray (esteemed comedy teacher and author) taught me was “If I’m thinking I’m not laughing”.
This “interference” can come in many forms. It can be as simple as poor wording. EG if Youngman’s joke was:
Take my bitch of a wife, please!
Firstly, the surprise that he would want his wife taken is lessened by the early reveal that she is bitchly in nature (what women aren’t, am I right lads !?). Secondly, this wording has caused interference, at least to a lefty feminist like me by. Calling some random woman I don’t know a bitch — now I’m mad at him before we even got to the punchline. However the relatability is still intact, as mentioned before, all wives are terrible.
So with my notes, perhaps it would be re-written:
Take my awesome wife, please!
OK this is a surprise. Why would you want this lovely wife, with manga proportions, who cooks you Michelin star meals every night, but not before an efficient BJ with some — but not too much eye-contact — be taken!? It’s certainly surprising, but it’s now not relatable, and once more we have the interfering thought of “Why would you want some faceless wife-snatcher to take this huge breasted woman away? It was the eye-contact wasn’t it? Sporadic glances Helen!”
It should be quite clear that poor word choices can cause interfering thought, but basically anything whether physical or verbal, that distracts from the surprise, will lessen the guffaws.
if it doesn’t add, it distracts
-Logan Murray
Here’s the clincher, awareness of these distractions can be a fantastic writing tool, and in the next article I’ll take you through an exercise which can help use interfering thought to create truly authentic comedy.
Thanks for reading! This is part of my as yet unpublished book “The Authentic Comedian”. I’ll be releasing more chapters and exercises in due course. Please get in touch if you’d like to know more.