I decided to write a follow-up to my last post Secret Comedy Writing Technique – Funny Words. As I said before you don’t have to use this technique at all in order to be funny, but it’s certainly worth being aware of.

This post focuses on funny names and is an area that frequently pops up alongside the funny words topic, but I decided to separate them out. From what I’ve been able to understand, funny names have always cropped up in comedy.

Read the rest of this entry

I’m going to extol the virtues of being a Mystery Speaker at Toastmasters again. I did another stint as a Mystery Speaker at a club called Tube Talk last night. Tube Talk’s run by a company called Metronet Rail. According to their website they are “responsible for maintaining, replacing and upgrading all infrastructure on nine of London Underground’s Tube lines”. They’re a closed club available only to Metronet employees.

I got the gig thanks to their Treasurer, Iain Duthie whom I met at a recent seminar. I delivered the same speech that I delivered for Meridian Speakers, my last Mystery Speaker gig. Although I cheekily reworked the ending this time.

I got some nice laughs and another 3 great evaluations, taking the evaluations for that speech to six. In the bar afterwards, I also had an evaluation from Rory, one from Iain and one from David Jones, who won the International Speech Contest at Excalibur Speakers recently. This brings my total to 9 evaluations! 9 evaluations for one speech! That’s just ridonculous. But, oh so great.

Are you beginning to see the benefits of being a Mystery Speaker?

I’ve now got all these different opinions on how to improve that particular speech. I even had a suggestion to enter the Humorous Speech Contest with the speech later in the year. I’ll probably pull something else out the bag for then though.

Now, there is a slight danger of being overwhelmed with so many different opinions that you don’t know who to listen to and end up being overwhelmed. But I felt that in my particular case there were a lot of aspects to my evaluations that I could take up and address. The recommendations I had mainly focused on structuring and the speech’s theme and not really on the delivery or the humour.

There were one or two comments about my delivery, which I hadn’t noticed and no one else and picked up on before, so that will prove valuable. But as I said the main areas were the structure.

I try to always tape record (my digital dictaphone’s a bit rubbish, hence the use of dead technology) my speeches so I can play them back later.

When I play them back I generally script them so I have a record of the speech and also something I can edit based upon my evaluations and a PAR review if appropriate.

I’d like to get my speeches videotaped because then I’ll see exactly how I delivered things and where I can improve. Sometimes it’s not always easy to picture a recommendation based on a delivery. But if you can see what they see then so much the better.

As it stands I’ve been able to work in some more material that will help with the development of my after dinner speech and I know the key areas that I need to improve.

If you have the opportunity to be a Mystery Speaker, either now or in the future then grab the opportunity by the lapels.

If you haven’t joined Toastmasters yet, then do because not only do you get the benefits of the “Competent Communicator” and all the other manuals, but you might be able to be a mystery speaker too. You can rapidly improve because of all the evaluations you get for one speech and you will also be enormously helpful to the club that you speak at.

For those of you who are not directly involved with Toastmasters it’s currently competition season. For those of you who are involved… it’s still competition season!

Quick overview for those of you outside the “Toasties” sphere of influence can be found here: Toastmasters FAQ. At time of writing it’s the “International Speech Contest” and the “Evaluation Contests”, which both occur in the same evening.

As part of the evaluation contest a test, or mystery, speaker is used. I managed to land myself a mystery speaker gig at Meridian Speakers in Greenwich, South East London last night.

It’s a great thing to do because it allows you to be evaluated by more than one evaluator (which is how it normally works). Last night I had three evaluations. Due to it being a contest the evaluators are not allowed to compare notes (obviously).

I used the opportunity to develop and try out material for one of my humorously speaking projects. I haven’t had the opportunity to run a PAR score on it yet, but it felt higher than my previous humorous speech. Whilst this isn’t the most important thing when delivering a speech, I still feel there’s a certain amount of importance because of the humorous nature of what I’m doing.

As a result of the contest, there were a lot of similarities that each contestant picked up on independently of each other. So they are the areas that need to be worked on for the future.

What was also great about speaking at the club, was that I had no baggage with them at all. What can happen when you only frequent one club is that they become accustomed to your style and the content that you like to use.

But by going to a new club where you have no baggage, or prior associations, you can find this out from these clubs. I had a good opportunity to find out where the laughs are and potentially anchor new people in the future.

On a side note: I was travelling home with some fellow Toastmasters who were visiting from other clubs too. Joann Walsh from London Olympians (and this was confirmed by Rory Marriott from Canary Wharf Communicators) told me that there’s a river boat service which is part of the transportation system in London. I’d vaguely heard of it, but figured it was propaganda.

So next time you’re in London and the tubes and overground service are proving a bit much try the River Boat Service. Or maybe you just wanna try it out anyway. It seems to run quite late and has a timetable similar to the buses. So with that in mind it’s probably really unreliable and four boats come along at once. I for one will certainly experiment. Who says you don’t learn anything from Toastmasters?

“Fifty-seven years in this business, you learn a few things. You know what makes an audience laugh. You know what words are funny and which words are not funny. Alka Seltzer is funny. You say “Alka Seltzer” you get a laugh… words with a “K” in them are funny.

Casey Stengel, that’s a funny name. Robert Taylor is not funny. Cupcake is funny. Tomato is not funny. Cookie is funny. Maryland is not funny. Then, there’s chicken. Chicken is funny. Pickle is funny.”

That opening quote from The Sunshine Boys by American comedy writer Neil Simon nicely sets up this post “Secret Comedy Writing Techniques – Funny Words”. Read the rest of this entry

I want to review a great e-book by the late humorist and M.C. John Cantu. It’s called “Getting Paid to Make People Laugh” and it comes as a bonus with the That’s Comedy collection of joke books.”.

I really enjoyed this book because it’s a transcript of an interview with Cantu and you get the impression that the guy interviewing Cantu made sure that no stone was left unturned.

I find that what happens sometimes in books like these is that the author can sometimes forget little details because they are now so used to carrying out that little task that it gets overlooked. Not so with this book. Still got stage fright? Cantu gives over a dozen tips and techniques. Too shy to market and promote yourself as a speaker? Cantu deals with that too. And what I also like is the fact that Cantu discusses what a humorist is and how it differs from being a comedian:

“When you are a comedian, you have to have one killer joke after another. When you are a humorist, they don’t have to be that strong, because you are coming from a different perspective…

“A comedian basically does a very structured type of presentation. It is set-up and punchline, set-up and punchline. That is not an organic way of speaking… on the other hand, when you are a humorist, you tell stories. You still get up and talk, but you talk with funny examples – you give real life examples.”

The area where I think this e-book falls down is in its explanation of how you can use Toastmasters. It seems to imply that you can use the Toastmasters programme to create a 50-minute speech 5 minutes at a time. In my experience it doesn’t really work that way because you have to use different topics with each speech project. Especially in the beginning stages of doing the Competent Communicator.

But working through the Toastmasters programme does, obviously, have its own benefits of learning how to craft speeches, gaining valuable stage time and so on.

I also feel that it’s very American-orientated. This is fine because it was recorded in the States and if you’re based there then it’s perfect. But some of the suggestions don’t translate as well to other countries; for example, using the “Animal clubs” (Lions, Elks, Moose, etc) to further your stage time.

Whilst there are a couple of Animal clubs here in the U.K., like Moose International, they aren’t that prevalent and as a result are dotted around the country and not that easy to access unless you drive. So the tips for moving beyond Toastmasters and on to other speaking gigs doesn’t quite work in the U.K. in the same way.

However, the sheer wealth of information and detail is great and it’s a resource that I keep going back to reading again and again. It’s only a shame that Cantu’s no longer around to see the continuous influence of his work on other humorists and speakers.

I got hold of my copy of “Getting Paid to Make People Laugh” as a bonus product through Dean Rackley’s That’s Comedy site. This is a really good deal because not only do you get “Getting Paid to Make People Laugh” as a bonus when you purchase the That’s Comedy joke book, but you also get Cantu’s other shorter e-book “Smiling for Dollars”, which details avenues that pay for both humorous writing and humorous performing. Plus you get a whole host of joke books that allow you to begin an invaluable resource.

My favourite story in this e-book is as follows (and I’m paraphrasing):

A comedian is booked at the same event as humorist. The comedian watches what the humorist’s act. To the comedian the humorist was doing a comedy act, but with mostly funny stories and anecdotes. After they got to know each other the comedian asks the humorist:

“What’s the difference between a humorist and a comedian?” And the humorist replies:  about $15,000 a booking.”

Addendum – 01/05/2008

Comedy writer and speaker Nick R. Thomas has made a post about how he goes about finding speaking gigs and I think that it is the perfect compliment to this post. So if you’re based in the U. of K. get Cantu’s book, then read Nick’s post and you’ll see how it all fits together! If you’re based in the U.S. then Cantu’s book should suffice.

Note: There are affiliate links in this post. That means that if you buy a product via my link I get paid a commission. This is one of the ways I help pay the bills.