Jul 30

my thoughts on jokes

As you probably know by now I think it’s important for humorous speakers to be able to handle joke stories or street jokes, if you prefer. Essentially jokes stories are ones that people tell you on the street. Or at work, down the pub, etc.

In the comedy world a lot of people see joke-smiths like the ones I’ve mentioned in previous posts about, as hacks. In the UK for instance there’s a general divide between what’s generally referred to as the “northern comics” (so-called because they perform in working men’s club, cabaret night’s etc) in the north of England. whereas, generally in the south a lot of comedians are described as being “alternative” comedians.

For instance: a lot of these comedians write their own material and their view of the world isn’t as interchangeable as those joke stories of the northern comic. They came as an alternative to the mainstream “my mother-in-law” comedy of the day (the 1970s).

What a lot of people fail to realise is that the “alternative” movement is in fact dead. It essentially died when Prime Minister Thatcher retired (1990), or got booted out of office, whichever came first. So long live the alternative! So what is it now? Post-Alternative? New Comedy? I honestly don’t know and I don’t think it really matters.

What I do know is this…

I have seen and heard very funny comics from both sides of the divide. Thanks to my father I grew up watching comedians like Frank Carson, Bobby Davro, Bernard Manning and Mike Reid. These guys tell joke stories, predominantly.

I also got exposed to the new wave of comedians like Ben Elton, Rik Mayall, Harry Enfield and so on. These guys did routines, stories and comedy bits and so on. But that doesn’t mean to say they were not structured in such a way to produce laughs, because produce laughs they did.

For me funny is funny.

I know I’ve potentially alienated some of my readers because of these comments, but I guess I just have to roll with the punches. Or punchlines… ahem.

I just know that by being able to create a comedy act that doesn’t solely rely on expletives and crude material to get laughs, I can automatically broaden my prospective markets and, therefore, increase my work potential.

I have absolutely no problem with markets such as corporate, cruise ship, comedy clubs, holiday resorts, etc. If I need to spice up my act then I can do so with well-placed swear-words without making the punchlines dependant on them.

That said, there is generally a stigma against using joke stories on the London comedy club circuit, and quite right too. However, it doesn’t really apply in the corporate world.

So I think that it’s really valuable to have an understanding of how to edit and use street jokes, which can potentially help your act, or humorous speech, without them being dependant on them.

What I absolutely don’t agree with, however, is watching a comedian who has written their own material and then just stealing their gags.

I have heard comedians doing word-for-word routines that I know have come from elsewhere either because I have seen them performed by the original person or own a DVD of the performance. That’s something I cannot condone. It’s even potentially a problem with funny presentations.

If you are delivering material delivered by another comic and passing it off as you’re own, you’re in deep trouble in my opinion. Morally, artistically, let alone legally…

On the other hand delivering an edited and well rehearsed street joke in the right circumstances can be a good safety device. The right circumstances, in my opinion, would be when working as a humorist in the corporate market, or perhaps in a rowdy comedy club. you can just hit them with a street joke and segue into the rest of your material from there.

Now you have a fair idea of why I have a love-hate relationship with joke stories. I guess it all depends on what day it is and my mood…

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Jul 29

street joke delivery

Okay, following on from my last post about editing joke stories, here’s my edited version of the selected street joke:

A little girl puts her hand up and says: a cold is contagious
Teacher’s like: “well done. Anybody else?”
A little boy puts his hand up (hand goes up): “yawning is
contagious” “Excellent”.

Then Little Johnny puts his hand up and says:
“My mummy was mowing the lawn. My daddy looked out the
window and said it’s gonna take that contagious to finish.”

This is how I’ve put the joke story into my own words and naturally there’s some reduction in the amount of words that I’ve used.

The first version of the joke is 87 words long whereas my version is 73 words which is about a 15% reduction.

The less words there are, the quicker you get to the punchline. And as the bearded Shakespearean-one said: “brevity is the soul of wit”. Thanks for that Shakey.

Obviously there’s only so much help I can give you in a blog post on how to deliver a street joke. If you need a resource for street jokes I’ve found a great one that you can get here: joke story resource.

I also would generally advise not rushing through the joke story to get to the end. You might have the tendency to babble, especially if you think you can’t quite remember it.  This sometimes can elicit a laugh in your audience, but I think it’s nicer if the laugh comes from your joke, rather than you being laughed at for your inability to deliver it.

Your audience (whether one person or a group) need to hear each bit of the joke’s story, or set-up line. It has crucial information in it which makes the punchline work.If you gabble to get to the end and all they hear is:

“it’s gonna take that contagious to finish”

It’s not really going to make much sense.

Likewise if you forget the punchline your audience will feel ripped off, you’re not going for the Steve Martin approach after all (note: I’m talking about early stand-up Steve not Pink Panther-era Steve).

If I were telling this joke I’d “play” the other characters in the joke story. On this line:

“A little girl puts her hand up and says: a cold is contagious…”

I’d pretend to be the little girl and I’d put my hand up and put on a little voice for her.  Sounds strange in the cold light of day on this blog, but go with it. Obviously you don’t have to do it that way, everybody’s approach to joke telling is different.

And before you deliver the punchline you might want to give it a slight pause. There are varying theories on how long you should pause for.

I’d say anything longer than 3 seconds is excessive with this joke story particularly. It’s one of those things that you’re essentially going to have to feel. Sorry, a bit of work is required here.

I’m trying not to dissect the frog to much as i want to to live again afterwards and not be a a soggy mess on the table. Sorry for the graphic imagery.

I’d recommend having a look at a stand-up comedian and seeing how they do it. Go for one those joke-teller comedians in this case.

Some of the comedians in this category that I’d suggest looking at are as follows:

Bernard Manning (UK)
Jimmy Jones (UK)
Frank Carson (IRE)
Roy “Chubby” Brown (UK)
Mike Reid (UK)

Please note: for the purposes of seeing how the pros deliver jokes these guys are amongst the best. Even the dead ones. If some of their jokes are too delicate for your sensibilities I can only apologise, but they are what they are.

Here’s that resource again joke stories.

Note: There are affiliate links in this post. That means if you purchase a product via my link I get paid a commission. This helps me pay the bills.

Jul 19

The street joke editing process…

After my last post on joke stories, here comes the fun part. You’re gonna edit your street joke down. Don’t feel that you’re not qualified. You are don’t worry. As long as you can speak and paraphrase you’re gonna be fine at editing a street joke, or joke story if you prefer.

A word of warning though: this blog won’t make you Dane Cook or Eddie Izzard or Mel Miller, just so you know. Becoming a comedian like that is a whole other ball game.

Make sure you’re on your own. Like… sitting in front of your computer. Yeah, that’s a good idea. Okay say take your joke and say it out loud:

“One day the teacher asked her students to use the word “contagious” in a phrase. Sarah lifts up her hand and says, “Teacher, teacher I got one!! A cold is contagious!”

The teacher is very happy. Tom lifts up his hand and says, “Teacher… yawning is contagious” “pretty good Tom!!”

Finally, little Johnny lifts up his hand and says, ” Oh…Oh…I got one…The other day, as my mother was mowing the lawn, my father looked out the window and said it will take that contagious to finish!!”

It won’t feel comfortable somehow. Most jokes that appear in joke books like Thats Comedy or get forwarded to you are written to be read and NOT spoken.

What? I’ll say it again, most joke stories that you receive from a book or via the web are written to be read and NOT spoken.

The two are completely different.

When you write something to be read it has to make sense with its sentence structure. Most jokes have a small story element to them and so that’s what’s included. For example:

“One day…”
or
“…and says”

Those are structures that we are used to and help us when we are reading the joke story.

But they are not at all helpful when you have to deliver that joke.

So read the joke out loud a few times to familiarise yourself with it. Then put it to one side and repeat it a few more times. Just give yourself a bit of “rehearsal” with it.

What will begin to happen slowly is that you’ll forget bits of the joke and, as a result, paraphrase the joke story into your own words.

You’ll naturally make shortcuts. Believe me, this is not a bad thing. This is exactly what you want to happen.

As you do this try to cut out the storytelling elements. so for instance, with my joke I’d start it straight away with:

“A teacher asks…”

I also think it’s better to keep the joke in the present tense. even if it’s happened in the past. You’ll say something like “last year…” then the tense will immediately change as if it’s happening right now.

That street joke has got to unfold in front of your audience like it happening in the here and now. it makes it more immediate and, here comes the wanky bit, puts you right in the middle of the emotion.

I know, I know. that’s the old actor in me. (well, there’s not an old actor in me right now… but I have trod some boards in the past and performed Shakespeare. But I got some help, I worked through it and I’m over it now).

Okay, just know that keeping a joke story in the present tense keeps it more alive. So: “I’m walking” or “I walk” is better than “I walked”. (I know “I’m walking” is not strictly in the present tense, but it’s slightly better than the past tense).

Pair it right the way down so you are left with enough key elements to make the joke work. How do you know what will make the joke story work? Well, for starters the punchline is pretty damned important.

The set-up is important as well, but that can usually do with a bit of trimming. The punchline’s the bit at the end that gets the laugh. Sorry if I’m stating the obvious for some of you, I just wanna make sure we’re all on the same page.

In the case of my joke, the punchline is:

“my father looked out the window and said it will take that contagious to finish!!” The other kids names aren’t necessary to my joke either. They’re superfluous. Their parents might not think they’re superfluous, but they are in my joke story and that’s what matters.

The important kid is the one who gives us the punchline. Naming the other kid’s just provides extraneous information that just distracts from the story.

That’s when you start getting into that dangerous territory, like when someone tells a joke and they start filling in irrelevant details:

“One day the teacher, Mrs. Slackjaw… at least I think that was her name. Maybe that name just sounds too jokey… um… Mrs. Robinson… Ah, see, now you’re thinking of The Graduate. I did like that movie. Anyway, okay, not Mrs. Robinson. Mrs… um…”

Whoa, hold on there. too much information. I’ve just walked out the room and thrown myself under a bus ‘cos you were taking so long.

so when you’re saying the joke out loud, make sure that you try to use your everyday colloquialisms. so maybe you take the line:

“Sarah lifts up her hand and says”

and edit it like this:

“another kid puts her hand and says”

or even:

“another kid’s like (then you put your hand in the air pretending to be the kid)”.

With that last line we’re beginning to borderline with delivering the joke. That’s not a bad thing because the editing and delivering the joke are fused together at the hip.

What do you think you’ve been doing when you were saying the joke out loud to yourself? You were delivering it.

Okay, so you had no audience but you were delivering it all the same. Check out this joke story resource here: That’s Comedy

Note: There are affiliate links on this page. That means that if you make a purchase via my link I get paid a commission. It’s how I can help pay the bills.

Jul 19

Short Funny Jokes: The Selection process…

So if you’ve been following along with these last couple of posts about joke stories, you’ve probably got the main joke books from Thats Comedy by now and you probably want to try out one of the gags.

Before I continue let me just say if you’re an experienced comedian or comedy writer reading this blog then you may want to skip this post because I’m going to go through a process which you already know. Continue reading

Jul 19

Short Funny Jokes, part 2

As I said in my last post about joke stories, I discovered a great resource for finding short funny jokes (and long ones) on the Internet and it’s called… That’s Comedy

Here’s what amounts to my review and overview of this resource.

So how is this different from all the other joke story websites you might come across? Well, for a start there are two joke books that are both over 400 pages in length.

Not only that there are some pretty damned good bonuses too.

At the time of writing this blog there’s one called 101 Practical Jokes which allows you to “punk” your friends. Which to me is a weird phrase.

So that ebook’s there if you’re that way inclined. And there’s also one called “Gag Gift Recipes” so you can give your loved one a gag gift on a special occasion like their birthday or maybe an anniversary. Hours of fun. If that’s your thing.

And arguments too probably.

There’s not really a lot I can say in a review about two large jokes books. Obviously there’re gags which are going to make you laugh and other that will make you groan. That seems to be the nature of joke books with vast amount of joke stories, one-liners, question & answer routines and so on.

But there will probably be a few other sounds along the way. I am in no way responsible if you are offended by any of the joke stories contained within the volumes of That’s Comedy

At the end of the day a joke’s a joke and it’s up to you if you want to get offended. So you have to be prepared that some joke stories may not be suitable for minors… Or other people who work underground.

I’m also on the mailing list and at the time of writing have been for about a year and a half and in all that time there’s only been one joke story that’s made me take a sharp intake of breath and shake my head and the joke’s content.

I still laughed out loud, even though it was near the  knuckle. And I don’t get offended easily. Alas, I don’t remember the joke off the top of my head.

You can read the joke books all the way through like a regular book, although you’d probably be a bit weird if you did. Or you can dip in and out of them like I do, mainly because I have bad reading habits.

There are other unadvertised bonuses too. There are usually a tonne of these. Although again this is subject to change because they guy is constantly updating this bonus package – adding and removing stuff at will.

The bonus package usually includes more joke books but by other people, a couple of bonuses by a professional comedian and a book on becoming a paid professional humorous speaker (Now that’s something I’m interested in!) All in all it’s a pretty darned good deal.

So if you like short, funny joke stories, or even long ones, there are plenty of humorous lines contained within the main volumes as well as the  bonuses: joke story resource

The thing to do is, find a joke that resonates with you. Does it make you laugh? If it does that’s a pretty good place to begin. If it makes you laugh then the chances are pretty high that other people will find it funny too.

Click here for the next post in this series on joke stories