Recently, I’ve been trying my hand at writing sketch comedy. I took a shine to it after taking a class at The Upright Citizen’s Brigade here in Los Angeles.
After being formally instructed in some of the basic rules of sketch, I realized that I had been giving myself a lesson in it all my life.
My parents were both college professors growing up and used to take my sister and me on epic cross country adventures which translated into days spent sitting in the backseat of a car. When we finally got a car with an eight track player (yes, I’m THAT old), one of the first purchases my mother made was Steve Martin’s comedy concert album “Wild and Crazy Guy.” I’m not sure how sound a parenting decision that was given some of Mr. Martin’s jokes, but it didn’t really matter since I wasn’t really aware of the different uses of the word “diaphragm.”
All that I and my sister, Cathy, cared about was if what we were listening to was funny and, after just a few listens to Wild And Crazy Guy, Cathy and I knew we had struck comedic gold and we promptly started memorizing this comedic tour de force. To this day, elements of the bit turn up in our coast to coast conversations. (“What happened? What happened? He spoke French. Help him!”)
Bill Cosby was another popular 8 track cassette, but Bill never really had the resonance for me that Steve Martin did. The off the wall humor and his emphasis on the humor of language was something that was deeply satisfying to the son and daughter of an English Professor and a Psychology Professor.
After we got a car with a cassette player, we moved on to Monty Python, Garrison Keillor’s Lake Wobegon and others.
Since I’ve been driving my own car, I’ve been continuing to collect comedy by some of my favorites like Sandra Bernhard. I’ve also spent the last decade of my life memorizing the first 8 seasons of The Simpsons.
Recently, I downloaded some of my favorite bits from the boys of Monty Python. They are still as funny to me today as they were when we were traveling the back roads of Wisconsin. This got me wondering: What makes something timelessly funny? What are the mechanics behind the comic devices? What are the tools that these writers, performers and directors use so successfully to make us laugh so consistently – even year later? I hope that, by asking myself these questions and looking for the answers, I can improve my own writing and, perhaps, achieve a fraction of the brilliance of my comedic heroes.
In the coming entries, I plan on taking one stand up routine, movie, scene from a movie, song or YouTube clip and break it down joke by joke as a way to find out “Why Things Are Funny.”
Won’t you come on this journey with me?
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