Table of contents
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Don't come across like you're trying to be funny
If a person doesn't get a reference you're making, they shouldn't notice that a reference was being made
- this was a rule among the developers of Fallout 1 and 2.
Reference What People Know:
part of it is referencing something the person knows; I once made what I thought was a very funny joke to a friend of mine, but he completely misinterpreted it and may have even taken offense because he wasn't aware of what I was referencing. You should always ask yourself before you make a reference-joke, "Am I sure that the person will get the reference?"
Surprise People:
It's important to put the funny thing at the end, or in other words, draw people into one understanding of what you've said and then suddenly force them to quickly reinterpret what they've seen before. For example, I made a Facebook album in which I took photos from the 1800s and pretended as if I had taken them with an iPhone + Instagram, but at first I didn't care too much about the order, and so after thinking about it I realized it wasn't as impactful as it could have been. Then I realized that if I ordered the pictures so that they started out looking very close to modern-day Instagram photos and then gradually got more and more obviously from the 1800s, the album would be funnier. I ended with the most ridiculous/unusual photo of them all.
Don't Come Off As Seeking Approval:
I've gotten the feeling that if people think you are TRYING to make them laugh, they'll be less likely to find what you're saying funny. Maybe because they'll be on guard to expect some kind of surprise.
Don't be too obvious about what the joke is:
7 Filthy Jokes You Didn't Notice in Shakespeare
http://www.cracked.com/article_20501_7- ... peare.html
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- Ross Perot 1992 - Balancing the Budget & Reforming Government
- We had one news announcer criticize the pointer that I used before. So, since we're dealing with voodoo economics, a great young lady from Louisiana sent me this voodoo stick, and I will use it as my pointer tonight. And certainly it's appropriate because, as you and I know, we are in deep voodoo.
- It's a two-layered(?) joke: "voodoo" is a pun on "doodoo", and "doodoo" is the polite term for the phrase he was really bringing to mind, "we are in deep shit".
- Spotify: "Track twelve more artists and I'll show you a picture I drew of a dog in a jacket riding on the back of a giraffe."
- It's funny because you expect these dialogs to have a neutral tone.
- In Seinfeld Season 4, Episode 15, minute 8, Jerry acts "not funny" as part of the plot. To do this he acts lower energy and expresses a pessimistic view.
- 2012.12.17 - YouTube - CollegeHumor - Batman Can't Stop Thinking About Sex
- This has sexually-aggressive humor that probably wouldn't be done nowadays (2018) and is probably not funny to a lot of women.
- I still think it is Honestly I found this to be the funniest of the Badman sketches; it has a lot of shocking jokes in a way that the others don'tkept surprising me with how shocking it got.
- In the 4-minute sketch, the first 40 seconds (16.6%) are played straight, setting up the situation.The shocking-ness of what Batman is saying increases as the sketch continues
- 2014.01.12 - YouTube - Dog sounds exactly like DMX
- This really got me. There were three stages: the growl sounded like DMX already but I think it may have been real or just well-disguised, and then the barks were obviously DMX, which was already funny because I was expecting the video to be real, but the real punch was when the dog went "uh". I feel like the second half was unnecessary.
- 2017.05.02 - YouTube - Pete Holmes - Ex-Men: Gambit
- The guy who plays Gambit gives a great performance.
Physical humor
- Daily Mail - Cigar guy revealed: We find the man who stood behind Tiger Woods and became an internet sensation
- Note how relaxed he looks in the photo relative to the others, who generally look stressed out. The article mentions "Rupesh strikes an insouciant pose"
- His eyebrows look like they're raised, which makes him look happier (relative to the people around him)
- He's got the silly outfit on which makes him seem like someone who likes to have fun.
Satire
← Satirizing Mark Zuckerberg's attempts at philanthropy, which some see as patronizing.- I thought this was really well-done / very funny, if maybe not fair to Mark.
- It sets you up with a totally-normal sounding first paragraph.
- It sets you up in the "normal" paragraph with the idea that he's driving around, and then in the second paragraph it surprises you with the idea that he wasn't driving a car.
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