Hi! Thanks for joining me on this first issue of Angle On:, a newsletter (mostly) about writing jokes (narrative & otherwise).
And before I start, I’d also like to thank Elon Musk for inspiring/forcing me to do this! I’ve been putting off starting this thing for years, but it turns out all I needed was a gentle push from a South African Emerald heir who sends his cars into space so no one can hear them explode.
Now, as you may remember from way back in the subtitle, I’m kinda terrified to start this newsletter. And it’s because I can already imagine readers asking these questions:
What makes you an expert on writing jokes?
Do you really think you can teach people to be funny?
And I have to answer:
1. I’m not an expert. I’m a nerd.
I’m just a writer who’s fascinated by how comedy works and all the amazing things you can build with it. I’m not here to tell you “there’s ONLY ONE way to write a joke,” like an “expert” might. Because there isn’t just one way. Everyone has their own unique approach, which is far more fascinating to me.
Now, I’m going to write a lot about my process and what works for me, but I’ll never pretend that it would work for everyone. It won’t. And it shouldn’t. If something I use fits your style, then use it! But please don’t think I’m saying the weird comedy techniques I’ve cobbled together over the years are the only way to do this.
As for my professional qualifications: I’ve worked as a staff writer for Comedy Central’s late-night show @midnight and TruTv’s extremely canceled Jo Koy sitcom “This Functional Family.” I spent a decade writing/performing with The NY Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre and writing/storyboarding the comic strip Twisted ToyFare Theatre for ToyFare Magazine. And I’ve also written for Mad Magazine, CollegeHumor, MTV, Marvel Comics, National Lampoon and the latest season of Mystery Science Theater 3000.
2. I don’t know if I can teach people to be funny. But I do think anyone who wants to learn to write comedy can figure it out. I know there’s this image of comedy writers as naturally funny people who just materialize amazing punchlines out of thin air (and yeah, I’ve worked with/bitterly envied people like that), but that’s not everyone.
Personally, I’m someone who has to really break down a subject to understand it. I loved comedy, but comedy writing didn’t come naturally for me. So I spent years analyzing sitcoms and tearing jokes apart, just to get to the point where I felt comfortable and relaxed in a writer’s room.
I learned that writing comedy is a job. And like any job, you can learn to do it and learn to do it better. And sometimes the key to improving is just realizing that it’s a process that you can tweak and improve.
Which, of course, brings me to The A-Team.
The idea of having to suddenly “BE FUNNY!” can be terrifying. I think most people like to think of themselves as being at least occasionally hilarious with their friends, but having to do it on demand? And under pressure? That’s enough to make just about anybody freeze.
The first time I had to write a TV comedy piece on deadline, I definitely froze. I only had half an hour to crank out a segment intro with multiple jokes in it that (if it was actually good) would air on national TV? And I also had to read it in front of the other, more experienced comedy writers that I was in awe of? That was even worse!
So, I panicked and just wrote the first jokes I could come up with. I knew I had to get better at this. But how do you get better at writing jokes, which is basically just “being funny on demand?”
That’s when I realized I was looking at it all wrong. I was thinking of comedy as something you had to create from ground zero. Something that you have to start from scratch each time you do it. But then I realized what comedy writing is…
Comedy writing is the fourth act of an episode of The A-Team.
You know the scenario: The A-Team’s trapped in a sealed container full of only metal scraps, a welding torch and a turn-of-the-century fire engine. And somehow, through the magic of an upbeat montage, they turn all of that into an armored car to take down the perpetually shocked bad guys.
To me, that’s what writing comedy is: it’s taking something existing and building something surprising out of it. Whether it’s a movie riff, a monologue joke, a beat in a topical news piece or a sitcom gag, you’re basically saying, “Here’s something! Now guess what I can do with it!” And the humor comes from the audience trying their best to guess what you’re going to do… and still being surprised.
And that took a lot of the fear out of it for me. Because it suddenly became less about having to “BE FUNNY!” and more about exploring possibilities. I didn’t have to rack my brains to figure out the right answer to a test, because the answers were right there in the questions.
Suddenly, it was more about finding fun opportunities in the subject I was building off of (or “fire truck”), seeing ways I could combine that subject with other ideas (“metal scraps”) and improving my skills to combine and change these things to make them work together in surprising way (“welding torch.”)
And that’s what I want to do with this newsletter. To show some of the tools and skills that I’ve cobbled together over the years while slaving away in an air-tight room with other sweaty members of my team. Hopefully, you’ll find them useful in whatever you’re building.
But maybe lay off building armored trucks? The A-Team kind of ran that gag into the ground.
Next Time: The oxymoron-ical joys of “Logical Surprise.”
Comedy Writing as an A-Team Metaphor.
Thank you. I enjoyed reading this and look forward to more installments. With or without armoring. :)
This is fantastic. It's like finding the Schrödinger equation wave function solutions for a situations's state. Lots of possibilities and universes, but they've got to follow from the given initial state and make sense.