Explaining the Joke: Nine Ways to Elevate Your Comedy
How to get from sharp exhales to genuine chuckles.
“Is this a comedy?”
Thus asked Bobby Bowman, producer and writer on shows such as Family Guy and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, after hearing 15 pages from a script I had written.
It’s a devastating question. Probably worse than asking if someone’s pregnant. There’s no right answer; there’s no happy ending. Either it’s a drama that’s not serious, or a comedy that’s not funny. Lose-lose.
A tear rolled down my cheek.
“It’s supposed to be.”
In my defense, it was the least-funny 15 pages of my movie. It was mostly just a conversation between my antagonist and her sidekick, and they were talking about something fairly serious. How am I supposed to make that funny?
But Bobby, folks, is a professional comedy writer. He leaned back in his chair, took a long drag off his cigar, and said, “Just have them swat the bee.”
I stared, confused.
He explained.
I stared, astonished.
Turns out, there are concrete ways to make a scene funny. Devices, if you will, that instantly elevate the humor in a scene. Since that day, I’ve been collecting them. I’ve been analyzing jokes in movies, TV, and stand-up routines and asking the age-old question: why is this funny?
I have gathered the fruits of my research here, mostly for my own reference. I’ll keep looking for more devices, and maybe this post will have a sequel later down the line. But until then, here’s what I’ve got: nine ways to make your scenes even funnier, because no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t come up with a tenth.
1. Swat the Bee
This device works especially well in tense scenes (for example, a scene in which my antagonist and her sidekick talk about something fairly serious). The idea is this: what if there was a bee in the room?
Just imagine it for a moment. You’re trying to have a serious conversation, but there’s a bee buzzing near your ear, making laps around the space, doing the backstroke in your soup. Maybe you’re terrified of bees. You’d have to constantly stop your train of thought and swat at the bee.
Now, in practice, the bee can be practically anything. A phone call from mom, or a pesky child, or an overly-ambitious intern…you get the point.
Just place something in the scene to create a little bit of chaos, and you’ll introduce an added layer of comedy to the situation.
2. Double Down
I was watching Monty Python and the Holy Grail recently and I couldn’t help but notice that a joke rarely stands alone. That is to say, a gag (“One, two, FIVE!”) is almost always repeated. King Arthur skips from two to five about five times in five minutes. The first few times, it’s kind of funny. But something happens around the fourth or fifth time. Somehow, it gets funnier.
I don’t know how, or why, but it’s true. Something dumb becomes funny if you repeat it enough. As I’m writing this, it feels like terrible advice, because it can so easily go very wrong. But sometimes it works, I promise. Here are some examples:
Michael Scott inventing an animal to worship in The Office
Teddy and Bob fishing for golf balls in Bob’s Burgers
“Her?” from Arrested Development
These jokes get funnier the longer they go on. I do think there’s a point where they stop getting funnier—but these writers knew when to cut the scene or bit short. It takes discretion, but I believe in you.
Along the lines of doubling down is the art of the callback. The “Her?” example is a callback, one that pops up from episode to episode. If you’d like a masterclass in callbacks, take a look at Edgar Wright’s Hot Fuzz. The whole film is a mirror: every line from the first half of the movie has some sort of pay-off in the finale. Some are comedic, some are dramatic, but all are amazingly clever.
3. Start Late, End Early
This one doesn’t just make your scene funnier—it makes it better. That’s because most of what you write, especially in a first (or early) draft, is superfluous. You can cut it. So you should always ask yourself: can I start this scene later, or get out of it earlier?
This joke from The Other Guys starts right in the middle of a conversation. There’s no context, no set-up; they’re just talking. We don’t know what’s going on until the end, which makes the punchline so much better.
Often, this mantra of “start late, end early” means cutting a lot. If you’re writing a comedy, you have some good jokes and some really good jokes. Only the really good ones should make it through to your final draft. We don’t want any mediocrity in the script. By cutting so-so jokes, you’re making your script funnier. I promise.
Sit-coms have to cut a ridiculous amount of content. In a single 20 minute episode of Parks and Rec., there’s another 20 minutes or so of good jokes on the cutting room floor. Good jokes, but not really good jokes. It’s a necessary step to making the best possible product.
4. Be Specific (and Original)
This works especially well in dialogue. I learned this one from watching stand-up comedians who succeed in telling objectively boring stories in funny ways.
In stand-up, every word of a joke is chosen very precisely. Say something slightly differently, and you’ll get a different reaction. Needless to say, comedians know this. They tailor and trim their material until they have only the funniest combination of words.
Often times, this means using very specific similes. John Mulaney, for example, has compared riding backwards in a golf cart to falling out of a chair forever. It’s a clever, specific comparison that few would think to make. That makes it funnier than just saying “it’s uncomfortable to ride in a golf cart.”
The other key here is to think about originality. Chris Lord and Phil Miller, creators of movies like Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Spiderman: Into the Spider-Verse, and 21 Jump Street, pride themselves on their originality. Every movie, scene, and line is vetted to avoid anything that has been done before. If it’s a cliché line, cut it. If it’s an over-used plot point, get rid of it. (Even visually, you can tell that Spider-Verse is unlike anything you’ve ever seen.)
Shea Serrano, four time New York Times bestselling author, has often expressed this same sentiment. He tries to say things in ways that no one has ever said them before.
“Judge Judy, however, has not yet given any indication as to who she believes is in the right. Mostly, she just seems extra annoyed, which she is expressing by throwing butcher knives at the Roberts every chance she gets.”
Shea’s short story Angel: A Short Story of Ruination, quoted above, demonstrates this idea perfectly. He could just say that Judge Judy is being ruthless or that she’s insulting the plaintiff. Instead, he writes that she’s “throwing butcher knives” at them. It makes it funnier and more original and more fun to read. The triple threat.
This idea is essential to good writing, both comedic and otherwise. Whether you like it or not, every story has been told. The thing that separates your script from the rest isn’t the story itself, but how you tell it. Don’t waste your time, or anyone else’s, on lines and scenes that we’ve seen before. Challenge yourself to come up with something fresh.
A small example of a funny line I’d never heard before is Will Arnett, on the Smartless podcast, telling his co-host, “Your energy is so low, you’d have to rally to die.” Creative + original = funny!
5. Find the joke
Sometimes, a scene could get funnier if you just change the perspective. It turns out, the joke isn’t always where you think it is.
If someone bursts into a room doing something ridiculous, it’s kind of funny. The audience might titter. But the big laugh comes from revealing another character standing there watching. This character is known as the “straight-character,” because their job is to play the role completely seriously. They’re a proxy for the audience. It’s the reaction to the funny thing that makes the scene really funny. Think of Jim from The Office looking into the camera.
Of course, you don’t need to break the fourth wall to accomplish this. Watch Michael Bluth, played by Jason Bateman, react to Buster in this clip. For that matter, watch Jason Bateman in anything. You’ll see what I’m talking about.
6. Take something serious lightly
The next two points are similar, and they have to do with playing with audience expectations. First, if your characters are talking about something very serious, have them treat it was extreme levity. For example, if they are in a dangerous situation, have them not notice or not care.
You may notice that this device has a lot of potential for social commentary. In fact, this has been widely used in satirical films. Don’t Look Up uses it to mock climate-change deniers, and Death of Stalin uses it to bring attention to how those in power have little regard for the affairs of “commoners.” Both films use comedy to convey serious societal problems.
7. Take something light seriously
On the other side of the coin, have your characters take things way too seriously. The lighter the subject, the more the characters get into it. Have them grow unreasonably angry about something silly, or extremely happy about something dumb.
Check out Michael Scott’s plasma TV for a case of something small being taken very seriously. Or, to return to Death of Stalin, watch how the main characters grow unreasonably irate at the smallest inconvenience. Satire strikes again!
8. See What Sticks
This one comes (kind of) from Bryan Tucker, currently the Senior Writer of SNL. He came to visit my class (the same class where Bobby Bowman nearly forced me into an early retirement), and I stayed after to ask him his thoughts on this subject. Specifically, I asked him how to make a funny scene even funnier.
His advice was to get it in the hands of actors, because you never know what they’re going to do with the material. This is, of course, good advice, but I am not currently in a position to get actual actors to perform my script.
So, I’ve adapted his advice into something slightly more applicable for me. The idea of not knowing what someone will do with your script is tremendously fun. Improvisation and reinterpretation lead to some of the funniest scenes I’ve ever seen.
But what do we do as writers, if not improvise? We are every character, all at once, improvising a scene. We just happen to be writing down our improvisation. The point here is that sometimes to make a scene funny, you need to get unpredictable. Start throwing things at the wall and see what sticks, so to speak.
The writers of The Office start each season by throwing out the wildest ideas they can think of. Almost all of them are unusable. Apparently, one writer suggested that Michael run over Meredith (fatally) with his car. Since no one actually wanted to kill off Meredith, they ended up altering this pitch so that Michael simply hits Meredith, causing her to go to the hospital. This plotline ended up making the show.
We can look again to Arrested Development for another example. In the show, one character actually has their hand bitten off by a loose seal. It’s quite a plot point, something that impacts that character for the rest of the show. And the decision is made solely for a joke about the character’s mother, whose name is Lucille (Lucille / “loose seal”). A trajectory-changing plot point, all for one joke. It’s brilliant.
For a final example of writer’s taking a wild leap, check out the Anchorman rumble:
The point here is that sometimes even the most outlandish ideas have something usable in them. Don’t hold yourself back by limiting your writing to the rules of the world. You’ve created some vivid, real characters. Now what’s the most crazy, ridiculous situation you could put them in?
9. Make Us Care
Funny things are funny, generally. But wall-to-wall jokes only get you so far. The best way to elevate your comedy is not always by inserting more funny, but by inserting more heart.
It’s all about characters. You develop your characters so that they are real people, and then you place them in a situation. If it’s a funny situation, it’s a comedy! If it’s dramatic, it’s a drama. No matter what, the outcome will only be as good as the characters themselves. They must be real, believable, and flawed.
In Step Brothers, Robert gives a talk to Brennan and Dale right before their big performance at the Catalina Wine Mixer. He explains how when he was a kid, he always wanted to be a dinosaur. He would do the arms and roar and all that. But then his dad made him stop, and now he can’t make T-Rex arms anymore. He encourages them to not give up on their dreams: “Don’t lose your dinosaur!”
It’s entirely ridiculous, but also heartfelt, pure, and character driven. It makes the climax of the movie even funnier, because we are rooting for them even more. It’s your characters, more than anything else, that will make or break your movie.
Now, there are two aspects of comedy that I have not addressed so far: being random and being mean.
Being random can be funny, but it can also take you out of a scene. It can bring the momentum to a halt and kill any emotional build-up. In other words, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. While we’re talking about it, here’s an example of it working:
Being mean is a comedic device that some people swear by. Some even go so far as to argue that every joke must have a “target.” That is to say, every joke is always at someone’s expense.
I personally do not subscribe to this sentiment. While some jokes (including some very funny jokes) can be built off this framework, if you take this as a rule, then your writing risks becoming hateful and unpleasant. I hope that you can see above that there are at least nine ways to approach a joke other than just making fun of something or someone.
In Conclusion…
It turns out, the real best way to make a scene funnier…is just to make the scene better.
Boy, we’re really earning the newsletter name today, aren’t we?
You see, while some of the tips in this post are unique to comedies, most of these devices are just ways to improve your writing in general. Making sure your characters are strong, starting late and ending early…these are screenwriting tips that are essential no matter the genre.
In other words: write the best scene you can write, and it’ll also be the funniest scene you can write.