Did a similar 6 week class in standup many many years ago.<p>Two major things I learned were<p>a) you have to get the audience hooked in the first 20-30 secs or it gets much harder.
Best example Emo Philips opening with “You know it’s really hard when you have to kill a family member because they are the devil. <Pause for laughter>.
Other that it’s been a great day”. Now that’s a hook :-)<p>b) the concept of “laughs per minute” - ie there is a certain rate at which the laughs become self sustaining. It’s 3-4 laughs per minute. If you can keep that up for 2 mins the audience is in a state of laughter that keeps getting more and more intense. If you do less than 2 laughs a minute the energy drops between each laugh and you have to work really hard to bring it back to level. Key is to maintain a rate that results in a high ambient level of hilarity bordering with at least a couple of people cackling loudly and losing it.<p>Nevertheless when you do a successful set you feel like Superman when you walk off the stage.
This was a great read! I had a planned sabbaticle from work, scheduled to start in April, 2020, and I planned on studying/practicing standup at a local comedy place in Denver. Covid blew a hole in that, obviously, and I've not done it.<p>This all reminds me of a paper I've read, and think about regularly. The author, or others, might be interested. I've posted notes and a link to the paper here:<p><a href="https://josh.works/driven-by-compression-progress-novelty-humor-interestingness-curiosity-creativity" rel="nofollow">https://josh.works/driven-by-compression-progress-novelty-hu...</a><p>The argument is something like "when our expectations are subverted, and new visible order snaps into view, we feel satisfied and interested". Curiosity and expectation seems to play a large role in humor and standup.<p>Thanks for this article, Michael! I've subscribed via RSS! I am thankful to have found your website.
That's a specific type of expectation confounding that comes from a dangling modifier. English is particularly good at creating these types of sentences and it leads to some of my very favourite jokes.<p>If the lady had said "Can you spare a few minutes to discuss supporting cancer research" there isn't any ambiguity in the sentence and then no joke.<p>Community used these to great effect. For example:<p>Britta: Yep, I’m getting serious. I got a backpack, got a new notebook. Oh, I got one of those see-through yellow pens so I can do that thing where you colour in the words.<p>Shirley: Highlight?<p>Britta: Probably the backpack.
I'm fascinated by stand-up comedy. I took a course a couple of years ago (online thanks to the pandemic) and it was so, so much harder than I expected it to be! By the end of the course I was nowhere near having a "tight five" that I was ready to perform in public.<p>I've continued to pay attention to it since, and it really is amazing how much skill and preparation it takes to put together anything that even comes close to being a decent performance.<p>Great stand-up comedians have inevitably spent hours of time refining every sentence that comes out of their mouths, despite their delivery sounding entirely natural and unrehearsed.
I've been doing standup for just shy of 5 years. I started with a similar class, attended a lot of open mics, hosted several of my own mics, and produced shows. With covid I left SF and came back to Montana, which might seem like it would be bad for a comedy career, but in many ways it's easier to make headway here. The Punchline and Cobb's have so many eager comics that they can pick and choose and it's difficult to stand out. Here I'm a biggish fish in a teeny pond; I can rent a theater and fill it and make hundreds of dollars instead of the $25 I could hope for from shows in the city.<p>Of course sometimes you're still looking at empty rooms and empty tip jars or no ticket sales, but most of the time, I get to tell more jokes to a larger number of people and get more money at each show working in flyover country.
In the section “Don't Underestimate the Ruthless Competitiveness of Your Peers”, I had a totally different takeaway. I think it’s entirely possible that a set which kills <i>among comedians</i> may fall flat to a general audience.
Much respect for sharing a video! <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6miCy-nmXIY" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6miCy-nmXIY</a><p>I /really/ like that opener: "My favourite London bus is the 24".
I went to college with a guy who ended up being a successful stand-up (multiple Netflix specials - level). He wasn't terribly funny in college - his brother was much, much funnier. Also watching his first bits on TV - first late night basic cable, then Letterman and Leno and then eventually his specials, he was not good at first and he was not a natural.<p>My big takeaway from that was that comedy, like many, many things is a skill that can be improved on with hard work. Undoubtedly there is some element of innate talent, but it is far less than I would have imagined before.
True story: A few days back my wife and I were doing Wordle. I could tell the answer was “RUSTY”, her pet name for me. So I told her the answer was sitting right next to her and she says “No, STUPID is six letters.”
What is it about threes?<p>- The rule of thirds for visual imagery [1]<p>- Three-act structure for storytelling and plays [2]<p>- Three-part setup for stand up comedy [this article]<p>Rules for content often fall into a rule of threes, and I'd love to know why.<p>1. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_thirds" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_thirds</a><p>2. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-act_structure" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-act_structure</a>
This is a very well written post. I liked it a lot.<p>Standup is something I want to try one day. I have a lot of respect for comedians. My gut instinct is that the personality and delivery plays a more important role than the content.
That sounds like a great course. What stood out to me is that the group is preparing for an actual show and gets real world experience in an environment with set audience expectations (ie. people coming to see a group of amateurs), which is a great way to go about it. I’ve seen improv courses here that basically are just a weekly workshop and then at the end you are on your own.
Back in the day, I used to frequent Comedy Cellar and I was there multiple times when Chris Rock was trying out his material in order to decide which jokes he would later use with his larger audiences.
I love point 7 of “let the audience laugh”. I can totally see this being a pain point of not having a pause before your next joke. Pausing and silence is so powerful and is also exhibited in sales calls, and can drive suspense to the next joke or even a joke you’re in the middle of
I thought your set was really funny. You established your character immediately, and then followed up perfectly with your first line which had everyone laughing from the start. I think people "got" it instantly which is why they even laughed at you rhyming off obscure facts about the bus system. Well done!
I've been interested in trying out standup in Meta Horizon Worlds - there's a bunch of comedy clubs you can visit. So far it hasn't really panned out as nobody is really seriously trying when I happen to visit. People go on stage and don't really do standup, and nobody pays attention.
If you like standup comedy you should watch the french standup comedy series from Netflix! Amazing cast and great throughout<p><a href="https://www.netflix.com/fr/Title/81233911" rel="nofollow">https://www.netflix.com/fr/Title/81233911</a>
I did a couple of 2 minute sets.<p>One went pretty damn well. The other got polite laughter at best.<p>Came away with a lot of respect for comedians. For me just coming up with 2 minutes of material was a challenge.
“Monday, Tuesday, Banana”. The first two components, which create an expectation, are the set-up; and, the third that confounds the expectation is the payoff, or the punchline.<p>To take an example from Jimmy Carr.<p><pre><code> A lady with a clipboard stopped me in the street the other day.
She said, "Can you spare a few minutes for Cancer Research?"
I said, "All right, but we're not going to get much done.”</code></pre>
Good read though the linked performance fell rather flat - it seem to be almost preternaturally obsessed with London bus routes, you would have to have an excellent set of diamond pickaxes to mine any worthwhile material from that particular domain and most of it barely warranted a chuckle from myself.<p>The self congratulatory estimating himself as one of the worst performers but coming out as one of the top three was a little hamfisted, and if that was honestly the case... I cannot even imagine what the other comedians used for material... a list of ones favorite mosaic bathroom tile patterns perhaps?<p>Comedy feels like writing, if you need to take a course it's probably just not for you.
I take a view that is pretty close to my HN username. Comedy is about pointing out weakness, and laughing is a reflex that you have when you recognize prey. PC comedy is about self-deprecation, where you pretend to be prey yourself in order to stimulate the audiences hunting instinct, rather than telling stories about prey or picking members of the audience to make look like prey.<p>The humor is in the hyperbole about how weak the prey is. The setup of a joke sets people up as a familiar level of prey, and the punchline is about someone (or everyone) in the joke being far weaker than you could have predicted. The punchline in this joke is about Jimmy Carr being stupid in a way that you wouldn't imagine someone could actually be.