Name: Steve Perry
Source: unca20090706.htm
Brian --
What funny is fills lots of books, documentaries, and discussions around the water cooler. Years ago, I took Danny Simon's class on how to write funny -- Neil Simon's older brother and a veteran writer of the early days of TV, and the bottom line seemed to be, if they laugh, it's funny ...
Eddie Murphy tells a story about how Bill Cosby called him up after a routine and busted his balls for doing so much blue humor. Murphy, upset, called Richard Pryor.
Pryor said, "Was it funny? Did they laugh?" Murphy said yes. Pryor said, "Then tell Bill to have a Coke and a smile and go fuck himself."
Might be apocryphal, that story, but you never let that stand in the way of telling it.
Humor comes from character, or situations, and it's always at somebody's expense. Find a knee-slapper that isn't making fun of somebody or some thing. I've yet to come across one. I always ask when these discussions arise, and nobody has sent me one yet.
A lot of what catches people comes from the unexpected, sometimes called the reverse -- the listener or viewer doesn't see it coming, and surprise tickles them.
Drunk walking down the street sees a woman walking a dog. Drunk says, "Where'd you get that pig?" The woman, irate, says, "It's not a pig you fool! It's a dog!" And the drunk says ... ?
Right. "I wasn't talking to you, I was talking to the dog."
Offhand, from your description, I'd say the skeleton joke is too smart for the room.
In order to work, a listener has to be able to visualize what happens when a skeleton pours beer into itself. Some people are what scientists call aural -- they are more focused on hearing than seeing. And some folks simply have little or no imagination. They don't get it because they can't see it. Or they don't have the references to understand it.
Supposedly the Sherlock Holmes and Watson camping joke is considered to be the overall funniest joke by current standards, though it doesn't strike me that way, it is a great example of the Reverse.
(See it here:
http://wilderdom.com/jokes/SherlockCamping.html)
Humor covers a wide swath -- from pratfalls to puns to complicated word games. And some of it seems funny no matter who tells it, while some of it works because of who delivers it, and how. The old saw is that a comic says funny things; a comedian says things funny.
Ask me what the most important thing about humor is.
Okay, what is the most import --
Timing!
As me again.
Okay. What is the most important thing about humor?
Beat.
Beat.
Beat.
T-i-m-i-n-g ...
If you have to explain a joke to somebody, they might get it, but it won't be funny to them. If you want to get laughs, work up different material and keep the ones that usually get the most laughs most of the time. In any crowd, there will always be people who won't get it.
In a room full of writers, chances are more of them will get the joke. (I find that room full of science fiction fans *always* has somebody in it who will get the most esoteric joke.)
Robin Williams, during one of his early stand-up routines, is doing his manic thing, about an atman inside his brain spinning dials and pushing levers to pump out funny stuff and he throws out a line, "Help me!" which is from the original movie version of The Fly. The audience laughed, and Williams allowed out loud something to the effect of Oh, good, they saw that movie. If you saw the movie and remembered the line -- and if you did, you can't forget it -- then the bit is funny. If not, it isn't.
Funny is in the eye -- or ear -- of the beholder.
Perry