Posted by Andrew on Aug 6, 2009 in
Comedy in Life,
On Writing 
Today when I tried to access my admin controls for the blog, I forgot the login information. Perhaps that’s a sign it’s been too long? Nevertheless, I thought I’d discuss learning and writing comedy.
After reading articles/books, watching lots of films, and working on my own scripts, I would think it would be easy to understand that ‘main stream’ jokes don’t work for me. As amusing as a typical Two and a Half men episode may be, I know at least half the punch lines before they even say them. I think half the jokes of a sitcom are going to contain the ’structure’ of the same joke you’ve heard a million times before. That’s why whether or not your joke succeeds, you also need to write for characters that the audience cares about, so they care to see what happens to them during the story.
Over the last year or two, whenever I hear a joke/situation that catches me off guard, I’ll write it down, and deconstruct it. What was funny about it? Was it the content of the joke or just how it was said? Having the right delivery is a huge component of selling the joke or letting it fail. By keeping track of these, I’ll eventually internalize the structure and apply them to jokes I write without even thinking about it.
Getting back to the topic of jokes that don’t work for me, it’s not that they aren’t funny, it’s just amusing. I know the jokes there, but it doesn’t surprise me. When Conan O’Brien was on ‘Inside the Actor’s Studio’ he talked about this. He’d be in the writer’s room, and a fellow writer would be pitching his joke or skit, and with a dead pan face, Conan would tell him that’s the funniest thing he’s ever heard.
But Conan also touched on another thing, improv. He feels that even the most brilliant thing written and planned out ahead of time won’t get as many laughs as something that’s in the moment.
I had never thought of it that way but I can see his point. As you watch something unexpectedly unfold, it catches you off guard. It’s like when you’re hanging out with your buddies, and somebody cracks a joke and everybody gets a huge laugh. If you go home and write that situation out on paper, it’s probably not that funny, which confuses people because they figure if they’re funny in person, they can write funny too.
Posted by Andrew on Dec 18, 2008 in
Comedy in Life Writing comedy as well as watching a lot of it, I find that I’m not easily amused. Or rather, making me laugh out loud is something the writer’s need to work at. I’m always challenging myself to try to think of a better twist in my own work, so viewers/readers don’t feel like they are witnessing the same thing they’re used to. Last night on Letterman, Jim Carrey provided a great reveal with his #1 on his Top 10 List. Here’s a link for the video, enjoy.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XC6jeWJFYSY
Posted by Andrew on Dec 2, 2008 in
Comedy in Life,
Showbiz 
You may wonder, how do I know this? And then I’ll tell you. Because IMDB has posted a news article about Lindsay Lohan complaining about getting locked out of her account on Facebook. Yes, quite the news indeed. I’m wondering if IMDB has hired someone who sits there and is told, if Lindsay updates her MySpace blog, I want you to copy what she says and post it on our site. This is CRITICAL. I don’t think I could ever be a journalist, particularly for a magazine like People, because I’d have to write articles about topics that in the real world mean absolutely nothing. IMDB, if I cared what Lindsay thought of things, I’d read her myspace page. OH gotta go, Paris just updated her blog!
Posted by Andrew on Nov 26, 2008 in
Comedy in Life 
Gotta love IMDB and it’s wonderful user comments sections. I’ve got an account on there myself, but I make coherent, thought out, logical posts. Half the members I’m afraid, do not. Their reasoning always escapes me, that is if I can understand what they’ve written. I just recently watched “Wet Hot American Summer,” and thought hey, lets see what people say about this film. Boy was I in for a treat. Here’s a great snippet from a review about the movie: “All I can say is this, most folks won’t dig it, that’s because they are idiots and have no true appreciation for comedy.” I didn’t know that you could have a “true” appreciation for comedy. What does a fake appreciation for comedy look like? Furthermore I thought comedy wasn’t a one size fits all. After all you’ve got slapstick, screwball, black/dark (not the skin color), spoof/parody, gross out, intellectual… the list goes on.
And if you want to get really specific, you can reference our friends the Greeks, where comedy simply means a happy or cheerful ending. But what do we know? After all, we’re “idiots.”
Posted by Andrew on Nov 23, 2008 in
Comedy in Life,
General Although it may appear on the contrary due to a lack of posts, I’m still around. After being delayed out of Portland to fly home, I finally arrived Saturday evening and was pretty exhausted, so I didn’t have the energy to bust out a long blog post. During my trip I got a chance to see a lot of stand up, among other things, so I’ll break it down by day.
Wednesday: Walking around Vegas you could tell what time of year it was. A combination of the slow month of November and the current state of the economy, the streets weren’t too full. I got a chance to lose some money at the Poker room at MGM, so that was great. During my whole time in Vegas I never got too hot at Poker, was up the most by $20, but I never really play Poker so I guess its not too bad.
Thursday: Our first show was at Caesar’s Palace, part of TBS’ Comedy Festival. The performers were Danny Bhoy, Mitch Fatel, and Jamie Kennedy. My favorite was definitely Mitch; I’ve seen him do segments for Leno on The Tonight Show and he’s always good for many laughs. During his stand up he’s got an indisguishable voice by almost whispering/murmering into the mic. As a writer you are always told that you need to develop your own ‘voice’ and its clear the way Mitch delivers his jokes what his voice is.
That night as we walked backed to our hotel I was hit on by a midget (or little person) prostitute. DEFINITELY made my night.
Friday: That evening we spent the most time attending shows. The first one was at Harrah’s Improv, based off of Hollywood’s Improv. I saw that Gary Valentine would be headlining, and I knew him as Cousin Danny from King of Queens, and that he’s also Kevin James’ big brother, so you couldn’t really go wrong. Also at the show was Mark Curry, better known from Hanging with Mr. Cooper, and he was surprisingly very funny as well.
Later at night was what made us stay an extra night — Dane Cook. I’ve never really heard a lot of his stand up previously, I just knew that he was generally pretty funny, and he did not disappoint. His opening performers were good, but Dane rocked the Colosseum. He made it clear why he’s able to fill seats.
Friday Night I also had my best luck at gambling — by playing an eBay slot machine. Never would have guessed.
One woman near me won $700 off hers, then by the end of the night, we walked by and noticed she had fed it all back into it. I couldn’t believe it.
During the entire trip I got my fill of gambling — played at several poker rooms, craps, blackjack, and slots. My luck was never that great, but I only lost a couple hundred gambling, so it wasn’t bad. It’s good to be home, back to my writing!
Posted by Andrew on Nov 18, 2008 in
Comedy in Life 
With the complete advertising overload everyone suffers these days, companies often try to throw slogans or messages that they hope sticks and reels people in. My ‘favorite’ has been American Eagle’s fake inspirational quote, “live your life.” T.I. has also released a recent song with this title, and it’s been climbing the charts. This all leads me to the question, is this an anti-suicide slogan? Live your life? What other options do I have? Can I live yours? If I’m living my life why would I necessarily shop more at American Eagle? Since this is an anti-suicide slogan, will there be a pro-suicide slogan in the future? Brought to you by Halliburton - Kill yourself. I guess it doesn’t have the same ring to it.
Posted by Andrew on Nov 7, 2008 in
Comedy in Life 
Dear Whoever Buys Crap Through Telemarketers & Spam Emails,
Stop. You are egging the spammers and telemarketers to continue their tradition of bugging people at dinner and filling up e-mail inbox’s. Of course if you actually stopped buying their crap, they may actually stop sending them, at least logic tells me that. Now I know those great offers for knock-off Viagra and super cheap asian porn is quite tempting, but please just do what everyone else does, buy it on eBay. At least they send me less e-mails.
Sincerely,
Your SPAM Filter
Posted by Andrew on Oct 30, 2008 in
Comedy in Life 
CNN posted an interview with Kevin Smith regarding his latest flick, Zack & Miri Make a Porno. In it he discusses the challenge he had with an initial NC-17 rating, the uphill battle with advertising, and getting Seth Rogen to star in it. Kevin Smith always seems to do his best at becoming a hot topic; in the past it was Dogma for its portrayal of religious ideas. I have no kids of my own (thank god), but I still find it fascinating how mixed up the USA is as opposed to Europe. On TV we have violence, shooting, etc, which is interpreted that it has no effect on children. But if a breast is on TV people freak out, as if its the sign of the apocalypse. Just look at the whole Janet Jackson scandal, it’s as if nobody was breast fed in the world and she was waving around bombs at the crowd. Wait, scratch that, everyone would be fine with bombs, just get those nipples away from them!
Posted by Andrew on Oct 27, 2008 in
Comedy in Life,
General 
I was speaking with some people yesterday regarding the use of certain colors in society, and how in some cases they’ve almost lost the real meaning when you know the truth, (this will make sense soon). For instance in movies, red is often a representation of lust, passion, and sin. Many times when a protagonist first sees the love interest, she’s wearing something red. Its hard to forget in Schindler’s List the girl in the red dress, despite everything else in B&W. Of course back in the old days, Blonde hair represented beauty, and the woman antagonist typically had a darker hair color.
In modern day, white is often a representation of purity. Greek pledges are often wearing white before their initiation, and of course, brides dresses are white. Knowing some people getting married these days, I chuckle when I think of certain women wearing a dress of “purity,” when I know that’s far from the truth. Heck the groom typically wears black, he isn’t trying to hide anything. So I’ve devised a new color system for brides. Virgins can wear white, they’ve earned it. If she’s had 1-3 partners she can wear a cream - light yellow, 4-9 get darker shades, 10-12 wear black, and if she’s had 13+ partners, well she’ll be naked, since she’s like that half the time anyways.
Edit: The following day CNN posted an article about the color red potentially boosting your sex appeal.
Posted by Andrew on Oct 5, 2008 in
Comedy in Life 
I was surfing Facebook, doing the usual “keeping up on friends” research, and I keep getting these ads that seem to follow me around. I don’t know if girls get ads with dudes with their shirts off, or if they think targeting men who are single in their profile are the best to market to. Maybe. What I want to know is - are these just random profile pics it pulls from the site? Not to mention, if you see a picture of this girl, then go to that site, you damn well expect to see her. Isn’t that false advertising when they lure you to the site, get you to sign up, then you find out she isn’t there, and you’re stuck between picking either granny-panties-Debby-Downer or Screamo-Emo? Talk about pissing in your Cheerios. All I know is, Singlesnet.com, I want my $14.95 back.