Comedy Books

BeenThinking

I've recently amassed an interest in comedy. (6 months)
Mainly writing, but there's a part of me that wants to try stand-up sooner rather than later.

When I say interest, I mean I've started to read and watch more comedy.

I've bought and read the following:

"Comedy Writing Secrets" by Mel Helitzer
"The Everything Guide To Comedy Writing" by Mike Bent
"How To Be Funny" by Steve Allen

and I'm currently reading
"Be A Great Stand-Up" by Logan Murray

I find these books to be a great help and I've learned so much from them.

I'd like to hear how others got interested in comedy, and what (if any) books
you've read on the subject.

Cheers

grames_bond

Steve Martins autobiography on his stand up career is brilliant. called born standing up. absolutely great read!

Galvasean

The naked jape by Jmmy Carr is quite good.

Damon Blake

The best thing you can do is to do a gig, you learn more from listening to recordings of your shows (and figuring out why something failed) then potentially what you can learn from a book. I wish it were like Oldboy and you can just learn it off of watching other people do it but if you can I have not figured out how to do it by this osmosis.

Saying that, I read "Comedy Writing Secrets" by Mel Helitzer a few years ago and remember enjoying it, I really liked Comic Insights: The Art of Stand-Up Comedy by Franklyn Ajaye although that helps more to get an idea of how the people who do standup process their creativity. Jerry Seinfeld's documentary "Comedian" is great for the mindset of what you need, The Comedians of Comedy shows are great just because they're great. I still read every book on comedy I see and listen to Marc Maron's WTF podcast but yeah. Just writing the jokes and then doing them on a stage is what I'd recommend.

Nothing really helps you write a joke apart from writing loads and loads of jokes and from this process you get an internal feel for what works and what doesn't. You can't really learn how to kick a football from reading a book and it's the same with jokes (disclaimer: jokes that are intended for a live audience and have not been done before in some form).

P.S. I can't really kick a football.

Damon Blake

I thought I'd write some more since nobody ever seems to comment after I write something.

It's perhaps unfair to say you can't learn anything from reading about comedy...you definitely can't learn how to do stand-up, that comes from actually getting on stage as it has the performance aspect.

But.

You can learn how to write jokes but I don't think from books, all books will teach you is tricks that will get you so far. I say this as someone who is a pretty good joke writer (plug: I answered the questions that are printed in the sex quiz in this issue of Hot Press on page 69 off the top of my head) but whose performance has been described as "dry" and "contemptuous".

What helped me was that since I got on the internet was I was obsessed with figuring out how jokes work (or any type of writing, but let's talk about jokes for now). I'd read reams and reams of jokes, just lists of them. This was back before even Napster so with stand-up I'd have to read transcripts of Sam Kinison material as there was no way for me to listen to anything he did (I was in Australia), same with Bill Hicks. I'd read transcripts of Norm MacDonald's Fake News on Saturday Night Live. I'd be lucky occasionally in that twice a year for two weeks a go there was a community radio station that played comedy 24/7 and I'd do nothing but listen to it...generally though, I'd read lots and lots of comedy from usenets or email lists or geocities fan pages and what have you.

What this has helped with me is that I have an internal structure for how a joke can go which has helped me when I had to come up with sketches or jokes on the fly for a show I did online for a few years.

The best description of what a joke is comes from Edward De Bono where he says a joke is us expecting to go from a to b and ending up at d. looking from d to a the path is now obvious and the laughter comes from us not seeing it happen before. In comedy terms I hear this (and often use it) referred to as "the twist". The better the twist the smarter the joke you're telling, or the more original.

I went looking for the quote he's talking about above and found the Wikipedia page on Jokes where he's quoted:

Edward de Bono in "The Mechanism of the Mind" (1969) and "I am Right, You are Wrong" (1990).
Edward de Bono suggests that the mind is a pattern-matching machine, and that it works by recognising stories and behaviour and putting them into familiar patterns. When a familiar connection is disrupted and an alternative unexpected new link is made in the brain via a different route than expected, then laughter occurs as the new connection is made. This theory explains a lot about jokes. For example:
Why jokes are only funny the first time they are told: once they are told the pattern is already there, so there can be no new connections, and so no laughter.
Why jokes have an elaborate and often repetitive set up: The repetition establishes the familiar pattern in the brain. A common method used in jokes is to tell almost the same story twice and then deliver the punch line the third time the story is told. The first two tellings of the story evoke a familiar pattern in the brain, thus priming the brain for the punch line.
Why jokes often rely on stereotypes: the use of a stereotype links to familiar expected behaviour, thus saving time in the set-up.
Why jokes are variants on well-known stories (e.g. the genie and a lamp and a man walks into a bar): This again saves time in the set up and establishes a familiar pattern.

So again to go back to that idea is that you're learning the math of things (pacing, word structure, tightness) so you can twist these patterns into new shapes.

That's a rambling answer to say that the best book out at the moment would be Stewart Lee's How I Escaped My Certain Fate. It's a transcript with annotations of three of his shows and I would've died with happiness if I had been able to read it starting out. Transcripts of comedians materials will help you as you can read and figure out (either consciously or unconsciously) why the things they ended up saying were constructed the way they were.

So you can be the judge on how valid what I say is here's a collection of jokes from a year ago that I did http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGB_v5Fve0w which honestly just comes from picking topics and writing down whatever jokes popped into my head. I'm not a storyteller, I'm not a performer, I just write jokes and try and thematically tie them together. I cringe to hear it now as a lot of it has improved (hopefully) but it's the only thing I've got online at the moment.

Anyway, it's not just about jokes. I like being conversationally funny too but I haven't figured out how to do that on stage yet, just on radio and podcasts.

SlimJ

Damon Blake wrote: »

I like being conversationally funny too

See, that's wierd; in conversation I find you dry and contemptuous.
OH HUSH I'M KIDDING. You got links for them transcripts?



I agree with Damon in that you can't learn how to be a comic from a book, no more than you can learn to ski from a book. Sure, you can learn the history and theory behind skiing, but you gotta get on the hill. Read Robbie's stickied post in this forum and get yourself down to the Ha'Penny.

Awesome Comedy Books:
And Here's The Kicker, Mike Sacks
Comedy At The Edge, Richard Zoglin
Last Words, George Carlin
I'm Dying Up Here is good but not as good as Comedy At The Edge, and they deal with the same period in stand-up history
I thought Billy by Pamela Stephenson was awwwwwful. Really disappointing as I love Billy Connolly.

actwithoutwords

Just to second the suggestion of Stewart Lee: How I Escaped My Certain Fate. I couldn't recommend it highly enough. An utterly fascinating insight into the mechanics of comedy, and the level of thought and detail that goes into his craft. Made me appreciate his gags all the more.

take everything

actwithoutwords wrote: »

Just to second the suggestion of Stewart Lee: How I Escaped My Certain Fate. I couldn't recommend it highly enough. An utterly fascinating insight into the mechanics of comedy, and the level of thought and detail that goes into his craft. Made me appreciate his gags all the more.

I'd third that.
Great book if you're a comedy nerd.

pappyodaniel

Seinlanguage by Jerry Seinfeld is a nice short read.

Damon Blake

Bec Hill has written about learning how to do comedy HERE.