Hidden Tools of Comedy
Highlights
Chapter 3 The Answer (Theory of Comedy)
Comedy is the art of telling the truth about what it’s like to be human.
Chapter 3 The Answer (Theory of Comedy)
My definition (and Sid’s and Lenny’s, remember) that comedy tells the truth, and, specifically, tells the truth about people, is based on years of practical experience and extensive research
Chapter 4 The Comic Equation
The Comic Equation is:
Comedy is about an ordinary guy or gal struggling against insurmountable odds without many of the required skills and tools with which to win yet never giving up hope.
Chapter 4 The Comic Equation
In comedy, everything we say and do is designed to make our lives, if even infinitesimally, a little bit better. No matter how outgunned or outmanned, every line our characters speak, or actions our characters take, is spoken or done in the hope of improving the situation. It may be futile, even idiotic hope, but it’s hope.
Chapter 4 The Comic Equation
Most of us struggle against our own impending mortality. In Play It Again, Sam, Woody Allen, getting ready for his big date, struggles with a bottle of talcum powder. Whatever your struggle, you know it ain’t easy.
Chapter 4 The Comic Equation
the premise of all comedy is a man in trouble.”
Chapter 5 Introducing the Tools
From the Comedy Equation we can begin to draw a proven set of usable, practical tools. In essence these are the Hidden Tools of Comedy
Chapter 5 Introducing the Tools
The tools are:
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Winning
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Non-Hero
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Metaphorical Relationship
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Positive (or Selfish) Action
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Active Emotion
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Straight Line/Wavy Line
And the script development tools:
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Archetype
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Comic Premise
Chapter 5 Introducing the Tools
Winning is the idea that, in comedy, you are allowed to do whatever you think you need to do in order to win, no matter how stupid or crass or idiotic it makes you look. Comedy gives the character the permission to win. In Winning, you’re not trying to be funny, you’re just trying to get what you want, given who you are
Chapter 5 Introducing the Tools
Non-Hero is the ordinary guy or gal without many of the required skills and tools with which to win. Note that we don’t say “Comic Hero,” but “Non-Hero.” Not an idiot, not an exaggerated fool, but simply somebody lacking, yet still determined to win. One result is that the more skills your character has, the less comic and the more dramatic the character is. That’s how you can shape the arc in a romantic comedy: in the romantic moments, the heretofore clumsy or obnoxious Hero becomes more sensitive, more mature
Chapter 5 Introducing the Tools
One of the concepts behind Metaphorical Relationship is the idea that beneath every surface relationship is a true, essential, Metaphorical Relationship.
Chapter 5 Introducing the Tools
Think about the couples you know. Some fight like cats and dogs, some coo to each other like babies, and some are like business partners: “OK, I can’t have sex with you this Thursday, but if I move some things around, I might be able to squeeze coitus in on Sunday at 3 p.m., barring any further complications.” Even though they’re a married couple, their metaphorical relationship is that of nose-to-the-grindstone business partners.
Chapter 5 Introducing the Tools
Positive Action, or selfish-action, is the idea that with every action your character takes, your character actually thinks it might work, no matter how stupid, foolish, or naive that may make him or her appear. The hope is that the result of the action will be positive for them
Chapter 5 Introducing the Tools
Rather than any pre-planned “funny” reaction devised by writers, directors, or producers, the emotion that occurs naturally, simply by the actor reacting honestly and organically in the situation, is the exact right emotion to have. Active Emotion is the reason why an untrained stand-up comic with no previous acting experience can be so successful on film and TV.
Chapter 5 Introducing the Tools
John Cleese once said that when they started Monty Python, they thought that comedy was the silly bits: “We used to think that comedy was watching someone do something silly … we came to realize that comedy was watching somebody watch somebody do something silly.” That’s the basis of the tool of Straight Line/Wavy Line.
Chapter 5 Introducing the Tools
it’s about someone who is blind to a problem — or creating the problem themselves — and someone else struggling with that problem. Straight Line/Wavy Line.
Chapter 5 Introducing the Tools
The real dynamic is that of watcher and watched, the one who sees and the one who does not see
Chapter 5 Introducing the Tools
not only do we need someone, some funny person, to do something silly or create a problem, we also need someone who is acting as the audience’s representative to watch that person do something silly or struggle to solve the problem that has been created.
Chapter 5 Introducing the Tools
Archetype focuses on the classic comic characters that have been with us for the past 3,000 years
Chapter 5 Introducing the Tools
Comic Premise is The Lie That Tells The Truth: the impossible or improbable set of circumstances, which create the dilemma that propels our protagonists through the narrative. More than simply a selling tool or log line for the movie, it’s the imagination’s prime tool in generating the story.
Chapter 6 Tool #1: Winning
Take, for example, French farce. You know the moment when the cheating husband is nearly caught with his mistress, and has to push the mistress under the bed, then leap over the bed, vault the easy chair, and land in a seemingly innocent pose by the window seat just as his wife enters? What underlies that sequence is not a series of mini to-actions: “to seduce,” “to stampede,” “to deceive.” The sequence is built on the fact that the husband knows what wins for him, which in this case is to not get caught. He is given the permission, limited only by his character, to do WHAT HE NEEDS TO DO IN ORDER TO WIN.
Chapter 6 Tool #1: Winning
once you’re onstage, the point is to act, isn’t it?
Actually, it isn’t. The point is to tell the story. And if rushing offstage without saying a word will tell the story and therefore support the comedy, then that’s what you have to do.
Chapter 6 Tool #1: Winning
So we add more complications. After all, in life, nothing is simple. You’re rarely trying to do just one thing. Most of the time, you’re constantly juggling X number of balls in the air. Comedy tells the truth about life, and life is complicated.
Take me, for example: I cannot physically leave the house if there’s a dish in the sink. I don’t know what law of physics this contravenes or how it upsets the natural order of things, but I’m not allowed to leave my house if there’s a dish in the sink! I could be late. I could have to catch a plane to Australia, but if there are dishes in the sink, I must stop at the door, turn around, march to the sink, pick up the dish, rinse it, and place it in the dish rack. Then, and only then, am I allowed to leave.2 No matter how late I am, the “dish in sink rule” must be obeyed. Don’t ask me why, it just does.
The point is that we often have to accomplish a number of different things, at the same time, in order to “win.”
Chapter 6 Tool #1: Winning
Comedy gives them the permission to do what they need to do in a moment of crisis, even if it makes them look like a bad guy or an idiot. And once they have that permission, you can stop trying to be “funny.”
Chapter 6 Tool #1: Winning
the comic nature of the character and situation takes preeminence. If given the permission to win, but not necessarily the guarantee of winning and not the skills to win, a character’s actions will be comedic.
Chapter 6 Tool #1: Winning
Think of every bad comedy you’ve ever seen — those people were desperately trying to make it funny. Think of every good comedy you’ve ever seen; there were characters there who were doing stupid, silly things because that’s what they thought they needed to do to get what they want. Given who they are and all their limitations, characters act to serve their own (sometimes stupid and deluded) purposes, not the needs of the producer or the dramatist
Chapter 6 Tool #1: Winning
The trick is to let the character act out his need and fear truthfully, permitting him or her any and every idiocy and idiosyncrasy in order to reach his or her goals — in order to win.
Chapter 6 Tool #1: Winning
Comedy IS conflict, because people are conflicted.
Chapter 6 Tool #1: Winning
Viola Spolin, the godmother of improv (improv, after all, is at the heart of comedy) taught that the best approach to acting in improvisations was not to act, but simply for each person in an improv to be engaged in problem solving. Simply accepting the premise, ridiculous as it may be, and attempting to solve an unsolvable, insane problem, creates comic energy
Chapter 6 Tool #1: Winning
Whether you actually win or not is not the point; trying to win is.
Chapter 6 Tool #1: Winning
Winning means doing what you need to do, or think you need to do in order to win. What it doesn’t mean is doing what you think you should do. Many actors will say, “But if I’m a lawyer, I should be more composed, I should have a briefcase, I should do this, I should do that.” “Don’t ‘should’ all over yourself” is one of those 12-Step truisms best popularized, I think, by Al Franken’s great Saturday Night Live character Stuart Smalley. In one of Franken’s Smalley monologues, he would relate a humiliating story about himself, where he should have done this or should have done that, then stop himself with, “Listen to me. I’m should-ing all over myself” before ultimately forgiving himself by looking in the mirror and declaring, “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggonit, people like me!”
Who knows what a lawyer should be like? The lawyer that I have, he dresses in jeans, he speaks very slowly, he’s kind of a boring guy, he costs me a lot of money. You know, he doesn’t look anything like the put-together people you see on TV.
Chapter 7 Tool #2: Non-Hero
he’s the Hero because the writers and producers have given his character EVERY SKILL NECESSARY TO WIN (and even some that aren’t necessary, but simply look good on the résumé).
Chapter 7 Tool #2: Non-Hero
Now, put Woody Allen in a room with twelve guys with guns. Already, you’re chuckling to yourself at this ridiculous image. Why? Because Woody has almost no skills to deal with that situation
Chapter 7 Tool #2: Non-Hero
he’s a physical coward, he’s no good with guns, he’s no good at tolerating pain, yet despite that total lack of applicable skills, HE DOESN’T GIVE UP!
Chapter 7 Tool #2: Non-Hero
look at the power of the Non-Hero! All you have to say is Woody or Ben or Tina is in a room with twelve guys with guns and people start to laugh, and you haven’t written one joke
Chapter 7 Tool #2: Non-Hero
All you have is a recognizable character, a situation, and you’ve already got comedy.
Chapter 7 Tool #2: Non-Hero
Comedy is what occurs as characters go through the narrative. Because they’re Non-Heroes, they muck up, they mess about, things go wrong. Comedy is what happens to the character as they’re trying to get what they want
Chapter 7 Tool #2: Non-Hero
I tell Annie that when she hits Eric, “You don’t have to justify, you don’t have to explain it. Just act like it’s never even happened and go ahead and simply ask him another question. As soon as you hear another ‘K’ sound, slap him again.”
Chapter 7 Tool #2: Non-Hero
I’ll explain to them that they are on a new talk show. I’ll tell the young woman (let’s call her “Annie”) that she’s the host of this new talk show (we’ll call it Good Morning, Annie), and I’ll tell the man (let’s call him “Eric”) that he’s an expert on any subject of his choice. I’ll tell him that in this game he has to follow two rules: he must answer the question, and once the interview starts, he cannot leave. I’ll then ask Eric to go outside while I give Annie some additional information. When Eric leaves, I tell Annie, “OK, every time Eric says a word that includes a ‘K’ sound in it, anywhere in the word (“computer,” “sickle,” “lick”), I want you to hit him on the forehead.”
Chapter 7 Tool #2: Non-Hero
When he comes back in, I seat him and Annie on stools at the front of the room. I tell the audience that they are now the audience for a new talk show, Good Morning, Annie. “Welcome to Good Morning Annie!” I announce, as our pretend audience applauds.
ANNIE: Welcome to the show.
ERIC: Good morning, Annie.
ANNIE: So what kind of technology are you an expert in?
ERIC: Computers.
Annie abruptly slaps Eric on the forehead.
Chapter 7 Tool #2: Non-Hero
ANNIE: So Eric, which computer would you suggest we buy?
At this point I’ll side-coach:
STEVE: Eric, let me just tell you one thing: It’s something you’re doing.
ERIC (Looks back to Annie, starts to speak, then stops, hesitates): New? (Begins to flinch from a slap that doesn’t come)
And the audience laughs again. But not at the slap, because this time there is no slap. This time, the comedy comes from Eric trying to figure out the trigger, a practically insoluble problem.
Chapter 7 Tool #2: Non-Hero
Watching his attempts to anticipate the slaps, to grope for a solution, is just as comic, if not more so, than his actually getting slapped.
Chapter 7 Tool #2: Non-Hero
Eric represents the perfect embodiment of the equation: struggling against insurmountable odds without many of the required skills and tools with which to win yet NEVER GIVING UP HOPE!
Chapter 7 Tool #2: Non-Hero
There are some times when this experiment doesn’t work, times when the person being hit simply asks “Why are you hitting me?” or when the person, thinking it’s just a “comedy” exercise, simply ignores the slaps. Both cases involve a lack of struggle — without struggle there is no comedy. By the same token, if he simply avoids the slaps or accurately describes the problem — “Hey, you’re hitting me” — that indicates the skill of perception. Give a character too many skills, it makes him a Hero.
Chapter 7 Tool #2: Non-Hero
The Comic Hero does not know what to do, and his actions are often ill-advised and inappropriate, albeit with all the best of intentions (hope). Accurately seeing something, and behaving appropriately afterwards, is Hero, or skilled, behavior.
Chapter 7 Tool #2: Non-Hero
the lie is that life is logical, rational, and appropriate. Comedy tells the truth that our lives and our behaviors are often illogical, irrational, or inappropriate, or sometimes all three simultaneously. We’re just hoping that no one notices.
Chapter 7 Tool #2: Non-Hero
The point is that just giving your character defects and flaws is not sufficient if you also justify the behavior to make it seem a little more appropriate, a little less irrational
Chapter 7 Tool #2: Non-Hero
if he’s nervous, let that be an integral part of his character (like the computer genius in Ocean’s Eleven or Gene Wilder’s meek accountant in The Producers), as opposed to some outside circumstance that explains and rationalizes otherwise outrageous behavior.
Chapter 7 Tool #2: Non-Hero
“The final insult to all common sense was delivered by Heisenberg and Schrödinger’s quantum theory, which decreed that the position and velocity of an individual particle cannot be completely specified, even in principle. As a result one cannot predict with certainty the future position and velocity of a particle; such predictions can be done only in terms of probability, which apply only to the average behavior of a large number of particles. In short, the world hovers in a state of uncertainty.”
— Alan Lightman, physicist
Chapter 7 Tool #2: Non-Hero
A Hero isn’t necessarily somebody who slays a dragon. A Hero can be anyone who has skills and aptitudes. That makes characters into “Heroes,” and a Hero increases the dramatic elements in a scene. Knowing is a skill. At times, the formula is simple: Non-Heroes don’t know.
Chapter 7 Tool #2: Non-Hero
just like you, your characters lack information, which means they have to spend more of their time figuring things out than saying funny things about them.
Chapter 7 Tool #2: Non-Hero
Doubt is comedy. Not knowing leads to confused, and in Joey’s case, idiotic behavior. In a comedy, the Non-Hero doesn’t know, so he can still hope for the best
Chapter 7 Tool #2: Non-Hero
it comes from the character being a beat behind what many people, including the audience, have already figured out. For instance, a “double take” is a great example of “don’t know.” A person with skills can look at one thing once and know what it is, but a Non-Hero has to look twice or three times and work harder to understand what the Hero perceives at first glance.
Chapter 7 Tool #2: Non-Hero
One benefit of writing or playing “don’t know” is that it absolves the character of the obligation to be funny. Simply lacking the skill of knowing will lead to comic moments
Chapter 7 Tool #2: Non-Hero
Not knowing leads to the most important moments in a comedy
Chapter 7 Tool #2: Non-Hero
Those moments, what the Greeks called anagnorisis, or recognition, are important because they help us to believe in the reality of the characters. Unless you believe in the character, you don’t care if they get hit over the head with a mackerel. But when you do care about the character, then getting hit in the face with a mackerel means something
Chapter 7 Tool #2: Non-Hero
The more we as an audience connect with those characters, the more we’re willing to go with them on their wild flights of comic fancy.
Chapter 7 Tool #2: Non-Hero
Look at your script — ask yourself: Why should the character know so much? I know why you know so much — you wrote the damn thing. But why does the character know?
Chapter 7 Tool #2: Non-Hero
In your scripts, take out dialogue and action that shows your characters “know too much.”
Chapter 7 Tool #2: Non-Hero
“We seem to assume that the more perfect we appear — the more flawless — the more we will be loved. Actually, the reverse is more apt to be true. The more willing we are to admit our weaknesses as human beings, the more lovable we are.”
— Everett Shostrom, Man The Manipulator
Chapter 7 Tool #2: Non-Hero
What makes a character a Non-Hero is that they lack skills, such as “knowing.” They’re confused; they make mistakes and missteps and miscalculations and poor decisions, all the while hoping for the best
Chapter 7 Tool #2: Non-Hero
“a willingness to fail is one of the most important tools in comedy. In addition, it’s that “very lack of perfection” that allows audiences to identify with these Non-Heroic characters.
Chapter 7 Tool #2: Non-Hero
why should your character be smart about everything?
Chapter 7 Tool #2: Non-Hero
The characters who are most like us, like Jerry, are often confused or at the very least are unsure that they are right. When confronted with idiocy, even if they don’t buy it, they’re Non-Hero enough to at least consider the bad idea.
Chapter 7 Tool #2: Non-Hero
People ask us who writes the jokes, but that’s not how it works. Somebody has an idea, and someone pushes it further. And that’s like a great example of how we write. I had actually thought at some point what would happen if you were masturbating and you lost the product and you couldn’t find it? But I thought, well, you can’t really do that. But I ran it by Bob and I said, “Could this go in a movie, something like that?” And he said, “Yeah you could, but then what happens?” I said, Jeez, I don’t know.” He said, “Well think about it! That’s what’s interesting! Where is it?” And he said, “I mean like, what if it was on the guy’s ear and he doesn’t know it?” And now we’re laughing and thinking that’s funny — it’s on his ear! Well what could be a good situation, now it’s on his ear? What if he’s gonna have a date or something? And it goes to the next thing and all of a sudden she’s there, she sees it and what would she think it is? And then someone says, “What if she thought, oh, I don’t know, you could say it’s hair gel!” And then literally like 20 minutes later somebody says “Well, if she thought it was hair gel, she might put it in her hair!” And we’re laughing, and then another hour later, we say, “Well, wait a second! Wouldn’t it harden?” And all of a sudden, that’s a day’s work for us.
Chapter 7 Tool #2: Non-Hero
how do you come up with a big, obscene, rude, physical piece of comedy like this? By following the truth of these characters, beat by beat, moment by moment.
Chapter 7 Tool #2: Non-Hero
Rather than worrying about the next clever thing your character says, the primary thing is that your characters are always navigating the confounding gap between expectations and reality.
Chapter 7 Tool #2: Non-Hero
“Humor is something that thrives between man’s aspirations and his limitations.”
— Victor Borge
Chapter 7 Tool #2: Non-Hero
The pause as you try to wrap your head around what went wrong, to figure out what to say and how to say it — that’s the gap. The gap between expectation and reality.
Comedy exists in the gap between expectation and reality, and it’s the “not knowing” of the character that creates that gap. If that character has skills (logic, intelligence, perception, adaptability, calm under fire), the gap is easily bridged.
Chapter 7 Tool #2: Non-Hero
Writers have been taught that drama is conflict, and so many comedies create conflict by inserting an antagonist into the action. While there’s nothing wrong with that, an evil-minded nemesis is not necessary for comedy
Chapter 7 Tool #2: Non-Hero
All that’s necessary are characters who are unsure and struggling with expectations that have come up hard against an absurd or unexpected reality. While I wouldn’t go so far as to say that in comedy there is no such thing as conflict, I would say that the primary conflict is between the character’s expectations versus reality.
Chapter 7 Tool #2: Non-Hero
character’s perception of what’s happening is filtered through their expectations of what should happen crunching up against their own unique perception of what reality is! And reality is going to be different for each character.
Chapter 7 Tool #2: Non-Hero
A story is told through the multiplicity of your characters’ voices and perspectives, what the Russian philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin termed polyphony. The comedy comes from the same object or event being viewed from different perspectives or points of view. The weakest comedies are the ones in which there’s only one filter — the writer’s — where every character sees things in exactly the same way.
Chapter 7 Tool #2: Non-Hero
a moment of discovery, a moment of realization — the most important moments in a comedy.