How to Write "Genius" Jokes

hi Jerry Corley standup comedyclinic.com you ever asked the question where's the funny come from how do I make it funny how do I get it to be really funny here's the answer the genius is in the simplicity [Music] hi Jerry Corley stand-up comedy clinic.com with another episode of ask the joke doctor in this episode we're going to discuss the genius being in the Simplicity of the structure of the joke we had a weekend Workshop this weekend at my studio here in Burbank and it was uh just a blast I mean we had a pretty full

group and we were writing jokes on a method called the incongruity method some of you who have been following me baby may be familiar with this method it's basically taking a statement a headline a quote a fact about you something that you know any kind of statement and then turning it into a joke by using the specific listening technique now incongruity is a form of a joke that takes two dissimilar ideas that are converging in the statement and it juxtaposes them and makes the joke now here is the Simplicity of this particular type of joke

form by the way this particular joke form is used by almost every comic out there or it is used by every comic out there it is the most commonly used structure in comedy today just imposing the conditions of one idea onto another idea and coming up with the funny Jerry Seinfeld does this by imposing human traits on an inanimate object or an animal you know well I don't know what is it with horses I don't think the horses really know they're racing I think horses are sitting at the Starting Gate going I know there's a

bag of oats at the end of this and I want to get there first that's as simple as it gets he imposes the values of humans onto an animal and acts it out now you can do this in various ways there are different methods to do this you can just take two dissimilar ideas and converge them I do this when I State my lineage my Heritage my ethnicity I'm Irish and Native American Irish and American Indian that's my lineage so you know pretty much that I have VIP seats waiting for me at any AAA meeting

quite frankly I walk into that meeting it's like hey Running Bear O'Reilly we have a chair for you in the front row simple as that right you're taking two dissimilar ideas and converging them so how does that work with headlines it can be this simple and it's so fun to do this in a classroom because if you think about it when we think about comedy we think wow it's sad they're so good how do they get that good there's got to be so hard and we try to be clever one of my biggest weaknesses is

that I try to be too clever with the writing you know I just try to I want to show everybody how clever I am when in reality the funny is actually in the Simplicity of the structure if you understand the nine laughter triggers that get human beings to laugh one of them as you're aware is coincidence another one is recognition and another one is incongruity there are nine those are three of the nine but these are very powerful laughter triggers coincidence is super powerful so is recognition sows in congruity if you take two dissimilar ideas

and show how they are similar the audience will laugh number one reason they laugh is because you're taking two dissimilar ideas and solving a point you know uh sex is a lot like going to the gym right and they go and the audience goes oh how and the moment you solve that problem with something that's pretty obvious the coincidental and the recognition laughter triggers kick in first of all it's like recognition we understand having sex and we understand going to the gym we see those as two totally separate issues but when we actually show how

similar they are that's when it snaps on to that that kind of coincidence laughter trigger and we're like oh I never thought about it that way that's so true so we as human beings as audiences love to be fooled but we hate to be made fools of so if you do something so simpler so simple like a pawn or dumb joke we fold our arms or something implausible we fold our arms and go yeah don't try to make a fool out of me I get you know it's like a magician you see the trap door

it's like you'll fold your arms and go now I sold I saw the trapdoor dude you can't fool me but as a as a if you see it and what happens when we watch magicians we're fascinated right wow how do they do that it's so amazing and yet another magician will watch another magician go oh I see what he did there that's the hide the thing before the such and such trick and I love the way he finessed it very nice right but because they know the craft everybody else doesn't know the craft they see

the genius you ever have a magician show you how the trick works and you go that was simple that's kind of how comedy is it's actually simple but we finesse it to the audience and the audience goes wow how'd they do that what a coincidence I never thought about it that way because most people are not taking the time to think about the nuances of language and of situations and of words so and most audiences are super linear we're taught our whole lives to think in context so if you're working with an audience and you're

taking them down one road and you give them another idea suddenly all of them they go oh never thought about it that way that's so true if you've got them doing that you've got them compelled and you're winning them over and this is how you win the audience over with the genius of the simplicity so let me show you how this works I'm going to give you a subject I'm going to give you a headline rather and the headline is going to be and the headline is going to include two clearly identifiable ideas that are

converging in the in the headline when you see this then you're going to when you see this then you're gonna then you're gonna get it and and know how it works so understanding The Genius being in the Simplicity let's take a look at this headline this is in the news I use this as an exercise in my workshops so some of you have been to my workshops will have experienced this exercise but go with me every time you do it new you come up with brand new ideas and this weekend was absolutely no different somebody

came up with something with this particular headline doing the technique that I had never heard before and it was genius but genius in its Simplicity as you'll find out so we take this particular line the body of a 40 year old woman was found in a processing plant for McDonald's restaurants so think about it the body of a 40 year old woman found in a processing plant for McDonald's restaurants in congruity as a joke form is when you take two or more clearly identifiable ideas and converge them so if we have what do we have

in this particular sentence do we have two dissimilar ideas that are clearly identifiable and that are converging yes we have body of a 40 year old woman and we have McDonald's so what you would do in this scenario is you would make a chart basically a table with two columns on one side you'd have everything you could think about dealing with McDonald's on the other side everything you can think about dealing with the body of a 40 year old woman so I ask everybody just to list everything dealing with the body of a 40 year

old woman first or McDonald's first doesn't matter and then other side uh doing the McDonald's or the body of the 40 year old woman depending on how you're mapped out your table so what happens is this is I give them subcategories I go think about people places things words phrases cliches events and just list everything you can think about dealing with body of a 40 year old woman as they're listening it you're going to come up with stuff words phrases ideas that could fit either literally or metaphorically in the other column once you have that

idea you've got the s essence of a joke because you're showing two dissimilar ideas being similar so in this situation about if a 40 year old woman was found in a processing plant for McDonald's restaurants all you're doing now is trying to associate one with the other that's the name of the game in this particular joke now we've heard these joke forms before as as I get to this you'll see how it how it works out now as they're listening I just asked them what did you come up with in your list and for the

body of the 40 year old woman and one of the gals in the class came up with the idea of um the idea was a midlife crisis and I was like whoa midlife crisis that's awesome now how does that fit in to this body of a 40 year old woman 40 year old woman may be experiencing midlife crisis correct now McDonald's what could that be metaphorically on the McDonald's side the list the the the the actual maybe a possible value meal right about some some item or some some meal on the on the value menu

so if you think about so one of the jokes I wrote with this particular line when it was a headline in the news was thought of a 40 year old woman was found in the processing plan for McDonald's restaurants McDonald's has put a positive spin on this they they're now claiming they can now they now can claim that their chicken sandwiches are made with real breasts 40 year old saggy breasts but real breasts nonetheless would you like thighs with that yeah it's all part of their new uh their new value menu with their you know

and you could actually maybe do an act out to have somebody going hmm tastes like midlife crisis and now you have a joke right that's a pop that's what that tag would work or it's a or you can just name it the value menu It's like a it's a new item on the map value menu the coin Mick midlife crisis bam joke you win right so there's all kinds of stuff you could do with this particular exercise but when she came up with midlife crisis I'm like men like Crisis I've never heard that one before

and all the classes I've taught that's genius but it was genius in its Simplicity because it all came from a simple listing technique all you had to do is finesse the joke around the listening technique another way to explain this is I was doing a joke as far as the Geniuses in the Simplicity I was doing a joke while I was on a radio program I was doing a radio show in Denver because I was doing a show out there at the University and so they had me on the radio that morning and we're we're

doing an interview and then they break to the news and the lady doing the news before she comes back she does What's called the fluff piece now a Fluff piece is where they do some sort of human interest uh story or human interest subject and then they get right back to the show now this particular day I was shooting was Friday the 13th so it was just kind of like this Friday the 13th right we just had a Friday the 13th and she was saying um you know I don't know you're superstitious you know there's

a lot of phobias out there and she segued somehow from superstitions to phobias but then she says did you know there's a phobia of there's a fear of having something to your left side called sinistrophobia and I and human beings audiences we love information right we love it right so we'll tune in to information like if you feel like you're losing the audience state of fact have a joke about it but state of fact and then you get like for example if I was like with an audience and I felt like they were getting a

little distracted I would just say a state of fact and the fact might be uh um did you know a woman's uterus swells to 500 times its normal size during pregnancy yeah isn't that interesting I find that coincidental because the same thing happens to her temper during PMS just a quick joke not a laugh fall out of your chair joke but a joke that will get them re-centered and refocus because you gave them information that may they probably didn't know so when you give them information they people love it they focus so there's a fear

of having something to your left side called sinistrophobia and so I'm in the studio in the radio listening to this and I write it down sinistrophobia tried to spell it I don't know I probably misspelled it but then she goes there's a fear of having something to your right side called dextrophobia now in comedy I know there's a joke form called the three-way build-up or the triple and if you've had if you bought my book breaking companies DNA which will be available in the link below right um it um it explains how that three-way build

up works it's a tremendously powerful choke structure that is used like on tonight's shows uh on the letter uh was used on Letterman that's used on all the late night shows now it the reason why it's so good is because we love in the human language to talk in threes life liberty to Pursuit of Happiness do you swear to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth we talk in threes that's how journalists often report a story is they'll give you three ideas of what's happening out from where they're reporting before they go

back to the studio so when we are used to hearing the threes the three-way build-up is that form one two three so uh and the way it works is through what's called pattern disruption I'll give you two ideas that relate to the story then one idea that's absurd that still relates to the story but it's surprising disrupts the pattern if you will so because it takes two to establish the pattern so I hear this news gal saying a fear to have uh there's a fear of having something to your left side called sinistrophobia and I

write that down and I hear there's a fear of having something to your right side called dextrophobia and I write that down and my mind says there's two all I need is a third that's a little absurd but still related to the story and we have a joke so she says there's a fear of having something to your left side called sinistrophobia there's a fear of having something to your right side called dextrophobia and I said what's the fear of having something behind you I just blurted that out what's the fear of having something behind

you what do they call that homophobia and the entire Studio started laughing and then the strobe in the studio starts flashing which means their people are calling in and everybody now wanted tickets to the show that night and I think they gave away like 50 tickets that night because probably that one joke because I came up with it right there now the guy who booked the event was there in the studio with me that morning and as we're leaving the studio he goes oh my God you just thought of that just on the spot that's

genius I didn't have the nerve to tell him it really wasn't genius the joke pretty much wrote itself she wrote the first two parts of the joke all I needed to do is come up with the third part of the joke that relates to having something behind you and that's all that's all I blurted out was uh what's the fear of having something behind you left right behind I said what do they call that and that to me just meant homophobia right there and so he thought that was genius I knew it was just a

simple matter of including one more idea but I wasn't going to tell him it wasn't genius because I want him next time he books me to pay me a little more if he thinks I'm genius he's going to think I'm more valuable so it's all in the simplicity the genius is in the Simplicity think about that as you're moving forward if you enjoyed this video if you found it valuable please subscribe and I'll I'll put a little thing up there says Please Subscribe right right there so incongruity I didn't even use my slides today but

in congruity recognition coincidence ask the joke doctor and don't forget to subscribe so you can get these videos regularly I'm trying to put them up as much as possible I've been so busy I can't always get to it but I'm trying to make that utter commitment to make sure I put I try to put one up a week I guess I want to see if I can hit this goal and maybe I can get bring you more stuff just because I enjoy doing this and putting it out there and uh and you guys are I

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hashtag it with ask the joke doctor that way I'll just hit it scroll through and try to answer it with a video just like this one once again if you're interested in one of the weekend writing workshops or the two-day workshops that I have in Vegas or here in Burbank check my website standupcomedyclinic.com there's so much to learn and there is so much excitement in comedy today and it can be used at so many different levels not just clubs not just colleges not just cruises not just corporates you're going to see there are tons of

ways to actually turn comedy into a career I hope you enjoyed this once again I hope this brought value to your day my name is Jerry Corley with standupcomedyclinic.com with another episode of ask the joke doctor and remember the genius is in the Simplicity take care bye bye [Music]