I Don't Make the Comedy, I Just Know It

I believe I am in the minority here, but I didn’t enjoy either of these sketches all that much.  That could be largely because they’ve already been done.  Abbott and Costello did them first but I’m seeing them do it second. The baseball scene was copied for the Kids in the Hall sketch, “McCillicutty and Green.” It was, of course, killed by this scene. Having the joke cannibalized for the sake of that scene crushed any amount of humor in that joke.  Being a mathlete back in middle school I was exposed to the same sort of tricks as in the second video a lot. I had a teacher who always did it to stump the students, but I had her for four different classes, so it got old.

Following a formula for comedy doesn’t sound good. This class has shown us it's hard to boil it down into anything so simple.  I think there is a general framework to sketches.  Introduce a scenario, usually a weird one or one that is slightly incongruous. Build upon that idea with examples, usually three, the golden number of comedy.  To end it, wrap up with one final joke  that ties back to a joke or comment previously made in the sketch.  That’s the formula that seems to work. SNL especially can be seen following this pattern in its skits, like “Jeopardy” that typically only goes through like three questions before Alex Trebek loses control, or .  One of my favorites, “Meet Your Second Wife”, also does this. https://youtu.be/MJEAGd1bQuc  It starts with a ridiculous concept for a game show, gives three contestants with increasingly young wives (though the third one trips us up by starting with the older woman), and then wraps it up by giving everyone a new kayak, expanding on what would lead to the second contestant's wife's death.

While some don’t like this rigid, predictable structure, I think it can have benefits.  The three examples are enough to establish a pattern, with the third one either taking the pattern farther, or completely breaking from it to create incongruity.  Then the joke at the end leaves them laughing, and the reference to a previous portion of the sketch just leaves them laughing harder as another layer is added to what was already funny.  As I blogged about earlier with the “Debbie Downer” sketch. Being able to expect a joke, anticipating it and then having that realized is an effective comedic device.  Whether the audience gets exactly what they’re looking for or a slight spin on it, they’re still delighted by a character’s compulsion or a remarkable coincidence.

To summarize repeating a joke is disappointing. Even if the audience does find it funny again, it’s rarely as funny as it was the first time. However, following a similar structure doesn’t repeat the jokes, it just delivers the jokes in a familiar, easily understood way.