Joke Form Analysis: Louis CK’s “Martini Glass on the No Drinking Sign”
Let’s take a Louis CK joke and see if it is of a form listed in the seven basic joke forms.
The first joke from this set by Louis CK, filmed in Vancouver, is as follows:
(I follow the convention of starting a new paragraph after each laugh line.)
I went to the park the other day, and they had this “No drinking” sign in the park. It didn’t say “No drinking”, it had like a picture of a martini glass with a line through it. Are those really the people causing the problems with the drinking, in the parks?
Are they hitting the target audience with that martini glass?
Shouldn’t it be like a bottle in a bag with a line through it, something like that?
Do they have a lot of people in the park, “Hey motherfucker!” (Sips martini glass.)
This joke is of type
1. YES/NO
The punch lines negate the set-up. This is “observational” humor, where the teller takes a real situation and deconstructs it, showing the natural humor incongruity. The incongruity here is between the choice of icon on the sign and how that icon actually translates into the real world. All the punch lines are different forms of saying the same thing in slightly different ways, each further proving the absurdity of the sign’s choice of icon.
Phew! I did it.
That’s a Good Comedy Word
The other day at an amateur show, a comic ended a joke with the word “condiments”. It’s a funny word. It’s one of those words that made me say, “That’s a funny word.”
There is a rule of “K” which says the consonant “K” is a funny sound. Abrupt consonants are funnier than smooth ones. Condiment is funny. Soliloquy is not. “Pickle is funny, Chicken is funny, Alka-Seltzer is funny.”
But there is another reason that “condiments” is a funny word. It starts out sounding dirty, and then becomes innocuous. It starts out like “condom” which is evocative of sexuality, but then quickly turns benign. You start thinking nasty thoughts, but then realize it’s just your dirty mind. Oh my gosh!! I’m so dirty!!! Tee hee!!
Charlie Rose Interviews Jerry Seinfeld
Jerry Seinfeld has been promoting Bee Movie and stopped in on Charlie Rose for an interview.
There is a little talk about comedy as craft. For example, at the 12:06 mark, Seinfeld says
An example? Um… the timing of a joke… is the same as music. If the rhythm isn’t just right, if it’s a little long, or a little… if the pause between the set-up and the punchline isn’t just right, it doesn’t get a laugh. Now I don’t know why! But I know what’s right and when it’s not right.
Incongruity: The Root of All Humor
One element all successful humor has in common is incongruity: an association of two or more things or concepts that aren’t normally associated together. The human brain is an association machine. People love to tie together things that shouldn’t necessarily be tied together. This is one reason why superstition is so popular.
Creating non-obvious associations between otherwise incongruous elements often results in humor.
This photo (and I am embarrassed to admit, I find it hilarious) has the incongruous pairing of a normally cool, un-emotive house cat ascribed an exaggerated look of surprise. It is a visual form of joke form 6, hyperbole.
The paragraph above could be considered amusing in its own right, as its overly serious nature is incongruous to the aburd photo.
How the Audience Knows When to Laugh
When the comic stops talking.
Pauses are as important to stand-up as rests are to music. A good comic packs the humor punch at the end of the joke, so the surprise is concentrated in the short period just before he or she stops talking.
A common beginner mistake is continue talking even though all the information for the laugh has been presented. Once the surprise to the joke is revealed, stop talking as soon as possible. Don’t even worry about correct grammar. This makes the reveal more sudden, more harsh.
The Seven Joke Forms
According to a (fairly outdated) stand-up comedy FAQ, there are seven basic joke forms.
The Seven Basic Joke Forms are:
- YES/NO – The punchline negates the setup.
- SIMILITUDE/SIMILE – A comparison joke that uses “like” or “as.”
- METAPHOR – The application of a word or phrase to something that it does not literally apply to in order to indicate comparison.
- LITERAL PUN – Using a word that has more than one meaning but is spelled the same.
- AURAL PUN – Using a word that sounds like another but is spelled differently.
- HYPERBOLE – A joke depending on extreme exaggeration.
- MALAPROP – The comic confusion of words. The two words do not sound alike, but sound similar. What makes this work is how close the wrong word comes to the truth. “I love women. I have an extreme affliction for women of your gender.”
Certainly, these are different joke forms. Are they completely independent? Are some forms intrinsically funnier than others? What do they all have in common?
First Post
This blog intends to explore humor and jokes, categorizing and analyzing the aspects of what makes things funny.
Funny... How? 