How To Write Hilarious Humor: An Analysis of Professional Comedians' (and Comediennes') Techniques to Tickle the Funny Bone

Chapter 2: Introductions, Set-Ups and Punch lines, Transitions as Loose Associations, Metaphors, Similes, Allusions, Malapropisms, and Other Techniques

Copyright 2011 by Gary L. Pullman

 

Typically, since it sets up the theme, or central concept, of the entire book, the initial paragraph of the opening chapter is one of the longest in a humorous tome. Radner’s opening paragraph is no exception. Her book’s theme is aging, or “about a woman turning fifty,” which she describes as “traumatic,” so much so, in fact, that her turning this age reduced her to stuttering whenever she tried to utter the word. One of the first laughs comes when she admits that “I still stutter a bit, even in print,” which conflates eye dialect (“fffiffffty”) with the result of a speech disorder (stuttering). The equation of two disparate categories is both surprising and amusing (except, perhaps, to those who stutter or who have stuttered). Oddly appropriate, but seemingly altogether unrelated comparisons, whether direct or indirect, in the form of metaphors or similes, are often amusing, and many comedians and comediennes use this technique to get a laugh.

Another humorous technique is the making of a straightforward claim or observation, followed by a punch line. Sometimes, the punch line is absurd and anticlimactic. In her book’s opening introduction, Radner uses this technique in writing, “being healthy gives you the freedom to obsess over the things that don’t really matter, like wrinkles, veins, and how tricky it is these days just to be able to turn on--excuse me, I mean power up--a television.” Often a series of items, such as this one, begins by listing a couple of relatively important matters, such as “wrinkles” and “veins,” before concluding with a trivial, anti-climactic item, such as turning on a television set. Again, separately, none of these items seems to belong with one another, but the context creates a surprising and amusing link that gets a laugh.

Describing a cycle that returns back upon itself, with the ending creating the same set of affairs as that with which the sequence began, thereby suggesting that it is vain to expect progress, can be a source of humor, too. In a stand-alone paragraph that follows her initial paragraph, Radner uses this technique to get a laugh: “I feel life is broken down into these stages: you’re born and you don’t know how anything works; gradually you find out how everything works; technology evolves and slowly there are a few things you can’t work; at the end, you don’t know how anything works.”

Humorous books frequently use transitional sentences that connect one paragraph with another and, at the same time, set up the punch line that follows the transition. “With the passing of every decade, our mortality becomes a little clearer and our eyesight a little fuzzier,” Radner writes, offering a contrast that involves disparate categories (“mortality” and “eyesight”) that are linked by a common event or theme (age, or “the passing of every decade”). A humorous example or two is then supplied to illustrate her meaning: “One day the writing on the menu becomes so blurry you just can’t bluff anymore. Now I have to mention that in this optical respect, I’m lucky I can see close up and my husband can see far away, so we’re covered. He tells me who’s in the movie and I tell him what’s in his sandwich.” The example is followed by a humorous conclusion that rounds out the section and gives the upshot of the segment: “Together we’re human bifocals.”

This basic structure of seemingly serious and straightforward claim or observation as a setup, followed by a ludicrous, often anticlimactic, punch line or example, structures much of the entire humorous book, as it does, indeed, Radner’s next paragraph:

The comforting factor about age is that nobody is immune [claim]. The blonde-haired bombshells of today are the blue-haired ladies of tomorrow [humorous example]. When I turned fifty, it also gave me cause to reflect on all the things that have gone right in my life [observation]. Marrying the right man, choosing the right career, and making sure my closet had lots of hanging space were all good decisions [humorous example consisting of two serious items, followed by an absurd one].

The final paragraph includes a Malapropism, or a misused homophone (sound-alike word) that creates a ridiculous effect. Radner confuses such a pair of homophones with one another, “incontinent” and “incompetent”: “I hope I’m lucky enough to live until I’m incontinent--I mean incompetent.” She rounds out her first chapter by bringing it full circle with the allusion to “my filthies,” a euphemism which she employs, in the chapter’s opening paragraph, for “fifties”: “In the meantime, I’m determined to enjoy and celebrate everything about being in my filthies.”

The first chapter of I Still Have It contains five short paragraphs:

1. The initial, or opening, paragraph, which introduces book’s theme, uses “filthies” as a euphemism for “fifties,” conflates eye dialect with stuttering, and exemplifies a serious claim with an anticlimactic series of items which contains absurd instances
2.  A body paragraph that describes a vicious circle of incompetence, followed by competence, followed by changing technology, followed by incompetence
3.  A body paragraph that uses a contrast between two disparate categories, mortality and vision, to set up examples that show Radner and her husband to form, “together,” a pair of “human bifocals”
4.  A body paragraph that exemplifies a serious observation with a contrast between women of younger and older age groups and a claim concerning “things that have gone right” with an anticlimactic series of items which contains absurd instances
5.  A concluding paragraph that uses a Malapropism before returning full circle to the beginning of the chapter by alluding to the “filthies” euphemism that was employed for “fifties” in the opening paragraph

Radner uses these same, as well as numerous other, techniques to generate humor throughout her book.

She starts each chapter the same way, with a serious claim or a straightforward observation that establishes the chapter’s topic and, at the same time, sets up the punch line that follows the observation or the claim.

Here, for example, is how she starts chapters 2 through 4:

While I do occasionally order items on the Internet, it’s hard to teach an old shopper new tricks [observation]. I’m convinced that the catalogue will eventually disappear, but not until the last baby boomers have kicked off their Nikes and been buried in mulch [humor through exaggeration] (“Catalogue Addiction”)

Because I was a child such a very long time ago and my contact with children until I had my own was so limited, I was entirely unaware of a child’s capacity for repetition (“Do It Again”). 

It’s my contention that the things you remember about your childhood govern the way you raise your own children. Even though my other died when I was thirteen, I find myself constantly remembering the little things she did for me as I spend time with my daughter (“Oh, Mother!”)

My father’s annual visit always reminded me that as we age we do not become less strange (“Go Ahead, Open This Bag”).

Conclusion

Each chapter starts with a fairly short paragraph that, making a serious claim or a straightforward observation, sets up the punch line that follows. The jokes often take the form of humorously absurd examples, humorously odd comparisons or contrasts, items in a series which consist of two or more serious terms followed by a concluding absurd item, vicious circles that end with a return to the initial state of affairs and thereby show a lack of progress, a Malapropism, an exaggeration, and allusions to humorous euphemisms. Transitions link paragraphs while, at the same time, setting up additional punch lines and jokes to follow, most of which work on the same principles as the previous ones, these transitions and the chapter’s overall topic giving a weak unity to the otherwise disparate collection of situations and jokes.

Next:  Chapter 3: Metaphor, Hyperbole, Situational Humor