Why You Should Think Jokes Through
Comedy teacher, comic and writer Jerry Corley gives three reasons to develop your writing. They are: Writing Makes it Easier to Build Structure into your Materi...
Month: June 2017
How to Write a Joke
Everything starts with the jokes. Until you’ve got material that consistently gets laughs, you’ve got nothing – and you need at least five mi...
Why Do the Work?
I hear critiques of comics, most recently of Louis CK, that “he seemed to be rambling,” through his first abortion joke. They don’t seem to r...
A Note on Spontaneity
I should preface my process by saying that writing is often unexamined. People think that jokes “just happen,” spontaneously. And they do – ...
Incongruity Theory
Incongruity Theory is based on Aristotle’s (and Cicero’s and others’) view of humor as derived from expectancy violation. Proponents of this view include James ...
Relief Theory
Sometimes called the “Tension Release Theory,” this is Freud’s (and others’) view that humor is derived from a release of pent up energy. More about the theory:...
Learning Curves
Hey all, I’m still trying to wrap my head around this project, here 1/2 a week in. I’m learning a lot about WordPress, and what it can and can̵...
Superiority Theory
Socrates/Plato’s (and others’) view of humor as derived from ridicule. The forms usually attached to this mode of humor are irony, parody, and satire, wh...
Humorous Modes
Today's update is on the three main theories that have emerged from philosophy, psychology and linguistics to explain humor (Berger; Meyer; Morreall; Raskin): S...
Bill Maher’s “N-Bomb” Wasn’t a Big Deal, But Neither Was It Funny.
Warning: “explicit language.” Bill Maher said the “N-word” (Bailey, DeMarche, Guerrasio, Italiano, Itzkoff, Kiefer, Lopez, Obeidallah, P...