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15438739 No.15438739 [Reply] [Original]

How does one go about outlining a really long-told joke to tell on-stage?

>> No.15438748

>>15438739
Tom Myers in the house everybody

>> No.15438751
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15438751

>>15438739

>> No.15438760
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15438760

are you the jokester?

>> No.15438761

>>15438739
you don't. You just keep rehearsing it in the mirror over and over. And then you start trying it on a willing audience, getting feedback. And you keep trying it.
Performance comedy needs a live audience.
Also, I saw your last post, you need to start off with the rhythm and structure of a joke, the cadences, the prosody, and yes the....the...the...the...
>The pauses....?
Yes, those too-- anti-climaxes!
Comedy is not a medium for you to inject like a syringe your complicated thoughts. Comedy is more like music.
You have to practice it in front of a live audience, because it's a living thing - it's about rhythm, pulse, timing, beat.

>> No.15438767

>>15438751
I would like to thank you for saving that inevitable train-wreck of a thread.

>> No.15438809

>>15438761
I feel like I know this, but my memory is literally so ass that it's near impossible
to know these beats by heart. Like how badly I failed at learning how to read
music for piano in order play it from memory. But when I had the sheet with me, I
could do it all by glimpsing at it for a tenth of a second. I guess I was just trying to
do that here. I can sorta draw at least.

>> No.15438923

>>15438761
>>15438809
Fuck, that's solid advice though. Screenshotted. Thanks.
...
Damn, maybe I should've kept the cringey thread up for the (you)'s,
because my question's been answered already. I can see
why every thread besides generals are obvious bait now.

>> No.15438988

>>15438809
>I feel like I know this, but my memory is literally so ass that it's near impossible
>to know these beats by heart.
There's three solutions
1. Keep practicing, practice some more, keep practicing, and just when you thought you were done, you have to practice even more.
2. You think this is going to be another solution - hell no - keep practicing
3. Understand why this line needs to come before this line, understand the relationship between "setup" and "payoff".
If Jerry Lewis were to just trip and break the priceless vase, it's not funny.
But if he trips, knocks the vase, causes it to wobble then manages to stabilize it, and then as he relaxes from the relief inadvertently elbows it and it crashes into a million pieces: now it's funny.
You have to intuitively understand that the 'crash' isn't funny without the 'almost gets away with it'. That will help you remember which order the jokes go in, because there's a logical order.

>> No.15439026

>>15438739
That punchline is not funny at all

>> No.15439038

>>15438988
When I said impossible I mean that I may literally have some
sort of condition stopping me. I've been asked by too many teachers,
peers, and family members if I have some sort of learning deficiency/
what-have-you to really believe I'm even capable of these levels of intuition.
Levels which jumps off from even a 'feels-based' written script. But I'll take your advice anyway
because fuck them all, I'll stop when I die.

>> No.15439095

>>15439026
Yes.

>> No.15439132

>>15439038
I repeat what I wrote:
You take the comedy routine, you practice it until you know it backwards, sideways, and can recite it while vigorously fucking your girlfriend.
And you also fundamentally understand the logic that puts it together, so even if you do happen to forget how it goes (which means that you haven't practiced it enough) you'll actually be able to improvise the missing bits because you'll know there's literally only one kind of way it could go.
Like with the terrible joke
>My wife's gone to the Caribbean
>Jamaica?
>Nah, she went of her own accord
You can't say Tahiti, or Thailand, or the Bahamas - it has to be the Caribbean. Because that's where Jamaica is. There's only one way this joke can work.
The island can only be "Jamaica" because it sounds like "did ya make her"?
There's only one possible location. Because it has a logic.