The Hidden Tools of Comedy: The Serious Business of Being Funny

by Steve Kaplan

You don’t need to create problems, because a human being is going to have enough trouble doing even the simplest thing.

You don’t need to invent a conflict in comedy. Comedy IS conflict, because...

comedy gives its characters the permission to do whatever they need to do to win,

only limited by the character’s nature and personality.

When characters are given the permission to win, they often come up with unlikely yet inventive ways of solving their problem.

And the physical comedy is simply the external expression of internal comic truths.

Winning means doing what you need to do, or think you need to do in order to win. What it doesn’t mean is doing what you think you should do.

Winning relieves your characters of the obligation to do what they “should.” And by allowing your characters to win, no matter how silly or stupid or bad they might appear to be, you begin to organically create characters that are comic without trying to be funny.

WE ALL DO SOMETHING EVERY DAY that we would want to keep behind closed doors, without anyone seeing it.

The lie is that life is logical, rational, and appropriate. But comedy tells the truth; that many of us live lives that are occasionally illogical, irrational, or inappropriate, or sometimes all three simultaneously. We just hope that no one notices.

You wouldn’t do this, so why would she?

it’s hard to build comedy upon unrecognizable or inconsistent characters.

the call-back doesn’t work because it’s built on a foundation that’s not solid — an inconsistent character who is shifting wildly between moods, attitudes, and personalities from one moment to the next.

If you start lying to the audience, even for a minute and 48 seconds, they’ll lose belief in the characters. And if they do lose belief, all the funny stuff in the world isn’t going to work, because comedy has to tell the truth.

Bill Prady, who is the Executive Producer of The Big Bang Theory, has said that he starts with the characters in a situation and then simply follows them: to see what they want to do, what they need to do.

Story and character first, and comedy will follow.

More important than jokes or witty banter is what wins for the character.

Winning doesn’t create funny, but it helps to create the comic. It creates a scenario whereby he can be comic but he’s not under the gun to have to be funny every line.

The comedy actually depends upon him not joking.

So when the character does and says funny things later on, we’re going to go with it, because we believe he’s a real person.

joke writing is based partly on the same object seen from two different perspectives.

he’s the Hero because the writers and producers have given his character EVERY SKILL NECESSARY TO WIN (and even some that aren’t necessary, but simply look good on the résumé).

An ordinary guy or gal struggling against insurmountable odds without many of the required skills and tools with which to win yet never giving up hope.

All you have to say is Woody or Ben or Tina is in a room with twelve guys with guns and people start to laugh, and you haven’t written one joke or come up with one funny bit. There’s no dialogue, no logline, no title. All you have is a recognizable character, a situation, and you’ve already got comedy.

An ordinary guy or gal struggling against insurmountable odds without many of the required skills and tools with which to win yet never giving up hope

without struggle there is no comedy.

Give a character too many skills, it makes him a Hero.

Someone trying to solve a problem that he or she doesn’t know how to solve, without giving up hope — that creates comedy.

it’s not jokes or sight-gags or slapstick that create comedy, it’s watching a character struggle (without the knowledge that we in the audience often have) while trying to solve unsolvable problems.

Comedy is not the interruption of the narrative for yucks. Comedy is what occurs as characters go through the narrative.

The more skills you give your character, the less comic the character is. The fewer skills you give your character, the more comic he/she is.

While Non-Heroes may possess some skills (the wit of Woody Allen, the snarkiness of Bill Murray) it’s always combined with a greater lack of more essential skills: Allen is a coward, and Murray is often craven.

Successful comic characters have to act the way they do because it’s simply in their nature to do so, and they lack the skills and tools to do otherwise.

The whole point of the Non-Hero lies not in the funny stuff you’re going to have him do, but in the fact that he’s going to try his best to overcome whatever obstacle he has facing him despite the fact that he lacks essential skills necessary to the task.

Comedy is the by-product of the character’s actions; it may be the author’s intention to make you laugh, but it’s not the character’s intention.

Comedy tells the truth that our lives and our behaviors are often illogical, irrational, or inappropriate, or sometimes all three simultaneously.

Mel Brooks once said that if you’re writing a character who fidgets, don’t let it be because he’s left the tag from the dry cleaner on the inside collar of his shirt.

a Non-Hero is an ordinary guy or gal struggling against insurmountable odds without many of the required skills and tools with which to win yet never giving up hope.

So the Non-Hero CAN’T KNOW. The more he knows, the less comic he will be.

Non-Heroes don’t know.

Remember, your characters don’t know shit because, for the most part, you don’t know shit. Knowing, the skill of knowing, is a lie — and comedy tells the truth.

That uncertainty, and the confusion or insecurity or bewilderment that uncertainty brings, creates comic moments.

Doubt is comedy. Not knowing leads to confused,

In a comedy, the Non-Hero doesn’t know, so he can still hope for the best. But it comes from the character being a beat behind what many people, including the audience, have already figured out.

In comedy, characters act on imperfect knowledge, so even if they think they know, they don’t know.

A Non-Hero doesn’t need to try to be funny — just to not know.

Not knowing leads to the most important moments in a comedy. These are not the big slapstick bits — they’re the moments of discovery and realization. Primal moments.

The more we as an audience connect with those characters, the more we’re willing to go with them on their wild flights of comic fancy.

just being loud and silly isn’t enough.

In your scripts, take out dialogue and action that shows your characters “know too much.”