[Watch the video interview on Youtube here]
Film Courage: What is a joke?
Author/Speaker/Artist/Screenwriter John Vorhaus: A joke in its simplest form is the setup and defeat of an expectation. You give the audience the impression that you’re about to say something and then you say something that they didn’t think you were going to say and when they experience the new information and gain a new understanding, that’s when they laugh.
I’ll put it in another way, a joke is a puzzle you give to the audience to solve and when you give them the right information in the right way and they solve the puzzle, the solution of the puzzle presents itself to them in a tight little package that makes them laugh. See if I can give you an example, there are many, I’m not sure what is a good one? We could go to a light bulb joke:
How many producers does it take to change a light bulb?
Well, does it have to be a light bulb?
Funny if you know that producers are the kind of people who will make arbitrary bad choices.
The truth and pain of the moment is, I’m a writer, I’ve got to deal with producers, they don’t always know what they’re talking about. That’s the truth and pain. The joke is presenting to the audience How many producers does it take to change a light bulb? Well, does it have to change? What does that tell me about producers that I didn’t know? If I’ve done my job right and if the audience has enough information to solve the puzzle of the joke then they’ll laugh. If I’m not sure that they have enough information to solve the puzzle of the joke I’ll give them extra information to make sure I might say to them.
I went to pitch to this one producer and he’s one of these guys, he just never knows what he wants. I told him a joke, and I said How many producers did it take change a light bulb? And he says Wait a minute, does it have to be a light bulb? That will give the audience more information packed in such a way that they will arrive at an…(Watch the video interview on Youtube here).
BIO:
John Vorhaus is best known for his comedy-writing classic, The Comic Toolbox: How to be Funny Even if You’re Not. He has taught and trained writers in 37 countries on five continents at last count, and created TV shows of his own in Nicaragua, Romania and elsewhere. His writing credits include dozens of teleplays and screenplays, plus seven novels and some two dozen works of non-fiction. His latest book is the little book of STANDUP. Vorhaus is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University and a member of the Writers Guild of America. He lives in Southern California and secretly controls the world from JohnVorhaus.com.
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