A Quote by A. S. Byatt
I don't see much point in doing things for a pure joke. Every now and then you need a joke, but not so much as the people who spend all their lives constructing joke palaces think you do.
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The U.K. and Europe in general seem to be a lot more patient. The U.S. are expecting 'joke joke joke joke joke joke joke.' They don't actually sit and listen to you.
When I'm writing columns, it's - all I'm thinking about is jokes, joke, joke, joke, setup, punch line, joke, joke, joke. And I really don't care where it goes.
I have become a giant fan of the testing process, especially with a comedy. I mean, they tell you what's funny. It's almost tailor-made for people who shoot the way we shoot, trying a million different options and versions of things. Because the audience doesn't laugh at a joke, we put in another joke. If they don't laugh at the next joke, we put in another joke. You just keep doing them and you can get the movie to the point where every joke is funny, if you have enough options in the can.
The fact that 'Mom' is not joke, joke, joke - and is investing in these characters and their lives, things that really happen to people - I think it's resonating, and that's why people are tuning into it and not just dismissing it as a multi-cam sitcom.
Twitter is a good medium to lean how to write jokes. It pushes you to write a better joke in that, on Twitter, the first joke about something has already happened. You need to think of the second joke and the third joke.
When I was governor, if I told a joke in front of the press - I learned. I would go, "That was a joke, joke, joke," and I'd say it three times.
What you never want to do is have a story that doesn't track emotionally, because then you're going joke to joke and you're going to fatigue the audience. The only thing that's going to string them to the next joke is how successful the previous joke is.
I keep on repeating something told to me by an American psychologist: "When you are making a joke about someone and you are the only one to laugh, it is not a joke. It is a joke only for yourself." If people are making a joke they have the right to laugh at me but I will ignore them. Ignoring doesn't mean that you don't understand. You understand it so much that you don't want to react.
I used to think of it as a joke that all paranoids were right. That was a joke in the '60s, but now I'm convinced that people should be paranoid reflexively - and then pare it down from there if there's any indication that they're wrong.
Often, when you're in some of these writing rooms for... and the most restrictive is network television, right? They say, 'Wow, that's a great joke, but we can't do that. Okay, let's try the second joke. Oh, you can't do that one. But the third joke you can do,' and hopefully it will be great, but it will remind people of what the joke really was.
As far as outlining is concerned, I don't outline humor. I might right down a word or two to remind myself of a punch line I thought of, but the actual structure of a piece I really don't. I don't think it would really help me because for me the process is joke, joke, joke, joke.
A joke is a joke, and people put too much meaning behind it. They react to it in the wrong way. I mean, you can boo or laugh, and that's pretty much what you're supposed to do with jokes. You're not supposed to take it any further than that.
If I see someone not laughing, the first thing I'm thinking is, "OK, am I cursing too much? Am I doing a joke he doesn't understand? Is he resting?" Then he starts becoming my focal point. Once I see him laugh, I'm like, [snap] "All right, now I'm funny."
People try to put ownership on things: 'That's mine, that's my joke.' No such thing. Like if you tripped or stumbled and people go, 'Oh, that's Charlie Chaplin.' You know what I mean? You can't own a joke. You can be the guy that tells it the best, but you can't own a joke. Nowhere can you own a laugh.
I think I'm a good joke writer. I'm also very scared that the last joke I wrote is the last joke I'll ever write.
I love doing theaters, cracking people up, hearing them physically roll in the aisles. But we need to get serious. These are serious times. No joke. No joke.
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