A Quote by Cass McCombs

You can't just explain a joke. Either it isn't funny, or the person just totally missed the punchline. — © Cass McCombs
You can't just explain a joke. Either it isn't funny, or the person just totally missed the punchline.
A joke is either funny or it's not funny. If I hear a funny joke, you know what I do? I laugh, that's what I do. I don't start a focus group to see who got hurt by the joke.
The worst thing ever that you have to explain your joke because I was very disappointed trying to explain why the joke is funny for the interrogator.
You can either just have fun with the joke or you can have fun with the joke and think about the implication of it. It's totally up to the listener.
Just because we wear hair extensions and make-up doesn't mean we're the punchline for every joke.
I think as a blonde person with make-up on, you're automatically the punchline to the joke.
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.
There's different kinds of improv. There's Second City improv where you try to slowly build a nice sketch. There's stuff you do in college coffee houses where you just go joke, joke, joke. Bring another funny character with a funny hat on his head. Christopher Guest is more the line of trying to get a story out.
Now, I want to explain something to you guys. I don't have an ending joke, because I don't tell jokes. I tell real-life stories and make them funny. So, I'm not like the average comedian. They have an ending joke; they always holler Peace! I'm out of here, and walk off stage. So, basically, when I get through performing on stage, I just walk off.
This is a funny story. We'd asked the guards every day for cappuccino. You know, just as a joke. And they'd come in with their cups of coffee and stuff. And so I get here and I have a spot for a cappuccino machine, and it didn't work. So I don't have any cappuccino ... I didn't miss the cappuccino, I missed the idea of cappuccino.
I take a lot of pride in managing to be funny without having a victim at the end of my joke. I laugh at a really dark joke as much as the next person, but my jokes, I feel, don't have to hurt anybody to be really funny.
I tried to make the punchline as close to the setup as I could. And I thought that was the perfect thing. If I could make the setup and the punchline identical to each other, I would create a different kind of joke.
Someone said to me at a party once, 'Oh, yeah, you're a comedian? Then how come you're not funny now?' And I just wanted to say, 'Well, I'm just going to take this conversation we're having and then repeat that to strangers, and then that's the joke. You're the joke later.'
I definitely have friends who gave me a tag for a joke I already had. Like, 'Here's another line.' A tag is, 'Oooooh, it's an industry term.' It's like, there's the punchline, and a tag is like a secondary punchline.
"I've learned what's funny verbally ain't so funny on e-mail: They don't hear your intonations. Melissa broke up with somebody over that. She tried to tell him: "That was a joke!" But he just didn't get it. Mick Jagger said, "F- 'em if they don't get the joke." And I love him. That comes with age: Knowing it's their problem, not mine."
Well, I mean, if a joke or humor is bawdy, it's got to be funny enough to warrant it. You can't just have it bawdy or dirty just for the sake of being that - it's got to be funny.
There are things that I won't joke about, but it's not because I don't think they're funny or they can't be made funny. It's just that they don't fit my particular skill set.
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