For me, a tour show should have a narrative; it should have an arc. It shouldn't just be, "Here's one joke, here's another joke." That's not my style. They all have to somehow link together.
I guess my feeling is that if you’re going to make a joke, that’s fine, but you should also sort of stand behind it, you know? A joke should be more than a joke, it should be a point that you’re trying to make.
I guess my feeling is is that if you're going to make a joke, that's fine, but you should also sort of stand behind it, you know? A joke should be more than a joke, it should be a point that you're trying to make.
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.
It's important to remember that life is a joke, and that outlook grants a lot of perspective, but I don't think comedy should change and become political due to other things. It should just laugh at that cosmic joke that life is all the time.
It's important to remember that life is a joke and that outlook grants a lot of perspective, but I don't think comedy should change and become political due to other things. It should just laugh at that cosmic joke that life is all the time.
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.
In the end, perhaps we should simply imagine a joke; a long joke that's continually retold in an accent too thick and strange to ever be completely understood. Life is that joke my friends. The soul is the punch line.
About a year after I moved to Los Angeles, I decided I wanted to be a joke writer for a late night talk show. So I met with a late night joke writer and he told me that I should start by doing stand-up comedy, because that would really hone my sense of humor and joke writing ability. Eventually I took a stand-up class and a few months later I had a seven-minute act.
My joke, which isn't really a joke, is that there will be one of two tours: the tour for the album that does well, or the tour for the album that stiffs.
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.
The amount of energy spent laughing at a joke should be directly proportional to the hierarchical status of the joke teller.
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.
To know how to structure the joke perfectly so that the narrative information is given in the right tempo, in just the right dose - it sometimes takes quite a lot of work. It seems easy when you hear the joke.
'Always speak the truth - think before you speak - and write it down afterwards.'
'I'm sure I didn't mean - ' Alice was beginning, but the Red Queen interrupted her impatiently.
'That's just what I complain of! You should have meant! What do you suppose is the use of child without any meaning? Even a joke should have some meaning - and a child's more important than a joke, I hope.
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.