A Quote by Jon Richardson
It doesn't mean you can't discuss important things, but I would never do a joke about cancer, just because I don't think any joke is funny enough to justify upsetting someone who is going through that.
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Whatever the joke is has to be funny, and not coming from a mean-spirited place. I think some things are totally off limits. If someone's spouse died, or one of their children, I would never joke about that in a Roast situation. I don't have any aspirations towards writing any cancer jokes, and there's some stuff that I think is definitely taboo.
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.
Any joke can be funny, but not any joke is funny. Any joke has the potential to be hilarious to you, but more importantly, the joke has the potential to not be funny to you but to someone else.
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.
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.
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.
All my cuts are always about three hours, at the start, mainly because any scene in the movie that's 90 seconds, I probably shot a five-minute version of. If you just extrapolate that through the whole movie, I have a very long version of every scene, usually because, if there's one funny joke, I'll shoot five because I don't know if the one I like is going to work. I'll get back-ups because my biggest fear is to be in previews, testing the movie, and a joke doesn't work, but I have no way to fix it because I have no other line.
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.
I think only things that are personal to us offend us. It's always bizarre when people who would normally laugh at an AIDS joke won't laugh at a cancer joke, but far more people know somebody who's died from cancer.
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.
Not that I don't think irreverent humor and someone being filthy is funny, I just do what I do. Any comedian would admit throwing an f-bomb in there would help get a reaction. ... I'm not on a Puritanical pursuit, but when I would curse in a joke, I believe I'm not done writing it.
I mean, there are things that I've experienced that I don't joke about because I'm just like, 'People don't really think it's funny that I had an eating disorder for a long time.' There are some things that just like really bum people out.
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 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 like to joke about being gay because it's something teenagers would never joke about.
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.
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