A Quote by Merrie Spaeth
The minute you make people laugh, you get them to listen.
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The best way to make friends with an audience is to make them laugh. You don't get people to laugh unless they surrender - surrender their defenses, their hostilities. And once you make an audience laugh, they're with you. And they listen to you if you've got something to say. I have a theory that if you can make them laugh, they're your friends.
In college, I learned that my favorite parts were the sad clown parts. Those are the ones I love because you get to do everything. You get to be funny, make them laugh one minute, and make them cry the next minute.
What I have never been afraid of is to be a little silly, and you can engage people that way. My view is, first you get them to laugh, then you get them to listen.
The first purpose of comedy is to make people laugh. Anything deeper is a bonus. Some comedians want to make people laugh and make them think about socially relevant issues, but comedy, by the very nature of the word, is to make people laugh. If people aren't laughing, it's not comedy. It's as simple as that.
The Four Levels of Comedy: Make your friends laugh, Make strangers laugh, Get paid to make strangers laugh, and Make people talk like you because it's so much fun.
Once you learn how to make people laugh, then you get to choose exactly how you want to make them laugh.
One way to practice staying present is to simply sit still for a while and listen. For one minute, listen to the sounds close to you. For one minute, listen to the sounds at a distance. Just listen attentively.
When I was growing up, I was obviously gay, and I got heckled every day of my life. The only way I knew how to survive was to make people laugh. If I could make them laugh, I wouldn't get hung in a locker for two hours. That's a blessing.
I have a very high respect for professional comedians. What they do astonishes me. You have to be really smart and absorb everything, repackage it, bring it back to the person, and make them laugh at themselves. I can make people laugh during my talks because they didn't come to have me make them laugh. It's added value. So my job is way easier than that of a professional comic.
If I get a hard audience they are not going to get away until they laugh. Those seven laughs a minute - I've got to have them.
They have what you call a black night where they have black people come in for just one night only to watch comedy, and you get all your local drug dealers, thugs, prostitutes, all of them come in, sit down, and listen to you tell jokes. They the hardest people to make laugh.
If I get a hard audience they are not going to get away until they laugh. Those seven laughs a minute -- Ive got to have them.
You wouldn't know it, from some of the things I've said over the years, but I like people. I do. I like people, but I like them in short bursts. I don't like people for extended periods of time. I'm all right with them for a little while, but once you get up past around... a minute, minute and a half, I gotta get the fuck out of there.
Listen, acting is not surgery, it's entertainment. You're doing something to hopefully move people, to make them laugh, to transport them. But actors are vulnerable, and the reason we're vulnerable is that we're always trying to recreate human behaviour.
I get a guest on the air, and they're weird or strange, and I help them tell their story. I don't laugh at them. I listen.
People think because I can make them laugh on the stage, I'll be able to make them laugh in person. That isn't the case at all. I am essentially a rather quiet, dull person who just happens to be a performer.
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