A Quote by Michael Arden

A lot of times, comedy writers will go for the gay joke, and I've been vocal about saying, 'Go for the smart joke.' — © Michael Arden
A lot of times, comedy writers will go for the gay joke, and I've been vocal about saying, 'Go for the smart 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.
When I was working with Barry Sonnenfeld, I'd watch him set up a shot and talk to him about what he was seeing and what it was to shoot comedy. He told me that a lot of times with comedy, it's not just about getting the joke, but getting a reaction to the joke. That's the laugh - it's somebody's else's reaction to the joke.
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.
A lot of times people come up to me saying 'oh my god you can see,' and they think they're the first person to think of that joke, but they're probably the 10,000th one to say that joke.
I think Trump is terrible for comedy. A lot of people say he is great. He's not. You can't joke a joke.
A lot of comedies fall apart because they just go from joke to joke, and the characters are all sort of being crazy off on their own.
I like that we don't have to come out the first 10 minutes and score, you know, with joke, joke, joke. We can open it in a more novel way and keep playing different pranks as we go through the thing.
One thing I hate in ethnic comedy is giving the audience the opportunity to laugh in a racist way at a thing. A lot of times dwarf comedians will do that, Arab comics, and gay comics will do it; everyone is laughing, but they're not laughing at the joke, they're laughing at this crazy character.
I like to joke about being gay because it's something teenagers would never joke about.
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.
I believe it is tough to be funny and tougher to make people laugh. And it needs to be been done effortlessly. A joke can be comedy, but one can kill the joke if it is delivered badly.
I really like comedy. There's always a choice, when you're writing: you can either go for the joke or you can go for the story, the important stuff.
I'm like a bumper car. When I did an infomercial I was fodder for every TV comedy show. I couldn't get a job. People said I was a huge joke. I've been a joke so many times. I've been on my way out since I started, but I'm strong-willed. My mother is so much tougher than I am and my grandmother is so much tougher than my mother.
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.
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.
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