Lessons stand-ups can learn from improvisers #2: If this is true what else is true?
Lessons stand-ups can learn from improvisers #2: If this is true what else is true?
[inauthentic] punchlines can feel like they’re bent out of shape to fit the premise, rather than the punchline being the result of imaginative causality
This is a term that springs from the long-form improv world in relation to game.
Game is a pattern, it’s the “funny part” or as improvisers say the “unusual thing” in a scene. The unusual thing can’t be complex or contain multiple sub-things. It can’t require that you have any prior information. Because this idea is so pure and simple, it’s easy to “play a game” or “repeat the pattern” of this idea. Each time the pattern repeats, one would expect the pattern to become more surprising, to “heighten” as our brains still need that surprise in order to laugh.
If you want to learn more about game, you can never ever do better than
who always breaks things down in a super down to earth manner. Read his article about game here.Think of some of your favorite comedy routines. What is the “unusual thing” in that routine?
Ali says the game very clearly here:
Setup (and unusual thing): It takes so little to be considered a great dad and it also takes so little to be considered a shitty mom
Every picture [no matter how “ugly”] a hot girl on instagram posts is a thirst trap
Stand-ups often call the method of having a funny concept and then repeating the pattern: “tagging”. I prefer to call it “if this is true what else is true” or IFTIT. Tagging is just asking “what’s another joke?”, with IFTIT you are creating and exploring a new world of your own creation. In this world, anything can happen! You are the master and you get to decide what is and isn’t funny.
If you’ve taken my beginner’s class, you should understand the concept of afterthought. This is a term I coined from master improv teacher Logan Murray.
Afterthoughts are almost always the reason why we laugh at a comedian’s routine. If the first thought is the set-up, the afterthought can be seen as the punchline. The afterthought is the line that supplies the other half of the joke equation. Really, it is a less daunting way for the new comedian to define a punchline.
Afterthoughts are something that most of us are trained to use in everyday life. We may use them in the workplace (managers might use them to show that they are not some inhuman tyrant); we could supply some self-deprecating comment at a party to show we aren’t ‘really’ bragging about our job or status; or we might add a silly afterthought to a comment on a first date to broadcast, in an unconscious way of course, what a witty and funny individual we are and how much it would be worth getting to know us better.
Logan Murray - Get Started In Stand-Up Comedy
IFTIT is a “level 2” approach to this concept. It’s asking you not only to add funny afterthoughts, but to make these after thoughts feel natural, like we are shining a torch around a world that already exists. It’s an act of uncovering the comedy that is already there, rather than “tagging on” new ideas that might not feel totally real. These ideas can feel like they’re bent out of shape to fit the premise, rather than the punchline being the result of imaginative causality. You might argue these concepts garner identical results, a joke that has many sub-jokes attached to it, that is fully explored. But I believe when you watch a newer comedians set, they are a funny person telling you jokes. When you see an experienced comedian, it is more like a tour-guide showing you the world in a whole new way and/or showing you around a parallel universe.
I'm not looking for much, I just want, like a really nice guy who has, you know, like a job... and the missing half of this golden amulet.
Maria Bamford
In this un-paywalled exercise we learn that giving your routines a strong heading is a really good idea.
The function of this heading is to distill the game in that header. You are explaining as concisely as you can what is the funny part of the comedy routine written out below the header. Often routines suffer from being confusing, from going off on tangents that distract and don’t add to the overall “funny part” of your routine.
Here’s an example from my own set. Trigger warning: penises and vaginas.
(heading) People think big dicks are great but there’s only so much that can go in
Why are dudes obsessed with having big dicks?
I mean firstly, owch! There’s only so much that can go in. You have to stop when you reach bone - you can’t keep going, I’m not the Eurotunnel. You’re not going to find France (act-out) Bonjour! You can’t change in Brussels… unless I know you well!
Each line is more or less the result of asking “If this is true what else is true?”, despite the result being fairly unhinged, but that’s how I like it.
Tomorrow I’ll be posting an exercise on this subject but it’s just for people that truly love me.