the comedy lesson

So you want to make people laugh do you? Well before you go galloping off trying I’d like to review a few things otherwise you might hurt yourself or someone close to you. You’re not trying to kill someone are you? Are you?

I didn’t think so.

First of all let’s discuss profanity. You see more and more of it these days and the conventional wisdom seems to be that it is ok as long as there is a point to it and it isn’t gratuitous.

Wrong.

Conventional wisdom forgot why people curse in the first place. And another thing, when is the last time you laughed at conventional wisdom? Not including the conventional wisdom that profanity should never be used gratuitously of course.

I think it would be easier to demonstrate my point with a joke.

Knock knock.

Who’s there?

Go fuck yourself.

Go fuck yourself who?

Open the fucking door already.

As you can clearly see that is funny. It makes no sense but you can’t deny it’s funny. Well, I guess you could deny it but you’d be wrong. What makes it funny? The gratuitous use of the word fuck. So the takeaway from this is that profanity is funny.

Let’s view this from another angle. There is an old joke that goes as follows:

What’s the difference between Cirque du Soleil and the Rockettes?

One is a bunch of cunning stunts.

No questioning that’s funny. It lets the listener of the joke figure out the punchline themselves. There is inference of profanity but none is actually uttered. If funny isn’t good enough for you though I’d suggest it be told this way:

What’s the difference between Cirque du Soleil and the Rockettes?

One is a bunch of stunning cunts.

Now that’s hilarious. I suggest you try it both ways to see for yourself. I doubt many of your listeners will even bother to work out the word play and just roar that you said cunts out loud.

You see where I’m going with this?

Worried that somebody might be offended? Don’t be. People need to be offended every now and then. It’s healthy. If they don’t vent a little self-righteous indignation from time to time they end up bottling it up and either sitting in a bell tower with a high-powered rifle or, much far worse, starting a bible/torah/koran study group.

Ok, one last example and then I send you off to be funny on your own. This is a bit cerebral so try and stay with me.

The other day I opened my front door and screamed “Hey you kids! Get the fuck off my lawn!”

2 things you should know. One, I live in a townhouse so it’s really not my lawn. And two, there were no kids outside at the time.

Now some of you are wondering why this is funny.

Exactly.

In and of itself it’s not. It might be interesting and make the listener think you’re smarter than you really are but any actual guffaws would have to be created inside their own head. Except for the fact you said “Get the fuck off my lawn!”. If you say that loud enough and wildly swing your arms about people will laugh. Even though what follows isn’t exactly funny. I bet if you pretend to be really old the laugh will be bigger.

So there you have it. Humor and profanity are like peanut butter and jelly.

Now go write a blockbuster comedy.

Oh yeah, and if you’re ever at the University of South Carolina ask everyone you meet on campus if their women’s sports teams are called the Gamecunts. Would love to see that mascot.