So I’m working on being funny in the interests of my live shows with Sparky and with Cato. In particular, I’ve been interested in how to construct a joke. The book “unleash your comic genius” by Adam Bloom has been incredibly insightful and I’m conscious that I’m an amateur in a world of super-pros.
Saturday, I adlibbed a “joke” that I now have as a thing to work with. It didn’t work then, but I’ve been playing it over with different people for 24 hours and it’s teaching me lots of fun stuff.
Some caveats:
It references an adult woman who came to our gig at the Wheeltapper in Loughborough on Saturday July 19th. It’s not about her. It’s about me.
I was concerned enough about getting that wrong that I called out her friend Sarah (who we know) to be present whilst I told the joke.
Now: really important stuff. In Cato, I often play a high-status role as compere and leader of the entertainment. I would totally have done what Chris Martin did this week and called out the couple who flinched on the Kiss Kam and as a result told the world that they were cheating on their partners. In the moment, that’s a brilliantly funny line, and it’s their fault that they hadn’t factored it into their “workflow”.
In the Fatzorro & Sparky setup, I routinely play low status (Sparkles plays high status, to comic effect). I would *never* dream of making someone feel awkward or small as a result of one of my lines in a FZ&S gig. When we started, the typical line from me was pretty much an Emo Philips staple of “you look like my first girlfriend”. “Would you like to be?” Me as the weird loser. And now here’s some Dolly Parton.
So, here’s the gag. I’ll do it as I think I did it on the night. I’m pretty sure I’m changing it all the time, but that’s how jokes work right?
Setup: pretty adult woman walks into bar we’re playing. She’s with a woman we know. It’s kinda obvious that she’s out to be lovely. It turns out later that she’s just out of a tough relationship, so as we suspect, she’s trying and succeeding to be her best. She looks great. She is a little overdressed for this bar, but only to the extent that everyone who might be appreciative is, indeed, appreciative.
Specifically, she is displaying a number of the traits that I know Sparky admires in people. He is as happily married as anyone I know, and yet it’s impossible not to know the shopping list of one’s boy pals at this level of what passes as intimacy between men. I exaggerate it to comic effect here.
Jesus: the joke. It doesn’t land on the night but I’ll work on it. Here it is.
Interior. Wheeltapper pub, Loughborough. The band has played for two hours already when “The Blonde” walks in. They play ten minutes more, and it is inescapable that she is happy to draw attention.
Fatzorro (for it is he) starts:
“I don’t know about you, but I’ve been getting pretty freaked out about how good AI is at synthesizing stuff for you attention.
“Case in point: this extraordinary woman seems like she’s been carefully designed to fulfill both my and Sparky’s wishlists.
[set-up seems to suggest the joke is about The Blonde but that is not the case]
“For Sparky: she’s blonde, she’s wearing solid NHS specs, a beautiful Chinese dress and rocker boots”
[we’re there. Bloom’s “see-saw” allows for a long setup. So long as the payoff is short
[the joke is that we’ve described all the obvious sexy traits of the Blonde. The “and for me” part is where I need help. I’m aiming for something so horrific that it’s funny. I go with:]
“And she looks a bit like Sparky’s mum”.
*space where laughter should be…*
Now: I think that’s funny. It doesn’t land and it causes some minor offence for people who think I’m saying The Blonde looks like Sparky’s mother. Lovely as she is, I don’t have a thing for her.
It objectively didn’t work. But as an item that can been shaped and polished, I have my first thing.
I had already dismissed some more outré payoffs:
“And she looks a bit like my first wife”
“And she still has both her own arms”
“And she looks a bit like Sparky’s dad”
“And she’s not Norwegian”.
But that’s not it, is it.
Here are my notes to self:
It might not be very funny, and it’ll only work when there’s a dramatically different person there.
You need to emphasize that she is a magical amalgam of BOTH OF OUR (pretend) WEIRD PREFERENCES
It might need a longer set of “sparky likes” things. Try that.
It needs a clearer hinge.
“And, of course, for me:”?
“And I get:”
“And somehow the AI knows that I’ve got a thing for:”
That’s my next tryout. I’ll be doing this as much as I can with friends one-to-one. I feel like it’s got some merit.
I love British comedy. It would be lovely to get one joke that feels like it’s been work.
———-
Footnote
Here it is mechanically:
1 AI can make stuff that’s designed to appeal to very specific audiences.
2 Sparky and I have different ideas of what’s attractive in people.
3 This person seems like a strange amalgam of what we both like
4 [definition of traditional factors of attractiveness for sparky]
[pivot]
5 [description of obviously deranged factor of attractiveness for me]
*laugh*
Keep trying.
Try not to lick it 