said, “Take off the blindfold.”
That’s what these Ten Commandments will do for you. They’ll help you improve your comedy ability by taking off the blindfold.
I
THOU SHALT SURPRISE
Surprise is such an essential element of comedy that if your joke, story, anecdote, or piece of business doesn’t have a twist or a surprise to it, it’s not comedy. Perhaps the only exception to this is if you get a laugh and then elongate it, keep repeating it, or refer back to it occasionally. Even then, though, the laughter is built on the surprise of the initial gag.
The craft of stage magic is a good illustration of the use of surprise and it parallels the way comics use the same principle. When the magician is locked in chains inside a bag and sealed within a locked trunk, his beautiful assistant stands on the trunk, lifts a curtain around herself and suddenly, almost instantaneously, drops the curtain. In that fraction of a second, she is gone and the magician stands on the trunk. When that moment happens there is an audible gasp from the audience. Wow! That is unbelievable. Surprise is part of every magic illusion, and it should be part of every bit of comedy that’s done—and the impact should be just as astounding as the audience’s amazement at the magician’s skill.
Magicians rarely reveal the secret behind their tricks. Why? Because if the audience knows how the illusion is executed, there is no longer any surprise. Consequently, there’s little entertainment value.
What is surprise? It’s the unexpected, the twist, the sudden change of direction. W.C. Fields said once that comedy is when you expect something to break and it only bends. Some people contend that comedy is a battle of wits with your audience. Each of you is trying to outwit the other. Generally, the comic wins and the audience laughs in acknowledgment of how they’ve been duped. There’s truth to that because most people in an audience try to write the finish of the joke before the comic can utter it. However, the comedian, with good material, preparation, and knowing where he or she is headed, should out-clever the audience.
Timing is an important facet of surprise. You want to give the listeners time to start thinking of a punch line, but not enough time to outdo you, the comedian. This is like trying to upset someone by pulling the rug out from under them. That’s certainly a surprise, but only if you time it right. Of course, if you tell the victims that you’re going to surprise them, you won’t be able to pull off the gag because they won’t step onto the rug. However, even if you do dupe them onto the rug, you still have to time your action properly. Pull it too soon, and they won’t be standing on it yet. Pull it too late, and they’ll be gone when you pull it. Pull it at the exact right time—surprise!
There are several techniques for generating the surprise.
One device comics use is to misdirect the audience—to lead them like the Pied Piper, then suddenly change direction on them. Henny Youngman’s classic, among the most perfect one-liners ever written, employed misdirection:
Take my wife … please.
The first three words lead everyone to believe the comic is saying, “Let’s use my wife as an example.” But no. With that fourth word, he lets his listeners know that he is literally pleading for someone to take his wife. The misdirection is wonderfully effective.
Consider also this line from Rita Rudner:
I love being married. It’s so nice to find that one person you want to annoy for the rest of your life.
It certainly starts out on a positive note, but Rita was only playing with our minds, misdirecting our thoughts.
Shock is another technique for creating surprise. Blue humor falls into this category. When stuck for an ad lib or a punch line, some comics use shocking language. It gets laughs because listeners are surprised that anyone would use that language in public. Insults are another form of shock laughter. Don Rickles may say to another performer:
I’ve known you for a long time, right? We go back a long ways. I must tell you in all sincerity, I never liked you.
We laugh at that because it’s shocking, surprising, that one person would so blatantly say that to another.
One actor who did a Mark Twain performance would enter from the back of the hall, unannounced and unnoticed by the audience. From there he would pronounce loudly:
This is the worst looking crowd I’ve ever seen.
People laugh and applaud at the unusual beginning of the performance. During the applause, “Twain” ambles to the front of the hall and onto the stage. When the applause dies down, he gazes out at the audience and says:
You don’t look a heluva lot better from up here.
It’s so audacious and shocking that it generates a very appreciative laugh from the onlookers.
Traditional comedy wisdom advises putting the key word at the end of the sentence because this technique enhances the element of surprise. It’s similar to cracking a whip: You can swing a whip as hard as you want, but it will not crack until you change its direction. It’s the sudden snapping of the whip in the opposite direction that causes the loud report. Similarly, your comedy will crackle when you have that surprise close to the end of the sentence. There is a book titled Marriage is Forever... Some Days Longer. It’s the last word that gets that whip to crack.
It’s not always possible to put the punch word at the very end of the sentence, but as the following joke demonstrates, it still helps to get it as near to the end as possible:
My friend is so cheap, he not only has the first dollar he ever made, but also the arm of the man who handed it to him.
Sometimes simply revealing keen or eccentric observations to an audience furnishes the surprise. The humorist mentions some phenomenon that should have been obvious, but no one except the humorist seems to have noticed it. The surprise is when the audience realizes that they should have seen this before. It’s true. It was right before their eyes, but they failed to recognize it so they laugh in surprise when the comic points it out. Jerry Seinfeld’s observation falls into this category:
You know what I don’t understand. Why do skydivers wear helmets?
George Carlin also asks:
Why do we park on driveways and drive on parkways?
Another simple way of furnishing surprise is by a sudden change of expression, pitch, or loudness. Sometimes a comedian can just make a face and it gets a laugh. It’s an expression we didn’t expect. Often a comic will speak in a normal voice and then shout for some reason or another. The change of volume is a surprise. As a standup comic, Jim Carrey peppered his routines with goofy, ridiculous faces and poses. They got laughs. Picture the antics of Harpo Marx. He never spoke professionally, but some of his sudden and surprising moves and faces were hilarious.
Another technique is to surprise the audience by allowing them to mentally complete your joke for you. Imply your punch line rather than coming right out and declaring it. Say it by not saying it. The surprise here comes from the audience automatically
