10 Rules of Stand Up Comedy
Stand-up comedy is probably the hardest of all the performing arts.
I once played a gig in which my very first joke fell flatter than egg under an elephants foot.(or is a that paw). Actually it made some people turn their backs and they were mostly in the front seats. It took me over 15 minute to get those audience members to turn back. It was one what we call a “hell gig”.
No matter what, your audience is never at fault, the material is just not yet right. In this business, the customer IS always right. You have to make them buy what you are selling. Or it is just not your audience. You can’t please everybody.
So how do you make your first steps into becoming a comedian? Here are the first of ten rules to help you write your own first stand-up comedy routine.
1. The first joke, that first impression, is the most important. The audience is the judge, the jury. They must actively show approval by laughing. Anything else is total failure and torture for the want-to-be comedian. “Make me laugh, funny person”, is the unspoken challenge from the audience. If you do not deliver, and fast, then you are blown, dead in the water, in performer’s nightmare. Recovering from a bad start is simply hell.
2. The last joke is the second most important. Most people will only remember your last joke. It will probably be the one they tell other people when they talk about you. Make it one that will make people want to hear the rest.
3. Open strong and close strong and put nothing bad between these two. If you have no more great punchlines, get off stage. Some stand up comedians become famous and successful with little more than an opening and a closing, with sometimes only 3-4 minutes on stage. If people laugh all the time a comedian is on stage, no matter how short, they will want more.
4. Build your middle material carefully by taking an idea and getting the most out of it as possible. You may have a good imagination for where it goes but if others did they would be comedians. Lead them to the water and let them drink. Don’t leave them in the middle of a desert with an ice cream map.
5. Your facial expression and look is part of your routine. Words are only about 30% of communication. The rest is the tone, volume, the timing, facial expression appearance etc. If you are fat, thin, well dressed, scruffy, black, white, yellow, brown, even your accent when you start to speak will be an important comedy tool for you to use. In fact some of the best comedians try to look the most different and have excellent physical and facial storytelling skills.
6. Comedians do not write jokes; we write observations and ideas, opinions and arguments, but intelligently and sprinkle in some killer punchlines. If you know what annoys people you have the thing that will make them laugh the hardest.
7. Funny situations make people laugh. But they laugh the most if they can imagine the situation because they have been there or seen it themselves. They laugh the most if the situation is extremely embarrassing or extremely upsetting. Drinking situational jokes work with soldiers, politics works with activists and sex jokes work with everyone but devout Catholics.
8. A good joke can be like good magic or great scripts. It is often about misdirection. Lead your audience to think one direction. In the last second, the main punchline, turn the tables. Hit them with that twist at the end.
9. Even though the material is vital; more importantly a comedian must be honest to who they are and what they believe. If they do not believe the message in their material (and material with a message is better) then no one will take them seriously as a funny man. An audience can see a fake, faster on the comedy stage than on any other stage. You can be anything and anyone as a comedian but you cannot be stupid and you cannot be dishonest. This leads to the last secret.
10. The best comedians have the strongest opinions. If an audience knows nothing about the comedian’s personal views by the time they leave then nothing worth hearing was said and they will not remember that comedian. In comedy nothing is off limits because in life nothing is off limits. Not everyone will agree but those who do will be the most loyal fans, and those who disagree will probably still talk about it anyway. Comedy lives from our battle with our illogical politically incorrect selves.
In addition to this, if a stand up comedian makes an audience forget their problems by making them laugh then they have done their job well.
If a comedian makes the audience think about other people’s problems, after making them laugh, then he or she has not only done a great job but has also made a difference.
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