/lit/ - Literature

live an extremely shitty life, and make light of it.

Comedy is hard. I wish you luck, but have no idea how to advise you other than to suggest that you read funny books and try to pick up on what they do.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wE_WXM93WdU&feature=channel_video_title

Watch more and write more

Read some Oscar Wilde, Don Quixote, and even Dostoevsky.

how is this picture related? i never liked allen. to what end do you want to write comedy? who's doing the review? there is no rule of funny. you have to learn the taste of your public. allen wrote some wisecracks on that topic; mostly obscurantism and mystification.
i warmly suggest you to read the ars poetica of horace instead. it works for every single of the arts.

>>1646929
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSwXwTe3NiY

>>1646932
Picture is, obviously, related since Allen wrote comedic screenplays and for shows.

>>1646938
>Judaeo-cinematography
lol'd
will be watching this. thanks.
apropos, Allen's Life and Fate is better left untouched. it is extremely superficial. at this point woody had presumably just read some summaries on things he tried to lampoon

>>1646923
OP Here:

This is genius!

Does anyone have any real suggestions?

>>1646955
>Allen wrote comedic screenplays and for shows.
and so did millions of other nebbish folks. are you planning to write for "the shows"? how did your allen make the leap from a sideshow performer into cinema? that is the first i would look into.
however, things have changed. the internets have wrecked the talents market in a major subprime crisis. the best advice from me to you would than be to be born his nephew.

>>1646978
do you have any real questions?

>>1646983

How much should I write a day? How can I light a fire under my ass to write? Where should I look for job? Should I continue doing stand-up?

http://splitsider.com/2011/03/the-dan-harmon-school-of-comedy-writing/

>>1646988
where do you live? what are your aims? what kind of education do you have? what topics do you write about? how many times and on what stages have you had performed so far?

Read Masters of Atlantis by Charles Portis

A good way to write comedy is be funny

>>1647004
then could you please explain the success of Friends, Everybody Loves Raymond and The Cosby Show

>>1647001
where do you live?
Near Toronto, Ontario.
what are your aims?
I'd say writing for a cult comedy show (on TV), or doing a movie once a year.
what kind of education do you have?
High school and taking a creative writing course online.
I have an internship doing kid's tv coming up soon. If that works out, I'll take some more online writing courses.
what topics do you write about?
I'm more a high-brow comedy writer.
how many times and on what stages have you had performed so far?
I have performed 3 times at a stand-up open mic in Toronto. Comedians seem to like my work, it's just I need to get some confidence and not read my jokes off a sheet.

>>1647013
laugh tracks

> high-brow comedy writer
give us some examples

>>1647045
You want a sample of a one-liner I do?

Read up on violation of expectation.

>>1647054
yes

>>1647059

Here's one that does all right:
Everyone had a name for the groups they hung out with in high school. Ours was called the lepers.

The joke that always goes over well is:
When ever I hear a Rhihanna song, I wish Chris Brown punched her in the larynx.

>>1647074
who are your favourite comedians?

>>1647074
Those jokes are terrible

>>1647078
Woody Allen
Demetri Martin
Mitch Hedberg
Lenny Bruce
Bill Hicks
Jerry Seinfeld
David O'Doherty

I'm sure you could tell .

spousal abuse, lmbo

>>1647080
Op Here:

Yes, they are. I'm usually a sketch writer, but the whole world of stand-up is new to me.

>>1647087
Op Here:

It's a throw away joke.

>>1647087
Spousal abuse can be hilarous. For example, imagine Porky Pig being married to Elmer Fudd, and beating the shit out of him. Doesn't that just make you lol??

>>1647106

/lit/ - Humor for 5 year old children

>>1647106

only becasue of the stuttering

>>1647074
7.75/10 troll

-everything/10 genuine attempt at "high-brow" (!!!) comedy

>>1647118
I just don't have a good examples. My sketches are more "high-brow" than my stand-up. One of my skits is Marcel Proust and Socrates arguing while filling out a Proust Questionnaire.

>>1647106
"One o' these days, Elmer, POW, right in the pdpdpddpd right in the pdpd right in the pdpd face"

>>1647122
You're damn right you don't have any good examples.

>>1647128
Well, humor is subjective.With my stand-up I'm trying to appeal to a roomful of drunk people, and a few people high on coke.

>>1647016
>Near Toronto, Ontario.
that's bad. i have no idea how shit works in canada. sorry. you better ask your real life peers in business.
>I'd say writing for a cult comedy show (on TV),
you will need a formal education and field experience. say you apply tomorrow to Bioware as a writer - what would you put into such an application? what would you want if you were an executive?
>or doing a movie once a year.
borrow $10000 and have a devout circle of friends. make it good and sell it.
>I have performed 3 times at a stand-up open mic in Toronto.
can you link what you have done so far? do you have a portfolio? have you had any serious contracts? the common sense is to pour your best material which you have been brooding over all your life to make the break-through on open mic. watch the professionals and be significantly better. be memorable, the next time you demand cash.
>Comedians seem to like my work, it's just I need to get some confidence and not read my jokes off a sheet.
success isn't measured in pleasantries. reading off a sheet would be seen as suicide here. you are ought to connect to the public.
>online writing courses
apply for real education. you cannot learn anything, it is talent + common sense.
>I'm more a high-brow comedy writer
d.k., but Austria, Switzerland and Germany do have the "Kabarett" as an established form of high brow entertainment in the cities. you need to apply for university to look at all the useless high brow shit that students. the rule is that you cannot swing a cat without hitting a high brow comedian/writer on campus.
topical humour is hot business here and, basicly, always the same joke retold. it's great to get your first contracts this way.

good standup http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRp_r-EHmfs

>>1647122
I'm sure you use first-year humanities seminar allusions in your sketches and everything yet I suspect that doesn't elevate them above the level of intelligence you'd expect from someone with awkwardly-worded "kinda wish Chris Brown had punched Rihanna in the THROAT! Because HER MUSIC IS BAD!!!!" jokes in his routine

>>1647114
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSt_76HR2Mk

>>1647134
Say you apply tomorrow to Bioware as a writer - what would you put into such an application?
-I would put some of my sketch samples in there, i suppose.

What would you want if you were an executive?
-As an executive at Bioware?I suppose I would want people who can think quickly on their feet.
can you link what you have done so far?
- I have most of them recorded. They went all right. I di not bomb and I did not do fantastic.
Do you have a portfolio?
- I have a sketch writing portfolio.
have you had any serious contracts?
Yes, I do. I know a few famous comedians and writers.

Thanks for the advice, bro.

As for the whole education thing, I applied and got accepted into an advertising program, as well as some office admin jobs. If that paid internship writing and producing kid's tv gos well, I'll apply to Harvard or UCLA online or something

>>1646938
>>1646938
>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSwXwTe3NiY
This same plot was reused in a short story by the Russian writer Mikhail Veller:
Everyman kills native in Africa.
The murder is covered up by his friends.
Enter Sonya figure. He imitates Raskolnikov.
The lives of his friends are destroyed.
Out of jail he becomes an underclass alcoholic.
It is to be found in his Veller's Легенды Невского Проспекта. D.k. if it was ever translated but all the educated Russians know it.

>>1647140
4/10

>>1647136
I do like Emo Phillips.

>>1647140
>first-year humanities seminar allusions
this is the very definition of high brow. your fine baburnama allusions will be lost on everyone aside from people taking the same course.

Hey OP, I don't have much concrete advice to give accept that for me, comedy is largely spontaneous. I can't sit down and just think of funny things. It's the movement and passage of experiences that leads to hilarious happenings. I also think stand up is best formed in this more natural way, as it is essentially just conversation.

Always remember that laughter is our response to the absurd. Good luck.

>>1647230
Best advice so far.
I try to come up with at least four funny ideas or situations a day.
You seem like a stand-up comedian. Do you have any advice for gaining confidence on stage?

>>1647230
yup. keep in touch with people from all walks of life.

Be Jewish?

>>1647260
There are a lot of Jewish comedians where I do stand-up.

>>1647239
>Do you have any advice for gaining confidence on stage?
http://rhetoric.byu.edu/Primary%20Texts/Cicero-DeOratore.htm
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Quintilian/Institutio_Oratoria/home.html

>>1647260
>Be Jewish
tried that. doesn't work.

>>1647267
And I bet their bits are head and shoulders above yours.

Convert, or something.

>>1647274
Do you have skype of something?

>>1647274
evidently it does

Op Here:

I'm going to bed. If you want to talk on skype, add me:
lucian.of.samosata

>>1647284
evidently austria is entirely emancipated from our jewish yoke, anon. apparently it works where you have actual jews because actual jews do like it a lot because it was our national pastime in the pale.
for germans you're just the skeleton in their closet. on the scale between the funny and the uncanny you are more an early bunuel than the pythons. i will have to move.
the only big jewish humourist in great reich territory is oliver polak, a low brow bloke. the art is knowing what you better should avoid unless you wanna be performing in the synagogue to the local red terrorist cell.

>>1647314
i am talking to you right now. link what you have done so far und ich wir werden uns schon melden.

>>1647317
that's unfortunate, but in case I was unclear I only said that ( >>1647284 ) because I laughed at your post for some reason

>>1647239
Not a comedian in any professional sense.

As far as confidence on stage goes, it just takes time. I know that's probably not what you want to hear, but I truly feel it's an issue of practice.

whatever. but i'm really in the mood to watch op in action. is he even still there?

>>1647341
>it's an issue of practice.
yup. i recently watched an early biermann (=the german jacques brel) and he was rather cute.

>Do you have any recommendations on becoming a more productive (and funnier) comedy writer?
Get a tripcode and post here more often.

If I'm trying to be funny I just write whatever bullshit comes to mind and hope it makes people laugh.
Also, I want to publish a book where the last page tastes like Kool-aid if you lick it. But I won't tell anybody,that way the one guy who did lick the page would know it tasted like kool aid and would sit around in public licking the kool aid page. And everybody around him would stare at him and think he is insane, but he wouldn't care, because he'd be in flavor heaven.
I think that would cool.

>>1647512

mornin

Wow! Gnome Chomsky.

improve your memory so you can have witty observations and jokes

i have a friend who is just fucking hilarious. It may be American humor or not but he's just too funny. He was once smoking marijuana and i asked him what was the highest he's ever been. He replied "The highest i've ever been... Mount. Everest". In high school he walks into class an hour late with a Taco Bell bag in his hands, doesn't say a word and just tosses a taco on the professors' desk. By this point he's familiar with his antics. The professor tells him, "you can go outside and eat your taco" and he responds with "na, I'm waiting for it to turn 18". It's mainly the delivery and context that makes it funny.

>>1648600
He should go into it professionally for sure.

>>1648600
I assume you also find the sun rising amusing.

Oh look, I said "ass". LOLOLOLOL

>>1648604
what makes him funny is how unapologetic he is. If i had to, i would compare him and his humor to South Park.

another story; One day a friend and i met up with him after school. He was standing outside of the mathematics building and we asked what he was up to. He said "I'm taking pre algebra. I have to take a quiz i missed" he then pulls out one of those $5 calculators out of his pocket "and i'm cheating".

Another time back in the same class where he tossed his taco, he would sit facing me. The desks were split on two sides with the professors' in the center against the wall. So once the prof. walked towards the back of the class to have a 1 on 1 with another student who had a question and so everything was on pause. So my friend took this time to try and make me laugh. He made his hand into a fist as though he was holding a cock and would pretend to suck on it with the "chicken head" neck gesture. I'm laughing and he doesn't notice the professor is now directly behind and to the right of him. He sees him too late and the prof asks "What.. are you doing?" and he replies "i- i'm yawning. AWWWWww"

>>1648615
>south park
>humour

Come on man.

>>1648615
So when are you going to fuck him?

He sounds like he's really not that funny. Not funny at all even.

>>1648617
http://www.southparkstudios.com/full-episodes/s04e10-do-the-handicapped-go-to-hell

what's wrong is how you don't find south park funny

>>1648615
The last one was pretty funny actually.
One time a girl in my class wasn't feeling well and the whole class was silent, my friend said to me "Wouldn't it be great if she just threw up everywhere?", he said it quietly but everyone else heard and the teacher was just like "wtf?"

damn writing down antics makes them less funny

>>1648621
what's wrong is how I know you didn't get the point of the episode, substituting meaning and humour for blind ignorance and prejudice.

>>1648621
How about that it isn't funny?

Considering the content of your previous posts, I don't blame you for liking it... braindead stonerfags always do.

south park is kinda funny ig you cut off the last 10-15 minutes.

Because they're not funny

bump

just act like everything you say's a joke, bro :D :D

>>1650010
this will actually work

>>1650010
It's a good idea.