How to make your writing funnier - Cheri Steinkellner

Did you ever notice how many jokes start with “Did you ever notice?” And what’s the deal with “What’s the deal?” There’s a lot of funny to be found simply by noticing the ordinary, everyday things you don’t ordinarily notice every day. Emmy Award-winning comedy writer Cheri Steinkellner offers a few tips and tricks for finding the funny in your writing.

Lesson by Cheri Steinkellner, animation by Anton Bogaty.

[Galliut]

*I took your advice, now I am bullied in school.*

[InvaderZim]

What about a scientist turning himself into a pickle? That sounds like the funniest thing I’ve ever seen.

[poweroffriendship.]

_"In the future, humor will be randomly generated..."_

*-- Larry The Cucumber (Veggie Tales)*

[elvenalonly]

"Excuse me ma'am. Your son has been hit by a truck, he's dead!"

**Comedy**

[krazykrissy]

if you replace the "w" in "what, where when", with a "t" you answer the questions

[dizzyi]

So it's about this scientist named Rick


And he turns himself into a pickle. He becomes Pickle Rick

[kingkenno]

This video just confirms to me that comedy is a subject that we can all understand in our own way yet is incredibly difficult to teach another.

[economath]

Quoting Will Rogers reminded me of that quote by Mel Brooks: "Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die."

[myeahok]

Wow, even the comment section isn't funny.

[nallyaaaaaa]

"we laugh at things that seem out of place or run up our expectations"

ah, no wonder us gen z people laugh at the most random stuff

[pureawkwardness]

"Why are there so many disco jokes here?"

"That's *nun* of your business"

I'm so sorry

[boy]

Please do a video on what is humour and why we laugh. I wonder what's the evolution benefit of laughter for example...

[littleblueclovers]

Another thing that makes comedy is to return to jokes. If you watch a standup comedy special, chances are that they'll make 10 jokes and later on, reference the 1st one.

[haringyna]

irony and satire are the main ingredient in comedy

[EricHeidenAuthor]

My favorite type of comedic "incongruity" is pairing an action with an unlikely reaction, like when a character UNDER-reacts to something major or serious.

For example, take the "Fractured Fairy Tales" version of 'Androcles and the Lion.' When the title character learns that he's going to be thrown to the lions, his immediate reaction-rather than something a normal person would do, like weep in terror-is to simply get annoyed and say "well, this is sure going to ruin my summer."

[chronicgamesde]

Something I feel like this is really missing, is the Focus of comedy on true aspects of human nature. Take for example a epic drama scene in which the ceo makes a speech, but the cinematography, (lighting, camersa angles, etc) Highlights him dropping a pen a bunch of time because he is fidgeting with it, or it highlights his "uhms" instead of the actual content, all while still reinforcing the epicness with movie and hard lighting and so on. You can make a comedy out of almost everything simply by focusing on things that are usually ignored and how absurd we really are. A Action Hero can be awesome but what if he gets hurts in stupid ways a lot (Jackie Chan) or what if the detective is incredible Smart, but the cobclusion is always something simple or dna evidence solvds the case? In a way comedy is a Genre deconstruction of every other.

[CaramellDark]

2:27 “I choose pickle”
My brain: PicKLe RICk!!

[raptorthegamer]

Or you can do something that makes the reader think, like
"What was the first person to milk a cow doing with the cow"

[TheAnakinn]

In Germany we have a word for laughing at something bad happening to someone else: "Schadenfreude" (=damage/harm joy) And a proverb says that that's the best kind of joy :D

[daveteves]

The narrator kept pushing in the "disco" joke. It's just not working.