Why Are Jokes Funny? Takeaways from Greg Dean's Step by Step Stand-Up Comedy

In this video, I’ll share some of the fascinating gems that I picked up from Greg Dean’s book Step by Step Stand Up Comedy. I’ll include the best answer I’ve found to the question — what makes a joke funny?

Please subscribe and leave comments below!
*** A truncated transcript follows. A full transcript can be found at https://www.marblejar.net/blog/2018/1.... ***

Hi, everyone. This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar channel and in today’s video, I’ll share some of the fascinating gems that I picked up from Greg Dean’s book Step by Step Stand Up Comedy. I’ll include the best answer I’ve found to the question — what makes a joke funny?

My friends and family think it is strange that I have this obsession with comedy and specifically, what makes things funny. After all, I’m not a cut up, I don’t churn out jokes and puns, and I am almost never the funniest person in the room. But I love to laugh, comedians are some of my very favorite people, and frankly, wanting to know how comedy works springs directly from my deep interest in how human behavior works. It turns out it’s not really not that much of a leap.

So, I have been reading some books about comedy. Most of these, not shockingly, are NOT exactly what I’m looking for — they are more for the comic practitioner than someone interested in the nuts and bolts of humor, but I was thrilled to find that Greg Dean had both perspectives in his book.

If I were a working stand up, or I wanted to break into the business — I would definitely read this book or sign up for one of his workshops. He had great advice for everything from building a routine, to specifics on how to rehearse, to handling hecklers. But in addition to this, he has a universal theory on why jokes are funny and a step by step guide to writing funny jokes. That is what I plan to cover here. First, let's start with his

Universal theory
on why things are funny. He contends that all jokes are made up of 2 parts — we know these parts as the setup and the punchline. Now, lots of jokes don’t have a spoken setup, but we’ll come back to that in a moment. Dean’s theory is that in order for something to be funny, it has to surprise you. In order for you to be surprised, you have to be expecting something else first. So, that is what a joke does — it causes you to expect something first, and then it surprises you with something different. Here's how Dean says it works — quote: “The setup of a joke creates a 1st Story in our minds that leads us to expect something; then the punch surprises us with a 2nd Story that’s compatible with, yet somehow different from, what we’re expecting.”

Here’s an example from the book. It’s a great quote from Stephen King who was asked how he comes up with such imaginative story lines for his horror books. He responded “I still have the heart of a little boy . . . In a jar on my desk.” Okay — let’s analyze that with Dean’s theory. The setup of that joke is “I still have the heart of a little boy”. That creates a story in our minds that is fleshed our by our own experiences, assumptions, and expectations. We assume he’s describing his ability to pull stories from his active, childlike imagination. And we naturally assume he will continue with that story line. So, when he says the punchline -- “in a jar on my desk” -- we are momentarily disoriented. We are still traveling down the path of the first story, where the heart is a metaphor for a playful, active imagination. Then it takes a beat or two before we “get” the new story (where the heart is actually a dismembered organ in fermaldehyde). That moment of surprise is where the humor lives.


What is important to note is how much information for the first story that WE automatically supply without being explicitly told. As humans, we are constantly adding information to stories based on prior experiences, cultural norms, stereotypes, and other implicit understandings we have about the world. It helps us to better predict outcomes in an uncertain world. Jokes take advantage of all of these assumptions to surprise us and make us laugh. As I mentioned before, most jokes don’t even need a set up since the setup is already implied by the knowledge of the world around us. Like many sight gags (like someone using a banana as a phone) or even physical comedy. Watch this video and think about your expectations.

Our expectation is that this dog is going to land safely on the couch. The intense hero music helps with that expectation. When that doesn't happen, it’s funny! Even if there is no explicit setup. . .