Why Are Jokes Funny? Take-aways from Greg Dean’s Step by Step Stand-Up Comedy

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.  Now let’s talk about Dean’s 

Joke Diagram

Dean dissects this further by breaking down jokes into their most minute components. He does this to show function, but also to give some terminology for his step by step joke creation system. The second part of this video covers an overview of this system. Okay — here is his joke diagram:

Let’s try to fill this out based on a classic Groucho Marx joke: outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.

I confess to liking to break things down into component parts, but practically this is also useful in using Dean’s

Joke Prospector System

This is the system he uses to create new jokes.  His system seemed foolproof enough that even I, someone who doesn’t have great facility with one liners, was persuaded that I might be able to write a couple of funny jokes using his system.  The Joke Prospector is a two part system composed of the

• Joke Map
• Joke Mine

The Joke Map helps you write a bunch of setups off of a single topic and the Joke Mine drills down to find punchlines for each setup. If you really want to do this, I suggest you read the book, but here it is in a nutshell.  

Joke Map

To follow his prospecting for gold analogy, the Joke Map helps to focus in on an area (topic) and identify some promising setups from this one topic. One of my favorite observations from this book is the idea that our sense of humor evolved as a means of coping with painful things. What that means is that your jokes will be better if you choose a topic that is uncomfortable for you or for others. He defines the topic as a single subject presenting something wrong. It has to be broad enough to get multiple jokes out of like a recent breakup, or your relationship with your family, or some broad thing you are annoyed about.   Let’s walk this through with an example he gives in the book:

Topic: my family

First you make an association list to generate a bunch of ideas about your family (mother, father, family vacations). Now, from that list, determine a punch premise —so that means a negative feeling you have about something on the list.  If you have a bunch of negative opinions, you can write jokes about each of them.  And that is essentially how you build a set, but back to our joke. Let’s say our punch premise is “My relationship with my mother was very bad.”  Remember, this is an example from the book — not my example.  So, now you are going to reverse that punch premise to make the setup premise “my relationship with my mother was very good.”  Right?  2 opposing story lines. Now, Because the set up process is actually the reverse of what we believe, we are going to have to use some imagination and creativity to come up with some set-up options.  Here are a couple “ I call my mom all the time” or “thinking of my mom makes me smile.“  OK – now let’s pick one of those set ups and plug that into the diagram. Will choose, “I call my mom all the time.” Now that we have our set up right now, we can use Dean’s

Joke Mine

To create some punchlines off of that setup.  This part has significant detail, so I’ll just say, basically you are going to figure out a bunch of assumptions that go into your setup, choose one, then figure out what the connector is.  The connector is the thing that makes us believe the assumption. For example, if the assumption is that the word “call” means to telephone, the connector would be the word “call.”

Now, we think of some alternative interpretations, he calls them reinterpretations, of that connector. Some other interpretations might be that instead of meaning to telephone “call” means calling someone’s name, calling a rude name, or making a call as a referee.  Dean points out that choosing the most obvious reinterpretation sometimes helps a joke since that is the one the audience will mentally reach for as well. We will choose calling a rude name, which creates a whole different story line.  Okay — now we have to turn that story into a edited punchline — preferably with the reveal at the end. So, here’s the whole joke — I call my mother all the time, but in polite company, I can’t tell you what I call her!  Not the world’s best joke, but it helps you see how the process works.

My dad and my brother and I spent some time over the holidays using this system to come up with a joke. It wasn’t super easy, but I could see how it could get easier. It helps to be the kind of person who sees a typical interpretation of something and then immediately thinks of different interpretations.  Some of that is just a gift — but some is practice and training. 

Dean has lots of other fun tips like, hard consonants are funnier than soft ones, and quoting in character is almost always preferable, but this video is already too long!  I have to say I’m enjoying this new knowledge for deconstructing jokes and understanding why things are funny.  Next — i want his views on why some things are not funny. 

Let me know what you think!  Comments are always appreciated and thanks for watching!