COmedy Writing

John Vorhaus wrote Married With Children and a book called “The Comedy Toolbox”

never read the book but I have read a couple of his lectures. I would highly recommend his writing and advice on comedy writing to any aspiring comedy writers.

“For every ten jokes you tell, nine won’t work.” This quote came to us directly from Varhaus himself. He explained it to us like this.

“If I have one joke and it bombs, I have one hundred percent of my ego invested in that one joke. If I tell ten jokes, I only have to invest ten percent of my ego in each joke.” He spoke often about failing big. Don’t be afraid of failing; acknowledge it and move on. This was perfect for stand - up comedy. If one joke doesn’t land, acknowledge it sucked, and move on.

One of the rules John uses in his comedy writing is taboo. Taboo has the freedom to

liberate a writer according to John. If we stop viewing taboo as a thing we feel, and start using it

as something we can use as a tool, we free ourselves to talk about more scandalous topics more

freely. We want to create more tension in the viewer, so we can help that viewer release that

tension, in the form of laughter. We give the audience qualities to distance us from them, but give

them enough humanity and good qualities for us to emphasize with them. This feels like

something that creators like Seth MacFarland, Trey Parker, and Matt Stone seem to forget when

they created South Park and Family Guy. Archetypes in comedy include idiots, perverts, and

jerks but they need humanity.

Look at Eastbound and Down. Kenny Powers for instance, we hate him so much that

there are no qualities we can hang on to. Now look at something like Cheers. Sam Malone is an

arrogant womanizer but we empathize with him. He also has a good heart. He feels dumb

compared to Diane; yet we love that he puts her in her place when she acted too big for her

britches. Look at Dr. Cox from Scrubs. He secretly cares when he loses a patient; it hits him

harder than most. He does secretly still love Jordan and she loves him. Humanity and distancing,

LOL.

Now let’s talk about the comic filter. You are a slave to your comic filter in comedy.

Again, look at Dr. Cox. He acts like I hate Kelso and I will not kiss his ass. Well, this event will

get you the position and money you seek and deserve. Also, it will show Jordan that you are

ready to be a husband to her and a father to Jack. Like John Varhaus said, Dr. Cox was a slave to

his comic filter. I’m a rebel and have to stick it to Kelso at heart. I have to brown nose Kelso for

a position in my speech? He made an ass of Kelso in his speech. This fucked him for the

promotion and Jordan. Now John also told us that their world view does change slightly at the

end of each episode of a sitcom.

The Wonder Years featured an episode called “Hiroshima Mon Frere.” Wayne was an ass

to Kevin. He could be a bully and a jerk. Kevin and Paul had an assignment in that episode. They

had to take care of the class hamster for the weekend. Wayne was pestering Kevin; he grabbed a

vacuum and pretended he was going to suck up the pet hamster, Wheezer. There was one

problem. Wayne accidentally sucked up the hamster with the vacuum! Wayne immediately knew

he fucked up badly. Kevin told his brother off in a way that was too realistic and painful. Wayne

had been waiting all night for a phone call from his crush Angela. In the scene prior to Wayne

sucking up Wheezer in the vacuum, Angela had shot him down. Out of anger after the hamster

disaster, Kevin told Wayne this was why Angela didn’t like him. Wayne told Kevin to shut up.

“You may be bigger and stronger than me, but I have friends, you’re pathetic.” Keven said out of

frustration and anger.

Well, Wayne was a sixteen-year-old boy being told by his brother that his crush hates

him, the world hates him, and worst of all, his brother hates him. This scene wrecked me because

I have had moments like that with my brother. He had told me off and I realized how much

damage I could have just done to our relationship as brothers. My cheeks would ache, I would

cry, and I ‘d feel like I could lose the one thing most important to me in the world. I was scared

of harming the relationship with my brother. Daniel Stern was the narrator in that episode. l

“I learned I could hurt my brother and I wasn’t sure I was glad about that,” he said. The powerful tool you could use in scenes like this is transference. We are the characters, not we are watching ourselves. We all know of and relate to the concept of family. We could understand how someone could be devastated by the concept of being told the following.

“You’re a loser with no friends, and your own brother hates you.” This would hurt anyone’s psyche. We related to Kevin because we got frustrated with someone and told them off. We related to Wayne because we understood why he acted like a jerk. He was insecure about being

rejected so he goofed around with his brother. We could deduce that Wayne acted out of hurt. Unfortunately, it resulted in disastrous consequences.