Wednesday, March 12, 2008

annotated source list

"How to Write a Joke" Google 9 Mar 08 http://www.wikihow.com/Write-a-Good-Joke

Incredibly helpful and seemingly common sense advice for the would be funnyman. There is, however, nothing common about sense. I got a great start here.

"Comedians Advice" Google 7 Dec 08 http://www.humormall.com/diary/bin/2000-815.shtml

This is a great column about how hard it is to take even the first small step in writing and the one giant leap onstage. It has links to many more useful sites.

"Richard Pryor Freebasing" YouTube 25 Feb 08 http://youtube.com/watch?v=V7XHcqmDxYA

Richard is a master and one can study him for advice on timing, content, and how much need be, or need not be said. If you can figure out how he made this funny you have all the answers you'll ever need about being a comedian.

1 comment:

johngoldfine said...

How much is enough, how much is too much is always a huge question for any writer--I can see you already struggle with the answers. Unfortunately, each new piece presents the problem all over again: there is no rule except authorial taste and discretion.

My last three or four blog entries on my faculty page have been short essays into comic writing where I was working with how much/too much/not enough--you can check them out and let your funny bone decide how successful I was.